A Tale of Two Milibands: From Environmental Citizenship to the Politics of the Common Good

Two different proposals for a political basis for a low carbon transformation in Britain have been put forward in recent years by the Miliband brothers. In 2006, David Miliband argued for a new ‘environmental contract’ between state and citizens, in the spirit of the post‐war social contract. Last year Ed Miliband proposed a ‘politics of the common good’. The historical sociology of citizenship suggests that the environmental contract approach will not work, mainly because of the pure public bad nature of the climate nature and the politics that flow from this. The ‘common good’ approach is more promising, but to make any headway, will have to tackle the strengthening of materialism and populism over the last generation.     

Contested Engagements: Youth and the Politics of Citizenship

In this paper, a framework is presented for exploring how youth perform their citizenship through political engagements. The framework provides a way to explore the agency of youthful citizens as imagined by different agents and the ways that youth understand their performances as citizenship. Using interviews with university students and administrators at six universities in Manchester and Glasgow, a distinction is highlighted between agency and the performance of political acts in the production of citizenship, and the implications of this distinction for the development of autonomous citizens.     

Eleanor Rathbone and the Politics of Citizenship

Despite Eleanor Rathbone having many firsts to her name she is largely forgotten. While students are now taught little about her ideas or successful political campaigns as an Independent MP, her ideas on feminism are relevant to today's political debate about the rise of anti-social behaviour. The failure of many families to teach their offspring those common decencies which make possible living in close proximity to other human beings brings back centre stage Eleanor Rathbone's views on endowing motherhood.     

Claiming Citizenship: Marginalised Voices on Identity and Belonging

While the Roma in Finland share history and national myths with the majority population, they have maintained their particular sense of identity. In spite of increasing recognition, manifested in legislation, their socio-economic position is still poor. This article explores the articulation of citizenship, identity and belonging among Finnish Roma. The study is based on conversation-like interviews with Romani activists. Recognising the marginalised position of Finnish Roma, the interviews are seen as a form of claims-making. The overarching narratives which evolve from the material point to a threefold sense of exclusion from full citizenship, entailing a material, symbolic and emotional dimension. While notions of the “good state” constitute a rather dominant and inclusive narrative, exclusionary practices are located in the area between the public and private realm.     

The Politics of Dual Citizenship in Hungary

The study reviews the politics underlying the 2004 referendum in Hungary on whether the country should offer extraterritorial, non-resident citizenship to ethnic Hungarians living in the neighboring states of Romania, Slovakia, Serbia-Montenegro and the Ukraine. The study argues that the issue of dual citizenship for ethnic minorities and kin-states in Central and Eastern Europe is quite distinct from the issue of dual citizenship in West European immigration countries. Transborder ethnic relatives make up large proportions of some of the contiguous countries with whom Hungary has a long history of border disputes which is why the Hungarian reform initiative touched upon sensitive issues connected to the sovereignty of these states. In addition, the large size of the non-resident Hungarian population means that their potential Hungarian citizenship would have serious consequences for the Hungarian welfare state, and the determination of the political future of Hungary, where even much smaller numbers of voting non-residents might swing the vote. The article outlines the arguments that were made in favor of the reform by the political right and those against the reform by the left. It examines the initiative from the European Union's perspective and compares the Hungarian case to cases of dual citizenship in other countries of Europe. The article also raises questions about the long-term implications of this form of dual citizenship for the “re-ethnicization” of citizenship.     

Counter-Hegemonic Citizenship: LGBT Communities and the Politics of Hate Crimes in Canada

Relying on a case study in which violence targeted at lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered (LGBT) individuals and strategies used to counter this violence is examined, this paper argues that public policies and laws that aim to protect groups cannot guarantee access to substantive citizenship. They can, however, be used as a resource by oppressed groups to force a shift in the boundaries of the citizenship regime. Considering that violence targeting LGBT people (hate crimes, discrimination, etcetera) is an indicator that they are denied access to substantive citizenship, this paper examines how the citizenship of LGBT people can be extended in ways that allow this group to enjoy substantive citizenship. Citizenship is a useful lens to assess power relations, understand situations of oppression and develop strategies to challenge this oppression. Relying on the concept of citizenship regime and informed by work on radical democracy, the author introduces the Gramscian notion of hegemony. In doing so, she proposes a new way of thinking about citizenship. Her model, counter-hegemonic citizenship, brings us to consider citizenship as a process, rather than a status or a set of rights, and to focus on meaningful struggles that can lead to the redrawing of the boundaries of the citizenship regime for all oppressed groups. This paper inscribes itself in a body of literature concerned with struggles for equality and the role of laws and public policies for achieving this end.     

Citizenship,Migration and the Reassertion of National Identity

Faced with increasing and diverse migratory pressures in the post Cold War period, European states have created an increasingly complex system of civic stratifications with differential access to civil, economic and social rights depending on mode of entry, residence and employment. Now at the beginning of the twenty-first century, expansion and contraction of rights have occurred within a managerialist approach which, though recognising the need for immigration, applies an economic and political calculus not only to labour migration but also to forms of migration more closely aligned to normative principles and human rights, such as family formation and reunification and asylum. At the same time, states are demanding affirmation of belonging and loyalty, leading to greater emphasis on obligations in the practice of citizenship. The first part of the paper traces the evolution of a managerialist regime and its consequences for the reconfiguration of spaces of citizenship. The second section examines the development of new contracts of settlement and the management of diversity as the state reasserts its national identity and sovereignty.     

Towards a New Politics: Citizenship and Rights in Contemporary Argentina

The emergence of a human rights movement represented a cultural turning point in many Latin American societies. The movement's struggle acted as a catalyst for political learning, triggering a profound renovation of the region's democratic traditions. The most impressive development has been the emergence of a rights-oriented discourse that reunites two elements that populist forms of self-understanding had kept separate: democracy and the rule of law. Cultural innovation gave birth to a new form of politicization that greatly differs from the movementist and corporatist practices of past populist movements, for the former is guided by a liberal concern: establishing clear institutional boundaries between state and civil society. Through the analysis of a series of citizens' initiatives and movements, the paper analyzes this new form of politicization and its contribution to the authorization and effectivization of rights as institutions.     

The Globalization of Rights: From Citizenship to Human Rights

Globalization is shifting the balance away from membership-based citizenship towards universal human rights, thus we ask: how are new human rights generated? We argue that the movement for human rights follows on the heels of the much older and richer tradition of citizenship, as can be seen from the fact that many of the new claims put forward by human rights activists seek to define traditional citizenship rights as universal human rights. Most recently, we witness attempts by NGOs and CSOs to bring health, rights-based development, and identity rights under the umbrella of human rights. We examine the changing but continuous relationship of these two rights traditions, the gains made by human rights activists and the global solidarity and national enforcement capacity needed to underwrite their further progress.     

Migrant Heroes: Nationalism,Citizenship and the Politics of Filipino Migrant Labor

The Philippine state has popularized the idea of Filipino migrants as the country's 'new national heroes', critically transforming notions of Filipino citizenship and citizenship struggles. As 'new national heroes', migrant workers are extended particular kinds of economic and welfare rights while they are abroad even as they are obligated to perform particular kinds of duties to their home state. The author suggests that this transnationalized citizenship, and the obligations attached to it, becomes a mode by which the Philippine state ultimately disciplines Filipino migrant labor as flexible labor. However, as citizenship is extended to Filipinos beyond the borders of the Philippines, the globalization of citizenship rights has enabled migrants to make various kinds of claims on the Philippine state. Indeed, these new transnational political struggles have given rise not only to migrants' demands for rights, but to alternative nationalisms and novel notions of citizenship that challenge the Philippine state's role in the export and commodification of migrant workers.     

Back to Mangu Zambiri: Art,Politics and Identity in Northern Sudan

This paper is an attempt in cultural criticism from a certain aesthetic standpoint to investigate how the arts can give insight into the identity problem of Northern Sudanese. Given the archaeological and historical refutation of migration theory and the consolidation of the notion of the ethnic continuity of the central riverain inhabitants (the Ja'liyyin) as Nubians, the paper disputes the other characterization of them as a "culturally" Arabized Sudanese. To prove this, the long neglected aesthetic dimension as an essential component of culture is underlined. Challenging certain Arabocentric musical and literary discourses, the "Sudanese" nature of some aspects of Northern music and poetry is stressed. The concept "Sudanization" is adopted to define a historically ongoing key process which manifests itself in the arts. Also the term "specification" is used to describe alternative political and aesthetic discourses to define Sudanese identity such as the discourse of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and other forces.