Local citizenship

Abstract

Chapter 7: If it is truly true that a shift from government to governance has taken place, i.e. that the making and implementation of socially binding decisions has moved from the core institutions of statehood to various spheres of society, then the concept of citizenship needs to be reconceptualized. This is because the conventional understanding of citizenship implies that it grants people particular rights that are set and secured by the state. Based on Schmitter's holder-concept a particular kind of understanding in respect of those who should be involved will be outlined. It will be argued that incremental and reflexive processes of identifying and recognizing the actors who should be participating are crucial. It will be argued that the way actors acquire an opportunity - and under certain conditions a right – to participate depend on the formation of 'political units'. These 'political units' can - in line with Hooghe und Marks (2003) - be conceptually distinguished as two (ideal) types of 'jurisdictions' (or multi-level [governance] systems). By referring to contrasting conceptions of community, the point is - as summarized by Hooghe and Marks (2003: 241): 'Type I jurisdictions choose citizens, while citizens choose Type II jurisdictions.' These 'political units' can also be seen as expressions of different types of statehood – namely 'territorial' and 'functional statehood' (Nullmeier 2009). This requires not to connect the concept of statehood per se with the territorial or nation state, but to start out from 'political units' and ask what functions they have to fulfil in order to ascribe the attribute of statehood to such units.