The citizen is the “simple element of a polity”, as Aristotle put it. Citizenship thus appears as prolegomena to other core questions concerning public policy and constitutionalism. We now deal with a threefold concept of citizenship and we need to understand how it is built up in order to assess some recent trends on citizenship, third country national status and civic participation. A good test for analyzing this is EU citizenship. The three models today merging in EU citizenship can be accounted for by looking at the opposite of “citizenry”. By emphasizing inclusiveness, the sociological focus is on the marginalized subject, migration and asylum policies. Law and jurisprudence look at citizenship by trying to limit the numerous hard cases arising in a world of migration where the opposite of the citizen is still the alien. The political model holds the subject (sujet) in opposition to the citizen (citoyen), entailing problems related to the democratic quality of EU institutions. These different standards tend to overlap in the current debate and this engenders misunderstandings. As a result of the erosion of traditional nationality, we now face a legal patchwork, which produces an array of hard cases. Building on a strong philosophical tradition, this essay suggests a possible method for bridging these three standards, shedding new light on transnational citizenship-building.
Towards An Entangled Model of Citizenship?
MINDUS, Patricia Maria
2008-01-01
Abstract
The citizen is the “simple element of a polity”, as Aristotle put it. Citizenship thus appears as prolegomena to other core questions concerning public policy and constitutionalism. We now deal with a threefold concept of citizenship and we need to understand how it is built up in order to assess some recent trends on citizenship, third country national status and civic participation. A good test for analyzing this is EU citizenship. The three models today merging in EU citizenship can be accounted for by looking at the opposite of “citizenry”. By emphasizing inclusiveness, the sociological focus is on the marginalized subject, migration and asylum policies. Law and jurisprudence look at citizenship by trying to limit the numerous hard cases arising in a world of migration where the opposite of the citizen is still the alien. The political model holds the subject (sujet) in opposition to the citizen (citoyen), entailing problems related to the democratic quality of EU institutions. These different standards tend to overlap in the current debate and this engenders misunderstandings. As a result of the erosion of traditional nationality, we now face a legal patchwork, which produces an array of hard cases. Building on a strong philosophical tradition, this essay suggests a possible method for bridging these three standards, shedding new light on transnational citizenship-building.
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