Democratic Integration in Mobile Societies: A Normative Assessment of Urban Citizenship

In opposition to the sedentary bias in migration research (namely the idea that immigrants settle once for all in a receiving country), the mobility paradigm asserts that ways of belonging, practices of citizenship, and social dynamics are shaped by entwined mobilities of persons, ideas, and policies crossing different geographical places and states borders. For mobility scholars, mobility (as non-sedentary and non-territorially fixed belongings) should be taken into consideration by citizenship regimes and therefore provide to migrants and mobile individuals some resources (not to say rights) to foster their political agency, representation and inclusion in context where they temporarily live but without having formal citizenship status. To capture these aspects, some political theorist have recently mobilized the concept of urban citizenship, which is praised for its potential to create “[…] a status of equality that is uniquely appropriate for cities as it can be shared by sedentary and mobile populations" (Bauböck, 2020). "City-zenship" (De-Shalit 2018), therefore, seems to promote the diversity and inclusion of residents, whatever is their formal citizenship status. It remains controversial at best, whether the concept of urban citizenship captures some specific meanings, adding value to the classical theories of citizenship, hence strengthening democratic integration. This paper will critically assess whether it is justified to claim that urban citizenship strengthens the democratic integration in diverse societies, including also residents on mobility? We will argue that answering this question requires us to offer a comprehensive understanding of the concept of urban citizenship. We will first identify minimum conditions of democratic integration in diverse societies. Secondly, we will critically engage with the existing arguments, showing that they remain insufficient to claim that urban citizenship strengthens democratic integration. Third step will offer a comprehensive conceptual map on urban citizenship that discusses its individuation and organizes it according to its practical and statuary understandings. The fourth step will identify the conditions under which it is justified to claim that urban citizenship enhances democratic integration, hence should complement national citizenship in diverse and mobile societies.