Can citizenship studies escape citizenism?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper examines the developments in citizenship studies over the past twenty-five years through the lens of ‘citizenism’, understood as a presumed prioritisation of state citizenship as the only form of political relationship between an individual and a state (and perhaps even among individuals) that can be formally recognised. It suggests that while citizenship studies may not be citizenist in nature, the use of the language of citizenship to describe a wide range of political relationships puts those using the core concepts of critical citizenship studies at risk of inadvertent banal citizenism. I start by setting out the language of citizenism as it has been used to date. Writers on the left use it to describe social democratic political movements that function within existing state structures. Underlying the various ways in which citizenism has been used is, I suggest, what can be called ‘banal citizenism’, which presumes the priority of citizens and of citizenship. I will focus on threads within citizenship studies that seek to trouble this privileging of traditional state citizenship and examine the extent to which they succeed in escaping citizenism. I will conclude that while critical citizenship studies has made a significant contribution to how we think about politics, adjusting the terminology used could make it more powerful.