From privileged to thwarted stakeholders – Polish migrants’ perceptions of the Scottish Independence Referendum 2014 and the UK General Election in 2015

Scotland in 2014 and 2015 provides an ideal context for examining EU citizenship political rights as established in the Maastricht Treaty of 1993 from the perspective of Polish migrants resident in Scotland. We argue that the contrast between Polish migrants’ full enfranchisement in the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014 to then being disenfranchised from the UK General Election in 2015 is a significant site for observing how EU laws interact with state-centric and also ‘post-national’ notions of citizenship. Our participants’ experiences of voting in the Referendum and subsequently not being able to vote in the General Election were articulated in the following terms: (a) the justification of their political rights in terms of their stake and contribution in the UK; (b) their frustrations with regards to anti-migration rhetoric and the limitations of European citizenship; and for some, (c) their plans of apply for British citizenship in the context of EU membership uncertainty.     

Citizenship,reproduction and the state: international marriage and human rights

The relationship between citizenship, marriage and family has often been overlooked in the social and political theory of citizenship. Intimate domestic life is associated with the private sphere, partly because reproduction itself is thought to depend on the private choices of individuals. While feminist theory has challenged this division between private and public – ‘the personal is political’ – the absence of any systematic thinking about familial relations, reproduction and citizenship is puzzling. Citizenship is a juridical status that confers political rights such as the right to carry a passport or to vote in elections. However, from a sociological point of view, we need to understand the social foundations and consequences of citizenship – however narrowly defined in legal and political terms. This article starts by noting the obvious point that the majority of us inherit citizenship at birth and in a sense we do not choose to be ‘Vietnamese’ or ‘Malaysian’ or ‘Japanese’ citizens. Although naturalisation is an important aspect of international migration and settlement, the majority of us are, as it were, born into citizenship. Therefore, the family is an important but often implicit facet of political identity and membership. In sociological language, citizenship looks like an ascribed rather than achieved status, and as a result becomes confused and infused with ethnicity. This inheritance of citizenship is odd given the fact that, at least in the West, there is a presumption, following the pronouncements of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, to think of citizenship in universal terms that are ethnically ‘blind’, but it is in fact closely connected with familial or private status. These complex relations within the nation-state are further complicated by the contemporary growth of transnational marriages and this article considers the problems of marriage, reproduction and citizenship in the context of global patterns of migration.     

A union of gender equality and pragmatic patriarchy: international marriages and citizenship laws in Singapore

As a patriarchal society, government policies, societal norms and government regulations in Singapore mirror that normative ideal. Citizenship status and rights along gender lines, manifested in the legal recognition of children of international marriages, reflected this reality for much of Singapore's independence. However, the onslaught of globalization, the rise in international marriages, disconcerting declining birth rates, and an acceptance of ‘foreign talent’ have given the economic imperative and demographic impulse to grant citizenship (by descent) to a person born outside Singapore whose father or mother is a citizen of Singapore, by birth, registration or descent. Previously, such a person would be granted citizenship only if his/her father was a Singapore citizen by birth. This paper examines the background and contextual realities leading to the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (Amendment) Act 2004. It argues that the landmark constitutional amendment was motivated by pragmatic considerations of demography, economics, and political governance. The paper contends that state sovereignty, while seemingly challenged by international marriages, is still preserved rather than negated. It suggests that the state's ideological apparatus vis-à-vis the family is adaptable, enabling the continued institutional influence, if not control, over the family as the basic building block of Singapore society.     

The Left and Constitutional Reform,Gladstone to Miliband

Nineteenth‐century constitutional reformers focussed on parliament. Their central idea was citizenship, modelled variously on the democracy of ancient Athens, small communities like Switzerland, and especially the United States, a particular inspiration for Gladstone who admired its constitution. The 1911 Parliament Act marked the final triumph of the Victorian Liberals legacy, with a very different impetus coming from Lloyd George during his coalition. Labour focussed on class, not the constitution, though the ILP favoured localism and devolution, before succumbing to a centralising unionism. Tawney championed the idea of social citizenship, emphasising activism and education. After 1945, Labour did not prioritize constitutional reform until the dramatic changes that came after 1997. Gordon Brown then revived the notion of citizenship, and possible codification, in pursuing the values of Britishness. Labour's legacy was a confusing one. But Ed Miliband's policy revision could reclaim the idea of citizenship, an egalitarian concept to counter the inequalities of class.     

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.     

联合国国际人权两公约之背景,内容与意义

联合国国际人权两以约是国际社会在人权保护方面最重要的两个公约。两公约诉产生过程,内容和执行体系,都表明国际社会在人权保护领域既普遍的共识,也有尖锐的分歧。两公约本身即是求同存异的产物,它是尽可能地融合了东西方国家对人权的不同理解,充实和发展了《联合国宪章》中关于基本人权的内容和为人权领域的国际合作提供了国际法依据。但是,人权进行国际法领域,并不意味着可以把人权作为攻击或干涉他国内政的工具,借口不人     

‘Living Rights’, rights claims,performative citizenship and young people – the right to vote in the Scottish independence referendum

This paper examines the rights claims-making that young people engaged in during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum when the right to vote was extended to 16- and 17-year-olds for the first time in the UK. Understanding citizenship and rights claims-making as performative, we draw on the novel idea of ‘living rights’ to explore how young people ‘shape what these rights are – and become – in the social world’. They are co-existent and situated within the everyday lives of young people, and transcend the traditional idea that rights are merely those that are enshrined in domestic and/or international law. We explore the complex and contested nature of rights claims that were made by young people as ‘active citizens’ in the lead up to the referendum to illustrate how the rights claims-making by young people is bound up with the performativity of citizenship that entails identity construction, political subjectivity (that challenges adult-centric approaches) and social justice.