‘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.     

Gendered political space: civil society,contingency theory,and the substantive representation of women

Whilst existing civil society studies generally fail to systematically examine the way that contextual factors shape women’s representation in the civil sphere, political science has predominantly focused on legislative settings. This article responds to the resultant knowledge-gap by examining the hitherto underexplored role of civil society as a political space integral to the substantive representation of women (SRW)—or, the process by which women’s concerns are advanced in policy and politics. The article uses grounded theory in order propose a systematic analytical model showing how the SRW is a contingent process whereby the motives of civil society organizations are translated into action repertoires shaped by three (non-discrete) spheres: political, socioeconomic, and organizational. Its wider contribution to civil society scholarship is in highlighting how civil society is a complex, heterogeneous political space wherein SRW claims-making requires cognizance of the co-presence of contingent factors that offer immanent explanatory power.     

Incorporating immigrants as foreigners: multicultural politics in Japan

With the growth of immigrant population over the past couple of decades, a ‘multicultural’ discourse has emerged in Japan. A notable point is that immigrants are expected to be incorporated into the host society primarily as foreigners rather than as Japanese nationals with full citizenship rights. The purpose of this article is to understand this prevailing mode of immigrant incorporation and to consider the comparative implications. By examining the discursive aspects of claims-making on behalf of both old-timer and newcomer immigrants, I argue that the underlying opportunity structures have been reproduced in each phase of immigration-related development in Japan, facilitating the use of the ‘foreigner’ category in advocacy efforts. Official recognition of the category has also helped to further institutionalize it as the main target of immigrant policy. In comparative perspective, ‘incorporation as foreigners’ can be understood as a variant of the ethnic model of immigration regimes in that it tends to reinforce the dominant ethnocultural conception of Japanese nationhood.     

Acts of citizenship as a politics of resistance? Reflections on realizing concrete rights within the Israeli asylum regime

This paper investigates how Eritrean refugees in Israel and civil society organisations who engage with refugee issues contest the exclusionary politics of asylum in Israel. It presents various acts of claims-making initiated by Eritrean refugees themselves or in response to hostility by others, as well as acts inaugurated by Israeli civil society organisations on behalf of or with refugee populations. Drawing on the concept of activist acts of citizenship developed by Engin Isin, the paper subsequently analyses to what degree those acts have redefined aspects of social and political membership for Eritrean refugees in Israel. In a further step, it shows the limitations of such acts in terms of developing a solidaristic refugee-citizen agenda that profoundly challenges hegemonic public discourse and political debate. The paper concludes by arguing that activist acts of citizenship are best studied in relation to the transformative power they may have on the various individuals engaging in them, but not as a strategy for a wider politics of resistance, as ultimately nation state politics continue to determine the actual realisation of concrete rights.