At the Borders of Citizenship: Conditional Agencies

Citizenship is a useful political devise for raising debate on standards of ideal citizens, inclusive or exclusive policies, migration policy, historical issues or national unity, to name a few examples. These issues, quite topical and well established on the contemporary political arenas, often mean debates on the conditions of access to a recognised legal status, such as a citizen, which then brings with it a selection of rights and duties. The emphasis on the need for active participation on behalf of (both native and naturalised) citizens into the polity’s life has become a commonplace in these debates. Another commonplace has been to debate several steps of access together in order to set new policies at different stages: First, to entering the country, second, accessing a recognised status after entry, and third, accessing full citizenship status. Using contemporary European cases as examples, this paper asks what kind of conditions for access there are at different stages and how these conditions impact the concept of citizenship. More specifically, the question concerns the (less debated but inherent for citizenship) issue of time and temporality, which the conditions display. It is argued that the regulation of the tension between inclusion and exclusion are performed through these temporalities, and that the commonplace of active participation plays a significant role here as well, especially through the concept of integration.