|Civic duty|the film|Civic Duty (film) legal status Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities. Citizenship was equated by Virginia Leary (1999) as connoting "a bundle of rights -- primarily, political participation in the life of the community, the right to vote, and the right to receive certain protection from the community, as well as obligations." The group of all citizens is the citizenry.
In law, citizenship denotes a link between an individual and a state. Under international law, citizenship is synonymous to nationality, although the two may have different meanings under national law. A person who does not have citizenship in any state is stateless.