Citizenship is fundamental for participation in a democracy. It gives us rights but also responsibilities in the state that we are citizens of. Citizenship provides us with the opportunity to vote in order to influence who should govern us. However, not all living in a state are citizens. Some individuals are not included in the political life of the state.

In recent years, there has been a rise of nationalist political parties in Europe. Since the end of the nineties the party Dansk Folkeparti has been a member of the Danish Parliament and with the 2010 elections in Sweden, the Swedish counterpart Sverigedemokraterna is now also represented in the Parliament.

In citizenship theory there is an ongoing debate, chiefly concerning the issue on understanding the underlying meaning of what citizenship really is. The substantially different perspectives that are held by on one side Liberals and on the other Communitarians are ideal for use in a comparative study regarding differences in the recent parliamentary debate in Denmark and Sweden.

Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the parliamentary debate in regards to the issue of citizenship in Denmark and Sweden.

The main results of the study show that the arguments held by the political parties in both countries are in line with the ideologies of liberals and communitarians, but that there is a slightly different focus between the two debates. Also, there are a greater number of parties in Denmark that represent communitarians values than there are in Sweden.