JoAnne Myers is associate professor of political science and former chair of the Political Science Department of Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY. As an applied political philosopher, her research interrogates the relationship between citizen, non-citizen, and the state in the modern liberal state, focusing on human rights.

1. Introduction 2. Citizen and Political Theory In America 3. Myth America 4. Patriotism 5. Propertied 6. Political Participation 7. Productive Citizen 8. Re-Producing Citizens 9. Conclusion

Using applied political theory, JoAnne Myers presents five markers by which citizens become second-class citizens-property, productivity, participation, patriotism, and reproduction. Citizenship is a highly contested status since it grants members political rights and responsibilities. It is contextualized by cultural, political, historical, economic, situational, and place. In the United States, we think of citizenship in principle as democratic, but citizenship is not just a binary status: norms, policies, and laws can mark some citizens as "other."
In The Good Citizen: The Markers of Privilege in America, Myers argues that being marked as not having or achieving these markers is how citizenship is controlled and regulated. To illustrate this argument, each chapter begins with a practical question or myth to ease the reader into the marker being examined. She later articulates the ways in which law and norms and biopower regulates and controls citizens in three policy areas.
Myers moves beyond theories of citizen marginalization based on identity politics and intersectionality to provide a new understanding of citizenship practice. The Good Citizen will be of interest to scholars and researchers of politics, sociology, or legal studies of citizenship, and anyone concerned with distributive justice.