This article has three objectives. The first is to point out very briefly the recent history of the rights and citizenship theories. The second is an attempt to understand the meaning of the tensions between the State and civil society, and political participation, market and distributive justice. This problematic whole is seen from the wider range of the democratic question. Finally, the article sets out the connections between the normative basis of some citizenship theories in order to build up a framework for a research in course about the Brazilian government income program (the "Family Grant") whose focus is poor women.
Citizenship theories; Rights and distributive justice; Democratic question; Family Grant