1989 has represented a turning point for social theory: many of its categories have been brought into question, while some new categories have been introduced and others still already in use suddenly came into the limelight. Among the last ones, a particular category has become since then an unavoidable point of reference in the social-scientific field: citizenship. Trough citizenship, according to many scholars, is possible to rethink the idea of the social beyond the opposing paradigms of socialism and liberal-democracy. After 1989, nevertheless, while citizenship was still occupying a central position in the academic debate, some events seemed to declare the end of modern citizenship as national citizenship: the process of European integration, particularly with the birth of the European citizenship. The aim of this paper, thus, is to throw light on the effective importance of citizenship after 1989. Today, citizenship is still performing a major role in the imaginations of the social, since it is at the crossroad of the most important current social dynamics. In this sense, contrary to those scholars that have claimed the end of modern citizenship, we want, instead, to describe the ways in which it still plays an increasingly important role in different social spheres: from immigration, and in general all forms of control of people’s mobility, to the processes of collective identity building. Further, contrary to the scholars that have underlined how the concept of citizenship has been used as a privileged tool for the construction of a kind of democracy that is able to overcome the limits both of socialism and liberalism, we will underline the basic exclusive nature of this category as it has emerged in the history of the modern world-system.
1989: End or Rebirth of Modern Citizenship
GARGIULO, ENRICO
2008-01-01
Abstract
1989 has represented a turning point for social theory: many of its categories have been brought into question, while some new categories have been introduced and others still already in use suddenly came into the limelight. Among the last ones, a particular category has become since then an unavoidable point of reference in the social-scientific field: citizenship. Trough citizenship, according to many scholars, is possible to rethink the idea of the social beyond the opposing paradigms of socialism and liberal-democracy. After 1989, nevertheless, while citizenship was still occupying a central position in the academic debate, some events seemed to declare the end of modern citizenship as national citizenship: the process of European integration, particularly with the birth of the European citizenship. The aim of this paper, thus, is to throw light on the effective importance of citizenship after 1989. Today, citizenship is still performing a major role in the imaginations of the social, since it is at the crossroad of the most important current social dynamics. In this sense, contrary to those scholars that have claimed the end of modern citizenship, we want, instead, to describe the ways in which it still plays an increasingly important role in different social spheres: from immigration, and in general all forms of control of people’s mobility, to the processes of collective identity building. Further, contrary to the scholars that have underlined how the concept of citizenship has been used as a privileged tool for the construction of a kind of democracy that is able to overcome the limits both of socialism and liberalism, we will underline the basic exclusive nature of this category as it has emerged in the history of the modern world-system.
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