Historically, two trends drove the development of civil and political rights. The first was religious dissent, that is, the claims made by individuals and groups of individuals that they were free to make their own decisions about beliefs and forms of worship, that the state, king, or society had no power to compel allegiance to a particular form of religion. Religious dissenters often claimed that the state had no right or authority to interfere with an individual's relationship with God, who had gifted the individual with free will and reason.

Religious dissenters thus made the case that the power of the state was in fact finite and not absolute. Such claims were buttressed by the political philosophy which began to emerge during the Enlightenment. John Locke and other writers insisted that government came into being with the consent of the governed for specific and limited purposes. Government and society could only make certain claims and exactions upon the individual in order to carry out these functions; otherwise, the individual should be free to make his or her own decisions. Locke and others also felt that in addition to being limited, government should also be representative; that is, that the citizens should have input into the decisions made by the state.

From both of these sources, the modern notion of civil and political rights began to develop. Religious dissenters argued that they had the freedom to worship according to their own beliefs, and the logical outgrowth from that assertion were other rights--freedom to assemble, freedom to preach, freedom to assert differences. In addition, dissenters argued that their right to be different from others in religious matters did not give the state license to exclude them from political participation or to sanction repressive measures on the part of the state or the majority group; in other words, membership in the political community--citizenship--and the rights and privileges of the same--should not be based upon one's profession of beliefs but apply equally to all members of society. Moreover, the state had an obligation to protect all citizens from harm regardless of their personal beliefs, and to ensure equal protection under the law.

By advocating a representative government, Locke and other political philosophers of the time realized that in order for such a government to function, there would have to be a political climate that fostered true interaction between governors and governed. The first manifestations of this included securing the right to petition for redress of grievances and the right to make criticisms of government performance; from these two basic rights, other rights developed, including the right to organize and propagate political and policy opinions, to seek support from other members of society via the press, and securing the right of the citizens to vote and to vote without harassment or pressure.

Modern civil and political rights, therefore, consist of a series of protections that the individual has against the demands of state and society, designed to maximize the freedom of the individual to make his or her own lifestyle choices, and to work, individually or collectively with others, for the realization of lifestyle goals. Civil and political rights are generally negative in formulation and meant to protect the individual both from the state and society from imposing a common vision but also limit other individuals from using their freedom to force or compel the allegiance of others. Civil and political rights are thought, therefore, to create a ZONE of PRIVACY or a ZONE of FREEDOM around the individual.

In short, a breakdown of the major civil and political rights would include:

1. "Ideological" rights: rights to freedom of speech, belief, worship, press, etc.

2. "Organizational" rights: rights to assemble, bargain collectively, form associations, hold property and resources for the support of efforts to propagate ideas (e. g. to put into practice the "ideological" rights

3. "Process" rights: freedom from arbitrary state or societal processes, rights to vote, rights to information and disclosure

4. "Protective" rights: security from attack or harassment in exercising "ideological" and "organizational" rights.

[In recent years, there have been attempts to define civil and political rights not only in negative terms but also in positive ones, that is to say that individuals cannot enjoy these freedoms and opportunities unless they have the means at their disposal to do so. Thus, for example, in support of freedom of religion, some states will assert this not only as a negative right, that is, that each individual is free to worship, but also as a positive right, ensuring that state subsidies are available so that each religious community is able to construct houses of worship, educate its members in the faith, and pay the salaries of clergymen. The negative formulation would say, each person is free to worship but the responsibility for organizing and supporting worship lies with the individual and if the individual cannot afford to do so, that is an individual concern; the positive formulation, in contrast, makes it a compelling interest of the state to intervene, if necessary, to ensure that all citizens can take advantage of freedom of worship. In the United States, freedom of religion is in civilian life a largely negative right, but the military's support of religious activities in providing worship spaces and chaplains is an example of positive enforcement of a civil and political right.]

The major problem with civil and political rights is balancing the rightful demands of the community with the liberty of the individual AND ensuring that the liberty exercised by one individual does not infringe upon the liberty of another individual. In some cases, this can be clear cut; freedom of speech does not give a person the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire, in order to cause a panic that might injure people. The debate over protests at abortion clinics, however, is an example of the grey areas that can be produced by civil and political rights. When human life begins (at conception or at some point afterwards) is a matter of belief; the determination that abortion is murder or that abortion is a medical procedure is based upon belief; people have liberty to act on their beliefs and have the freedom to speak their beliefs and try to convince others of their beliefs. When does the right of an abortion protestor to engage in free speech conflict with the right of a woman who has formed an intent to have an abortion based on her beliefs; and how are both individual's zones of privacy and freedom to act--the protestor and the patient--to be balanced? When does society have the right to outlaw beliefs or propagation of such beliefs? The 1940 Smith Act in the United States made it illegal for a political party to call for the violent or armed overthrow of the U. S. government; was this act a wanton violation of the rights of individuals to hold and spread the belief that the U. S. government should be overthrown, or a legitimate act on the part of the state to secure civil peace and order, prevent anarchy, and prevent groups from advocating a violent revolution that would certainly violate the civil and political rights of individuals who did not agree with the aims of the professed revolutionaries? Another current issue regards that of civil participation. Most societies curtail or limit the civil and political rights of felons [on the grounds that felons by their behavior have demonstrated their general unfitness to be productive members of civil society], but if such policies also have the impact of reducing the political power and influence of specific communities (ethnic, religious, or economic) in society, is this itself a violation of civil rights?

Some of the problems that can also arise with civil and political rights in a given society is when the exercise of such rights seems to conflict with a generally-held consensus in society which defines how the right applies. In 18th century America, "religion" was held to be the practice of specific rites and rituals and the holdings of certain dogmas which might differ from others, but there was a consensus that all religions had a deity as an object of worship and promoted the same general rules of conduct and morality (for example, monogamy). In the nineteenth century, however, the Mormon church's espousal of polygamy as a valid norm brought it into conflict with society's general preference that marriage be defined as taking place between one man and one woman in time (and in this period, gay marriage, the attempt to redefine marriage as a lifetime commitment between two individuals who wish to share their lives together regardless of gender or ability to procreate naturally, also brings up controversy.) Does the state have a valid interest in defining marriage, or is that an issue best left to communities and individuals. On the one hand, marriage seems to be an issue of morality and lifestyle best left to individuals and groups of individuals to detemrine; on the other hand, the "family" remains the basic group building block in society, defining relationships and legal obligations among individuals (e. g. you can be held liable for not feeding your own child, but if another child unrelated to you goes hungry, you are not liable -- even if you have a sense of moral responsibility for that unrelated child).

Much of the current tension regarding implementation and enforcement of political and civil rights, therefore, arises out of the grey areas where the legitimate interests of society and the legitimate rights of the individual to pursue a course of action come into conflict. Some societies prefer to make the individual's freedom supreme even to the detriment of common institutions, but some societies more collectivist by nature feel that the exercise of political and civil rights can and should be limited by referring to the needs of the whole.