In Between Nation-States: Struggling for Asylum as a Right of ‘Non-Citizens’

The paper explores citizenship by examining political debates related to 'non-citizenship' and rights. It focuses especially on the right to asylum as a particular right of non-citizens. While the question of asylum and the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees have risen to the core of political agendas in Europe during recent months, the paper builds on the argument that non-citizens have acute implications for the study and theorising of citizenship, nation-states and human rights. The argument is connected, on the one hand, to the well-known notion that human rights are, despite the ideals and language of universality, most often actualised and practiced in the framework of nation-states. While citizenship is often seen as a basis for rights, accessing human rights requires membership in a political community in which rights are recognised and enforced. Asylum-seekers, on the other hand, are in between nation-states, while being without the protection of the state of origin and while asking for the right claim to be considered in another state. The paper discusses asylum as a contested right in contemporary Europe and looks into the political struggles related to this right. By analysing debates on asylum, the idea is further to examine the tension between (non-)citizenship, nation-states and human rights and how the complexity becomes articulated, challenged and redefined in the debates.