Cultural Right, Citizenship and State

The article deals with the historical development of citizenship in Western democracies since the American and Great French Revolutions, its evolutionary extension by a civic, political, social and cultural component. The text follows another key factor in the phenomenon of citizenship, which was the birth of modern centralized states on the national and cultural principle, as the primary and necessary conditions for the emergence of functional democratic regimes. The study examines the correlation between social rights and the current crisis of the European welfare state, where mandatory expenditures related to the provision of social policies continue to increase the exponential indebtedness of European Union countries and are the reason for criticism and loss of legitimacy of the welfare state. The focus is also on the critical reflection on the expansion of cultural rights, the application of multicultural policies, the model of differentiated citizenship and communitarianism and their possible impact on the social and political stability of European states.