Global Citizenship and Empire

Global citizenship is a concept that has been both propounded and critiqued on a number of grounds in recent scholarship, but little attention has been paid to what it might mean in an age of empire. Beginning with an analysis of American empire, the author argues that there has been an important shift in the meaning of imperial rule from what was initially a “realpolitik” version of empire in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to what has become a more “liberal” form of imperial power since late 2003. Whereas the former sought national security in a seemingly anarchical and hostile world, the latter has sought to spread a particular kind of globalized citizenship to the world, particularly in the Middle East. The author argues that the ideological grounding for such an imperial “civilizing mission” needs to be challenged through an alternative theorization of global citizenship. Thus, the second half of the article suggests a new theory of global citizenship rooted in two basic principles: social rights (in order to address the least well off) and shared fate (in order to draw the links between the north/south and east/west). Taken together, they provide a starting point for an alternative theory of global citizenship that speaks not simply against empire but to it.     

On Active Citizenship: Discourses and Language about Youth and Migrants in Italy

Abstract

The civic and political participation of young people and especially young migrants, who have limited rights of citizenship, is still a significant problem in Italy. Young people struggle to find opportunities and feel excluded from politics: the political agenda tends to see them more as a problem than as a resource. In this article, we illustrate the results of research to understand the dynamics of political and civic participation of young people and what the policy does in their favour. A content analysis of a corpus of European and Italian legislation, policy and planning documents has been undertaken. We also conducted six in-depth interviews with politicians and representatives of Italian nongovernmental organizations in order to investigate (a) policy priorities and institutional points of view, (b) consistency between these priorities and European programmes, and (c) European Union support for the policy actions and projects promoted in Italy about youth. The results showed a general difficulty for young people to ‘engage’ and be engaged in civic and political activities. There is also a gap between the political level and an effective investment which will recognize young people as a real resource.     

Civil Society and Global Governance: The Possibilities for Global Citizenship

In this article we reassert the role of governance as well as of civil society in the analysis of citizenship. We argue that to analyse global civil society and global citizenship it is necessary to focus on global governance. Just as states may facilitate or obstruct the emergence and development of national civil society, so too global governance institutions may facilitate or obstruct an emerging global civil society. Our key contention is that civil society at the global level thrives through its interaction with strong facilitating institutions of global governance. We start with a discussion of civil society and citizenship within the nation-state, and from there develop a model of global civil society and citizenship. Through analysing the impacts of various modes of global governance, we identify strategically appropriate forms of political and social engagement that best advance the prospects for global citizenship.     

European Governance and Civic Participation: Beyond Elitist Citizenship?

Since the end of the 1990s, 'new modes of governance' have been presented by academics and political actors as an answer to the EU's 'democratic deficit'. Analysing the intellectual roots of this idea, and the concrete proposals made by those who, like the European Commission, support it, this paper argues that it is very unlikely to reach this ambitious purpose. Far from breaking with the Community method, these participatory mechanisms constitute extensions of existing practices, and are underpinned by the same élitist and functionalist philosophy. They remain limited to 'stakeholders' and will not improve the 'enlighted understanding' of ordinary citizens and the general level of participation. The paper examines the obstacles to the politicisation of the EU inherent in its institutional model, and discusses other options which might help bypass the limits of 'governance'.     

Citizenship in a Post-Westphalian Community: Beyond External Exclusion?

This article discusses the potential for reducing the externally exclusionary aspects of citizenship in a post-Westphalian community, as conceptualised in Andrew Linklater's critical theory. Linklater's claim that post-sovereign developments in the European Union provide encouraging signs in this regard is evaluated in the light of the EU's attempted harmonisation of free movement, asylum and immigration policies. It is argued that the case of the EU provides little support for Linklater's assumptions, largely because: (1) the theory fails to recognise the exclusionary consequences of the differentiation of outsider status; and (2) it relies too much on the causal effects of institutional frameworks. While fully supporting the theory's normative stance I suggest that the strong reliance on institutional remedies may have counterproductive effects, and thus that the regionally restricted attempt to externalise aspects of citizenship, while pushing the exclusionary boundary further outwards, has not eliminated the insider-outsider distinction in an EU context.     

The Problem of Citizenship in an Internationalized Academy

The internationalized academy of the 21st century was in part a byproduct of American higher education’s ingenuity in addressing the demographic problems facing it in the 1970s. But it has made much more difficult what was until recently considered one of the central tasks of higher education: the education of American citizens.     

In the Service of Power: The Global Political Economy of Citizenship and Human Rights

This article investigates how the idea of universal human rights has been co-opted by the prevailing (neo)liberal consensus in support of processes associated with capitalist globalization. So-called “civil and political” rights form the core of (neo)liberal values upon which free market, laissez-faire economics are based, but the idealism of the dichotomy of first and second generation rights is profoundly ideological. Through an examination of the idea of the international citizen, it is argued that the attempt to introduce a duty to promote the widest possible social good falls far short of an obligation to respond to claims for alternative conceptions of “economic and social” rights; far less alternative models of social affairs. Drawing on empirical evidence from Africa, the article contends that the dominance of (neo)liberal rights is integral to the emerging (neo)liberal constitution of the global order effected in the name of “human rights”, “democratization”, “citizenship”, “good governance” and “civil society”.

Never in the recent past have the founding principles of universal rights been so instrumentalized in the service of power, to such an extent that … in the opening years of the twentieth-century, we can speak of a veritable apogee of hegemony and an unprecedented crystallization of the hatreds that it arouses. (Bessis, 2003 Bessis, S. 2003. Western Supremacy: The Triumph of an Idea?, London: Zed.  [Google Scholar])     

Security,Flexible Sovereignty,and the Perils of Multiple Citizenship

In this paper we unpack the concept of dual citizenship in relation to the meaning of sovereignty claims in situations of political exception. We take up two contending analytical frameworks to examine dual citizenship. The first framework examines dual citizenship as a human right, and makes liberal legal arguments about the increased rights and privileges afforded to dual citizens. The second framework, which we develop here, examines dual citizenship as a form of hierarchical citizenship, whose genealogy owes substantially to orientalist mythologies, and whose technologies of governance work through securitized state policies and practices of flexible sovereignty. As a form of hierarchical citizenship, dual nationality produces hyphenated citizenships that exist on a transnational plane, yet are always rooted in relations among particular nation-states. Some of the recent cases of extraordinary rendition, detention, and torture of dual national men of Muslim and Arab background will be discussed to illuminate the securitization and racialization of diplomatic protection. While citizenship is not a standard set of rights available to all, the cases we examine reveal that dual citizens with “dangerous” nationalities caught up within the post-9/11 security paradigm may find themselves as unprotected persons, existing in a vacuum devoid of diplomatic protection, human and citizenship rights.     

Beyond Global Capitalism: a Review of The Subsistence Perspective

This article presents some critical reflections on Maria Mies' advocacy of a 'subsistence perspective'. This perspective offers a challenging account of global capitalism, while at the same time avoiding the cul-de-sac of neo-primitivism. I review the focal emphasis that Mies puts on agriculture and the peasant economy, and on decentralised politics (direct democracy). But I also indicate the limitations of Mies' political vision in that she advocates the continuance of both the state and the wage system.     

Beyond "Ethnic Democracy": State Structure,Multicultural Conflict and Differentiated Citizenship in Israel

Critical theoretical models usually aim to explain complex sociopolitical realities and open some space for constructive change. The "ethnic democracy model," developed by the Israeli sociologist Sammy Smooha, comes to justify the existing state structure in Israel in which democracy is selective and differential vis-à-vis the various social groups in Israeli society. A systematic critique of this model demonstrates the attempts made by Israeli political sociologists to turn the ethnic nature of Israeli democracy into a stagnant ideal-type in a time where regime dynamism and democratization is considered an ideal in world politics. In order to pinpoint the deficiencies in the ethnic democracy model, multiculturalism is utilized as a normative theory that better explains the sociopolitical reality in Israel. This paper concludes by suggesting searching for state recognition of the political benefits of differentiated citizenship and group rights to reduce the rising ethno-cultural conflict in Israeli society.     

重塑公民:当代中国农民公民身份的考察与反思

无论从何种角度考察,公民首先表现为一种资格,权利与义务的内在规定是其本质的要义所在,只有二者统一,才能外化为公民身份.当代中国农民的公民身份在新中国成立后表现出单向度的特点,税费改革后这个特点发生了逆转,但也使农民的公民身份陷入了困惑.当前,农村社会发生了重大变迁,融入许多新的时代因素,新农险以其法理性契约关系的模式给重塑农民的公民身份以启迪,让我们反思过去,审视当下,积极创造条件以塑造新时代理性的农民公民.     

Citizenship and the Constitution

The status of “British subjects”, the relationship between the individual and the State, and the concept of “rights” and “liberties” are relevant to the current political debate about “British identity”, citizenship, “multiculturalism”, a “British Bill of Rights”, and whether there is now a need for a written constitution. This article describes the confused contemporary understanding of what is meant by “British” citizenship and analyses the parallel developments of citizenship and our constitutional arrangements. The Human Rights Act, devolution and Gordon Brown's proposed constitutional renewal are important steps in setting out the ideas and principles that bind us together as a nation. Together with a coherent definition of the rights and obligations of British citizenship, constitutional reform would achieve a stronger sense of what it means to be British today.     

Being Canadian: Citizenship in Canada

This article analyses interviews conducted in 1996–97 with 78civic leaders in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. In part, the interviews focused on what it means to respondents to be Canadian. Among the respondents were 36 immigrants and 23 persons not of European ancestry, including four aboriginal people. The article addresses the challenge of creating a sense of citizenship—a moral sense of belonging—among a population of increasingly diverse origin in anglophone Canada. The argument proposed is that despite the diverse ancestral and geographical origins of the inhabitants of the country, Canadianness exists. Canadians, both native‐born and immigrants, recognize themselves as Canadians. They do so because they recognize the opportunities and freedoms available to them in Canada, and the day‐to‐day respect they enjoy. To be Canadian and recognized as such by others is meaningful. Even very recent immigrants do not define themselves primarily as members of their ancestral cultural communities. Spinner's concept of pluralistic integration seems a better way to describe Canadian society than the popular concept of multiculturalism.     

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.     

Citizenship studies: A general theory

Societies face two contradictory principles. They are organised around issues of scarcity, which result in exclusionary structures such as gender divisions, social classes and status groups, but they must also secure social solidarity. In social science, these contradictory principles are characteristically referred to as the allocative and integrative requirements. In a secular society, especially where social inequality is intensified by economic rationalism, citizenship functions as a major foundation of social solidarity. The article also explores the scope of citizenship studies through an examination of identity, civic virtue and community. It concludes with an extensive critique of the legacy of T. H. Marshall, pointing to the future of citizenship studies around the theme of globalisation and human rights.