Abstract
This article deploys the concept of citizenship regime to describe the citizenship norms and practices of the European Union (EU). The EU is, and has been since 1957, involved in building citizenship practices. The goal of the article is to reanimate discussions of European citizenship and to recapture them from the almost exclusive control of political philosophy and a focus on the standard liberal democratic model. Instead, it presents the European citizenship regime for what it is: a set of norms and practices in motion. Its characteristics are captured by analysing four dimensions of any citizenship regime: the responsibility mix; acquired rights and duties; governance; and belonging. On each dimension, current citizenship practices of Union citizenship are briefly described. When this is done, the EU is observed to be adjusting its borders and boundaries of citizenship.
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Notes
Albeit an indicator with limited accuracy, a search on Google Scholar reveals the heyday of ‘European citizenship’ to have been, not surprisingly, between 1997 and 2000. Two books were published in 2001, albeit based on work collected earlier (Bellamy and Warleigh, 2001; Eder and Giesen, 2001). For overviews of the discussions of European citizenship, see an early paper (Warleigh, 1998) and a more recent one (Preuss et al., 2003). Discussions of social citizenship in the EU will perhaps be revived, following the publication of Ferrera (2005b).
See also Bellamy (in Bellamy and Warleigh, 2001, 43), who put it this way: ‘Historically, the processes of state-making, constitutionalism and the development of citizenship have gone hand in hand, reflecting not only external pressures, notably war, but also internal political struggles amongst citizens themselves. Most normative citizenship theorists and many legal and political scientists have discounted these factors. They have either seen them as a matter for historians and political sociologists or fallen back on an implicit teleology derived from a Whiggish reading of Marshall…’.
Title II of the draft Constitution affirms European citizenship, linking it to fundamental rights (Article I-9) and participation, diplomatic and mobility rights (Article I-10).
Jenson (2006b) develops this distinction between borders and boundaries in citizenship norms and practices. The intent of using the two terms is to avoid the confusion that can arise, for example, where Maurizio Ferrera (2005a) looks at the boundaries created both by insider–outsider access to social insurance and the boundary between access determined by national borders and by the EU.
To say it is ‘bordered’ does not mean that the community will correspond to the frontiers of sovereignty (see also Bosniak, 2000; Bellamy and Warleigh, 2001, 5–6). It is simply to say that, for the moment, the notion of ‘global citizenship’ remains little more than a liberal universalist ideal.
Elizabeth Meehan (2000, 5) provides a classic example of the immigrée de l'intérieur: ‘In late 19th century America, the Supreme Court ruled that a woman was, indeed, an American citizen but that being a citizen did not necessarily carry the right to vote. This empties the classical conception of ‘citizen’ of part of its core meaning ….’
The notion of responsibility mix is similar to the ‘welfare triangle’ used by Esping-Andersen et al. (2002). Instead of using the triplet state/market/family, I prefer to use the image of the ‘welfare diamond’ of state/market/family/community (Jenson, 2004, www.cprn.org).
In his article, in contrast, Paul Magnette offers a more limited view of the concept of governance. Drawing on the work of Majone and of Héritier, he focuses on regulators and the involvement of civil society, as well as the notion of legitimation via multilevel governance (Magnette, 2003, 145). As the quote from Newman et al. (2004) suggests, the concept has been used much more broadly by those working on national states, with partnerships in service delivery being as important as partnerships in decision-making.
These paragraphs draw on Meehan (2000).
The five Directives increased the scope of equal pay; extended the right of equality into conditions of employment; applied the principle to statutory and occupational social security schemes; and gave comparable benefits and protections to self-employed women. In addition, a 1992 Directive protected pregnant workers and guaranteed levels of maternity benefits.
For overviews see, for example, Jachtenfuchs and Kohler-Koch (2004) or Sabel and Zeitlin (2006).
Therefore, those using this definition tend to distinguish between ‘government’ that is assumed to have a single centre of power (i.e., a national government) and/or relies on law. Given that most of the ‘new governance’ literature (see Saint-Martin (2004) for an overview) was developed for the analysis of national states, neither of these criteria applies to it.
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Jenson, J. The European Union's Citizenship Regime. Creating Norms and Building Practices. Comp Eur Polit 5, 53–69 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.cep.6110102
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.cep.6110102