Disaggregation of Citizenship Rights

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes This essay is based on a lecture originally held at the World Congress of Philosophy in Istanbul, Turkey in August 2003. These arguments are presented in greater detail in my book, The Rights of Others. Aliens, Residents and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). See David Held, “Law of States, Law of Peoples: Three Models of Sovereignty”, Legal Theory 8 (December 2002), pp.1–44, p.4; Steven D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), p.20ff. Held, “Law of States, Law of Peoples”, p.4. I have used the following editions of Kant's texts: Immanuel Kant ‘Zum Ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf’ (1795) in Immanuel Kant's Werke [ed.] A. Buchenau, E. Cassirer and B. Kellermann (Verlag Bruno Cassirer, Berlin, 1923). Kant, Immanuel Kant's Werke, p.434; Immanuel Kant, ‘Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’ (1795), trans. H. B. Nisbet in Kant Political Writings, [ed] Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p.99. Kant, ‘Die Metaphysik der Sitten in zwei Teilen’ (1797) in Immanuel Kant's Werke [ed] A. Buchenau, E. Cassirer and B. Kellermann (Berlin: Verlag Bruno Cassirer, 1922), p.430; Kant, Kant's Political Writings, p.96. Kant, Immanuel Kant's Werke, (1923), p.435; Kant, Kant's Political Writings, p.100. Kant [1795] 1914: 434–443; Kant, ‘Perpetual Peace’ (1795), trans. Lewis White Beck in On History, [ed] Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis and New York: Library of Liberal Arts, 1957), pp.92–103. Kant, Immanuel Kant's Werke (1914), p.443; Kant, On History, p.103. Kant, Immanuel Kant's Werke (1914), p.443; Kant, On History, p.103. After the reform of Germany's jus sanguinis citizenship law as of January 2000, most EU countries practice a form of more or less liberalized jus soli. The one exception to ‘political participation through naturalization’ are the policies of Dutch cities. The Dutch model is quite unique in that foreign residents are granted city‐citizenship and voting rights after 5 years of legal residence, and are then permitted to take part in municipal elections as well as form political parties. The granting of political rights to Dutch city residents does not alter their status within the EU; nevertheless, this is a model which may become popular throughout large European cities with foreign populations. See Winfried Thaa, ‘“Lean Citizenship”. The Fading Away of the Political in Transnational Democracy’, European Journal of International Relations, 7:4 (2001), pp.503–525. For a compelling analysis of similar tendencies within a non‐European context see Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship. The Cultural Logic of Transnationality (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999). Kant, On History, p.103.