Postnational Challenges and Tensions Between Citizenship and Nation-State

Understood as the link between a sovereign political community and the individual, citizenship has served as a contested arena of social, legal and political struggles (Marshall, 1950). It has had a particularly strong association with nation-states, where concepts of nationalism, national unity and citizenship have become interchangeable (Bauböck, 1994: 23). However, this association is becoming obsolete due to the increasing internal diversity of states caused by processes like globalisation, migration and pluralization of identities. In the context of European Union, the objective of ‘bringing Europe closer to its citizens’ seems to require the “dismantling of the nation-state and its associated ideologies of nationalism” (Shore, 1993: 787). Alternatives to the ‘national’ model of citizenship emerge, such as cosmopolitan or ‘postnational’ conceptions (Benhabib 2006; Soysal 1996; Bellamy and Warleigh 1998; Delanty 2002, 107–122, 135–136) or constitutional patriotism (Habermas 1997; Laborde 2002; Laborde 2007). Some see citizenship as a relational ‘act’, involving also statelessness and non-citizenship (Isin & Nielsen 2008). Yet, neither nation-states nor national(ist) ideas nor national citizenships have disappeared. In fact, they continue to serve as a tool for demarcation between people (Skey, 2011). SG Citizenship therefore proposes a workshop focusing on the tension that characterises the association between citizenship and the nation-state today. We wish to move away from nation-states as the primary framework of citizenship and, instead, consider current practices across various scales and contexts in order to really understand the shifting boundaries and intersections of ‘imagined communities’. We invite theoretical and empirical approaches, addressing the complexities related to contemporary citizenship. We anticipate that the papers presented at the joint session will form the basis of an edited volume to be proposed for publication with ECPR Press. Potential participants will be reached through the established channels of the SG Citizenship, Identity and other networks, such as PSA.