Bürgerschaftlichen

Bürgerschaftlichen is the inflected form of the German adjective bürgerschaftlich, meaning relating to citizenship or to civil society. The term derives from Bürgerschaft (citizenship, citizenry) plus the suffix -lich, and is used to describe aspects that concern citizens, their rights, duties, or participation.

In contemporary usage, bürgerschaftlich denotes the sphere of people acting as citizens and participating in civic life. It is common in phrases such as bürgerschaftliches Engagement (civic engagement), bürgerschaftliche Teilhabe (civic participation), and bürgerschaftliche Rechte (civil rights). The adjective frequently appears in discussions about civil society, voluntary associations, and policies aimed at expanding citizen participation, rather than focusing on the state or market.

The term is often contrasted with state-oriented or bourgeois meanings. While bürgerlich can refer to bourgeois or civil life in historical or social-class contexts, bürgerschaftlich specifically emphasizes citizen-centric, voluntary, and communal aspects of public life. In legal language, the related noun Staatsbürgerschaft denotes legal citizenship, whereas bürgerschaftlich describes the broader, non-governmental dimension of being a citizen and contributing to public life.

Overall, bürgerschaftlichen functions as an adjective to describe anything pertaining to citizenry, civil participation, and the values of the civil society, and its exact form changes with number and case in German grammar.