Nation-state Citizenship Research Articles

Exploring the role of regulation in urban citizenship practices: looking at Swiss and Turkish cities

ABSTRACT ‘Urban citizenship’ connotes to statuses and practices centred around the relationship between a locality and (all) individuals present or residing within its territory. This alternative imagination of citizenship (as opposed to formal nation-state citizenship) is based on a presumption of belonging for persons present/resident in the locality (ius domicii) and includes those typically excluded by the nation-state, in a radical vision of equality and non-discrimination. But domestic legal competences of local governments vary significantly across jurisdictions. This article, based on field research in Turkey and Switzerland, explores what role such domestic competences, or the regulation of local governments, plays in facilitating, encouraging, discouraging or obstructing local governments’ engagement with radically inclusive urban citizenship practices. First operationalising the concept of ‘regulation’ and establishing Turkey and Switzerland as low- and high-regulation country contexts respectively, this article identifies four ways in which regulation shapes urban citizenship practices of local governments: (a) by shaping local governments’ perception on their own autonomy; (b) by influencing whether local governments engage in legally foreseen or extra-legal practices; (c) by informing whether and how much local governments categorise different groups of rights-holders and; (d) by affecting which scales these urban citizenship practices are exercised in (upwards, downwards, horizontal).

Constitution and Jurisdiction in Neal Stephenson’s Speculative Fiction

A common feature of Neal Stephenson’s speculative fiction is the richly imagined political communities inhabited by his characters. Geographically defined constitutional states are reimagined, often with a focus on associations based on shared social identity or beliefs, as opposed to nation-state citizenship. Stephenson’s works offer an imaginative space for exploring possibilities of alternative political communities, and questions of constitution and jurisdiction. Modern territorially sovereign nation-states have presented constitutional scholars with a fixed framework. People sharing physical space constitute a political association stemming from a moment of legal constitution. Thus constituted, the nation-state authorises governmental entities to oversee the populace within the shared geographical space. Stephenson’s rich imagination offers constitutional scholarship an imaginary for exploring alternative conceptualisations of constitution and jurisdiction. This article proposes that recovery of medieval conceptualisations of overlapping networked jurisdictions might aid in sensemaking of models of political communities beyond the territorially sovereign nation-state.

Towards an historical sociology of global citizenship education policy in Australia

ABSTRACT ‘Global citizenship’ has gained traction as a policy objective across school systems in recent decades. It has been defined as education for the development of a sense of cosmopolitan moral virtue, planetary identification and ‘global competencies’. In this paper, I argue that historical sociology can help explain why this goal has gained prominence in citizenship education policy since the late twentieth century. Focussing on the Australian case, I propose an analytical model where changes in citizenship education policy for schools are articulated to concurrent transformations of nation-state citizenship within a shifting international conjuncture. This approach reveals that the rise of neoliberal statecraft and the diffusion of human rights discourses since the 1970s are pertinent analytical coordinates to make sense of the growing presence of global citizenship within government policy agendas for schools. The Australian case illustrates the relevance of historical sociology to make sense of contemporary education policy.

National citizenship, migrant deportation and gender/sexual logics of home

ABSTRACT This article highlights deportation when imagining the futures of citizenship studies and nation-based citizenship. I center Beloved Home, one of the pillars of the Trans Agenda for Liberation, in order to discuss how nation-state citizenship and migrant deportation regimes converge to make home impossible for many living in the United States. Beloved Home especially foregrounds genders and sexualities, in their interactions with (settler) colonialism, racial capitalism, and slavery, as generating and legitimating ‘unhoming’ through logics of normative family and home, and highlights transgender, queer and feminist scholarship and activisms as resources/tools for transformation.

Syrian Kurds and Nation-State Citizenship: Inclusion and Exclusion Mechanisms

Günümüz dünyasının başat örgütlenme biçimi olan ulus-devletlerin önemli bir bölümü, her ne kadar homojen bir kimlik ve kültür iddiasında bulunsalar da, çok-etnili bir yapıya sahiptirler. Çok-etnili yapı kuşkusuz her bir ulus-devletin, hangi kimliklerin dahil edilip hangilerinin dışarıda bırakılacağını belirleyen vatandaşlık çerçevesini belirlemesini gerekli kılmıştır. Bu çalışma söz konusu ulus-devletlerden biri olan ve 20. yy.’ın başlarında Fransa’nın himayesinde inşa edilen Suriye devletinin Kürt nüfusuna ilişkin vatandaşlık politikalarını konu edinmektedir. Bu konu izleğinde araştırmanın amacı, Osmanlı ve öncesi dönemlerde yerel olarak tanımlanan Kürt kimliğinin, Suriye ulus-devletinin kurulmasıyla birlikte nasıl “kimliksiz”leştirildiğine dair bir resim çizebilmek ve Suriye Kürtleri örneğinde ulus-devlet vatandaşlığının çelişkilerini ortaya koyabilmektir. Araştırmanın verileri konuyla ilgili literatürün yanı sıra saha çalışmasına dayanmaktadır. Saha çalışması 2010-2011 yılları arasında gerçekleştirilmiş, veriler derinlemesine görüşmeler, katılımlı gözlem, yaşam hikayeleri gibi etnografik tekniklere başvurularak elde edilmiştir. Çalışmada Kürtlerin dört (Türkiye, Irak, İran ve Suriye) ulus devlet sınırları içerisinde kalmasına karşın, kimlik mücadelesinin süreğenlik arz etmesi ve her bir devletteki olayların Suriye Kürtlerini de etkilemesinin, Suriye devletinin Kürtlere yönelik vatandaşlık politikalarını etkilediği ileri sürülmektedir. Sonuç olarak Suriye devletinin Kürt nüfusa ilişkin Arap Kemeri, Kürtçe’nin kullanılmasının yasaklanması gibi asimilasyonist politikalarına karşın vatandaşlık söz konusu olduğunda dışlayıcı bir tavrı olduğu görülmüştür. Ancak bu dışlayıcı tavrın da ikircimli olduğunu belirtmek gerekir.

Global Citizenship: How to Approach Identity Issues From an Intercultural Point of View

The idea of “global citizenship” is not new, but new and challenging are the conditions featuring today’s world in which this idea has come again to the fore. Indeed, nation-state citizenship no-longer exhausts the political, legal and social relevance of citizenship, in the face of phenomena such as the development of trade and financial markets, information and communication revolutionary technologies, massive (diasporic) migration flows, in addition to threats and risks for human security all around our globalised world. Starting with the awareness of the complexity of these phenomena, the essay focuses on the idea and ideal of global citizenship, looking at it as a long standing idea, but remaining quite controversial and contested as ever. Some various notions are highlighted, from past to present times, of what can be called a cosmopolitan idea of citizenship, by exploring the main aspects characterising its revival in today’s world, and pointing to a methodological approach which implies and requires a paradigm shift in the understanding of what means to be “global”. This brings about the issue of cultural diversity as the counter-value of the ongoing globalization process. Indeed, globalisation has pushed forward cross-country flows of ideas, knowledge, people, as well as products and services. However, behind an apparent trend to homogenisation of world, counter-effects have also been put into motion, which lead, not without tension and even conflict, to the emergence of new dynamics regarding cultural and ethical values, social norms and lifestyles that affect individual and group identities. Increased mobility coupled in particular with migration flows have brought others very close to us. These “others” no longer live in some distant place, but right in our own town or neighbourhood. It arises from here the challenge of the cultural diversity, within our ever more multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural societies. In order to deal with this challenge, European experience may offer some good examples on how to manage diversity as a socio-cultural asset that affects both citizenship and education in a double way: a) the education through citizenship, enhancing the socio-educational value of citizenship as daily practice of living together in community; b) the citizenship through education, enhancing the socio-educational value of the intercultural dialogue at the base of an inclusive social dimension of citizenry. Ultimately, a new concept and practice of citizenship is thus emerging, that goes beyond the closed and exclusionary scheme of citizenship classically understood in terms of nationality (nation-state membership), carrying out the meaning of “global citizenship” as paradigmatic feature of an open and inclusive society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail, in the interest of peace and security.

Restoring the EU citizenship for tax purposes

Citizenship-based taxation has become insignificant due to high mobility of individuals, which are completely detached from their polities. The lack of political, social and cultural bonds of the individual with the states has shifted the focus to the concept of tax residence. This contribution sheds light on the concept of supranational citizenship in clear opposition to the nation-state citizenship, for the purposes of legitimizing levying a tax on EU citizens. The ongoing concept of EU citizenship anchored firstly in the principle of mutual recognition and secondly in the emergence of democratic and pluralist values under the so-called “European way of life,” yields certain imbalances and asymmetries derived from a steep distinction between economically active and economically inactive EU citizens. In the author’s view, levying a tax upon EU citizens would enhance the demos and solidarity within the current withered EU integration project.

Theorizing children’s global citizenship: Reconstructionism and the politics of deep interdependence

Global citizenship is a much disputed term, involving a variety of competing neoliberal, cosmopolitan, and postcolonial framings. Much of this debate, however, assumes a hidden normative adulthood, just as did traditional understandings of citizenship in nation states. This article argues that attending to children’s experiences through a lens of childhood studies or childism opens up the possibility for more complex and profound theorizations of global participatory citizenship for all, both children and adults. In particular, the argument is advanced that global citizenship is better understood as a politics of reconstruction based on the aesthetic practice of interdependent political creativity. The key lies in understanding global political interdependence in a deep rather than superficial way as responding to children’s triple bind: their struggle all at once for self-empowerment, overcoming normative exclusions, and responsiveness from others.

Ecopedagogy as an element of citizenship education: The dialectic of global/local spheres of citizenship and critical environmental pedagogies

Emerging from popular education movements in Latin America, ecopedagogy is a critical environmental pedagogy which focuses on understanding the connections between social conflict and environmentally harmful acts carried out by humans. These connections are often politically hidden in education. Ecopedagogy, while being pluralistic, is in its essence defined as a critical, transformative environmental pedagogy centred on increasing social and environmental justice. Its ultimate aim is to find a sustainable balance between the conflicting goals of diverse notions of human progress and environmental wellbeing. This article is based on two comparative research projects. The first was a qualitative study on ecopedagogical models involving 31 expert ecopedagogues in Argentina, Brazil and the Appalachian region of the United States. They were asked for their perspectives on how successful ecopedagogy can be defined within the contexts in which they taught and conducted research. The second study analysed how 18 international expert scholars of citizenship and/or environmental pedagogy from six world continents regarded the ways in which citizenship intersects with environmental issues and the pedagogies of both in an increasingly globalised world, with specific focus on Global Citizenship Education. Results from the first study indicate the following two needs for effective environmental pedagogies: (1) for there to be an ecopedagogical paradigm shift in environmental teaching and research; and (2) for ecopedagogy to be an essential element of citizenship education (and vice versa). This article examines how conflicting processes of globalisation both help and hinder in achieving such a paradigm shift by decentring traditional nation-state citizenship. Results from the second study indicate how critical teaching within and between different spheres of citizenship (e.g. local, national, global, and planetary citizenship) is essential for ecopedagogy (and the ecopedagogical element).

Struggles over access to the Muslim public sphere: Multiple publics and discourses on agency, belonging and citizenship (Introduction to the Themed Section)

This introductory essay provides the context for the articles in this Themed Section. Despite the diversity in locations, historical backgrounds and contemporary processes of change, all contributors to this Themed Section focus on the struggle of Muslim groups over access to an emergent Muslim public sphere. They highlight the contestations of and shifts in the notions of agency, belonging, and citizenship in nation-states with Muslim communities within its borders. The introduction consists of two parts. The first part reviews the notion of the public sphere as conceptualized by Habermas and critiqued by scholars of a diversity of backgrounds. In relation to the concept of the Muslim public sphere, three aspects of critique are given closer consideration in this first part: the value of thinking in terms of multiple publics, the loss of legitimacy of traditional religious authorities, and the importance of agency and identity that allow individuals to engage in a diversity of publics. The second part introduces the various contributions in the Themed Section.

Deviant Citizenship: DREAMer Activism in the United States and Transnational Belonging

My analysis places the assertions of political presence by non-citizen immigrant youth in the U.S. (often referred to as DREAMers) within a rapidly globalizing world; this placement re-frames the DREAMers’ movement from a fight for U.S. citizenship to a broader critique of the limits and impossibility of liberal democratic citizenship, which claims to be all-inclusive. Increased transnational migration has brought into stark relief the inequality that current frameworks of nation-state citizenship, as a caste-system of rights, have codified. I am interested in the activism of immigrant youth as a place to explore where immigrants themselves are reasserting the right to politics. This reassertion privileges the social embeddedness of family ties and community above the notion of individual choice or individual rationality. In doing so, this articulation of politics is a critique of the liberal order by forcing the consideration of the contexts and structures that create migration, exploitation, and transnational communities of belonging.

The Three Levels of Citizenship within the European Union

European Union citizenship is derived from Member State nationality. This fact often has been considered a “birth defect” to be overcome by either disconnecting EU citizenship from Member State citizenship or by reversing the relationship in a federal model so that Member State citizenship would be derived from that of the Union. I argue in this essay that derivative citizenship in a union of states can be defended as a potentially stable and democratically attractive basic feature of the architecture of the EU polity where EU citizenship is perceived of as one layer in a multi-level model of democratic membership in a union of states such as the EU. This perspective is not a defense of the status quo, but rather allows for—or even requires—a series of reforms addressing a number of inconsistencies and democratic deficiencies in the current citizenship regime.Most academics writing about Union citizenship tend to compare it to that which they know best: Nation State citizenship. It then comes as no surprise when they conclude that the current construction of EU citizenship is internally incoherent, externally not sufficiently inclusive, and also lacking in democratic legitimacy. To a certain degree, I agree with this criticism; however, such authors often apply the wrong standard of comparison and therefore are likely to promote faulty solutions. As the EU Treaties clearly have spelled out since the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, EU citizenship is complementary or additional to Member State nationality without replacing it. National citizenship is a constitutive element of EU citizenship and therefore cannot serve as an external standard of comparison.

Commercially arranged marriage and the negotiation of citizenship rights among Vietnamese marriage migrants in multiracial Singapore

Globalization and increased mobilities have multiplied cross-border transactions not only in the economic sphere but have also a major impact on human relationships of intimacy. This can be seen in the increased volume of differently mediated forms of international marriage, not just straddling ‘east’ and ‘west’, but within Asia and across different ethnicities and nationalities. International marriage raises a host of social issues for countries of origin and destination, including challenges relating to the citizenship status and rights of the marriage migrant. This paper examines the negotiation of citizenship rights in the case of commercially matched marriage migrants – namely Vietnamese women who marry Singaporean men and migrate to Singapore as ‘foreign brides’. While they are folded into the ‘family’ – what is often thought of as the basic building block of the nation in Asian societies – they are not necessarily accorded full incorporation into the ‘nation’ despite Singapore's claims to multiculturalism. This is particularly salient at a point when cross-nationality, cross-ethnicity marriages between Singapore citizens and non-citizens are on the increase, accounting for over a third of marriages registered in Singapore in recent years. Vietnamese women who marry Singaporeans are positioned within the nation-state's citizenship regime as dependents of Singaporean men, having to rely on the legitimacy of the marriage relationship as well as the whims of their husbands in negotiating their rights vis-à-vis the Singapore state. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic work with 20 Vietnamese women who are commercially matched marriage migrants, the paper first focuses on the vulnerable positions these women find themselves, particularly given difficulties in forging their own support networks as well as weaknesses of the civil society sector in what has been called an ‘illiberal democracy’ characterized by a political culture of ‘non-resistance’. The paper then goes on to examine the way they negotiate rights to residency/citizenship, work and children within webs of asymmetrical power relations within the family and the nation-state. We draw on our findings to show that citizenship is ‘a terrain of struggle’ within a multicultural nation-state shaped by social ideologies of gender, race and class and negotiated on an everyday basis within spheres of family intimacy.

This Land is Our Land? Multiple Literacies and Becoming-Citizen in an Adult ESL Classroom

Unprecedented levels of global migration have produced pluralistic nations where citizenship education can pose a complex challenge. In these contexts, government-funded language instruction programs for new immigrants have become important sites, where politically charged debates around citizenship and how to teach it play out. This article considers the intersections of citizenship education, power, multiple literacies, and curriculum in a Canadian adult immigrant language program mandated to facilitate the integration of newcomers. Deleuze & Guattari's conceptual repertoire, along with the Deleuzian-informed Multiple Literacies Theory, frame an analysis of qualitative data focusing on a singular classroom event: the singing of a folk song. This research follows lines of power: state power as pouvoir operating through the order-word ‘multiculturalism’, and life's affective power as puissance operating through reading texts disruptively in the classroom. These molar lines and lines of flight run between nation-state citizenship as an integrative outcome premised on sameness, and the concept of ‘becoming-citizen’ as an untimely process premised on difference. Considering the implications of this analysis for classroom practice, ‘rhizocurriculum’ is posited as a way to reimagine citizenship in ways that can account for the revolutionary, transformative effects of difference.

People out of Place: Globalization, Human Rights, and the Citizenship Gap

People out of Place: Globalization, Human Rights, and the Citizenship Gap. Edited by Alison Brysk and Gershon Shafir. New York: Routledge, 2004. 272p. 24.95 paper.The original essays in this anthology make a significant contribution to the ongoing debates about citizenship, human rights, and the future of the nation-state by exploring the contradictory impacts of globalization on the provision of individual rights. On the one hand, the transnational flows of people, capital, and technology associated with globalization have led to a deflation of citizenship rights, particularly for members of vulnerable groups, and created large noncitizen populations with significantly fewer rights than citizens. Yet on the other hand, the cosmopolitan aspects of globalization, such as the evolution of human rights and the expansion of liberal legal norms, create new levels of membership and new venues in which to claim rights. The book has two related goals. The first is to describe the complicated processes by which globalization is altering the nature of nation-state citizenship and creating a “citizenship gap” among global elites, legal citizens, marginalized citizens, and migrants. The volume's second goal is to determine whether the cosmopolitan aspects of globalization can remedy the citizenship gap. Will existing nation-state citizenship and emerging universal rights regimes be sufficient to protect the rights of marginalized citizens and noncitizens? Or must human rights be embedded in global governance in order to close the citizenship gap?

AVRUPA SİYASAL BÜTÜNLEŞMESİNİN İKİ BOYUTU: VATANDAŞLIK VE KURUMSALLAŞMA

In this article, is examineted political integration in European from the citizenship and institutional form. First of all, related to this subject, is studied reconstructionalists and followers o f the nation-state citizenship authors. After that, is discussed of the present institution form under those ideas.