Globalizing Citizenship
Introduction
The concept
Who are we? This is one of the most fundamental question a human being can be asked. It urges people to ask themselves which values are leading to them and how they have shaped their lives. However, with this question an even more relevant question comes up: to what group do I belong. Since the word we has been incorporated in it, the question automatically presumes we can all be categorized into groups. If anyone of us would be asked: "Who are you?" we might first say our name, our age and immediately after that were we come from. Then, we would label ourselves in describing ethnicity, nationality and ideological affiliation. We would use that categorization to explain where our way of life comes from. In other words: to describe the individual, we use group characteristics. For political scientists, it is interesting to notice that most of these characteristics are rooted in what we see as one of the most important political entities throughout history: the ethnie, or better: the nation.
"Who are we?" is the question Samuel Huntington asks himself and all other Americans in his similar titled book. His title might as well have been: What is Americanism? Though the book focuses on American identity, it gives a good indication of the various subquestions that come up if one explores national identity:
" "We Americans" face a substantive problem of national identity epitomizes by the subject of this sentence. Are we a "we", one people or several? If we are a "we", what distinguishes us from the "thems" who are not in us? Race, religion, ethnicity, values, culture, wealth, politics, or what? Is the United States, as some have argued, a "universal nation," based on values common to all humanity and in principle embracing all peoples? Or are we a Western nation with our identity defined by our European heritage and institutions? Are we basically a political community whose identity exists only in a social contract embodied in the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents? Are we multicultural, bicultural, or unicultural, a mosaic or a melting pot? Do we have any meaningful identity as a nation that transcends our subnational ethnic, religious, racial identities?" (Huntington 2004; 9)
The issue Huntington raises here is about the cultural part of citizenship. It describes how every individual derives its identity from the nation he or she belongs to. Vice versa, every individual tries to influence national identity as well, to ensure the values of the nation will remain its. Current debates about migration issues show that the in- or exclusion mechanisms of nations are mostly culturally and ethnically defined. Here we can introduce the concept of 'cultural citizenship', in which we can define as a locus of identification.
However, there are other, more institutional dimensions, who also appear to be important. The same migration debates that focus on cultural aspects are also about the social and civil rights the individual derives from citizenship in each democratic society. Citizenship is not only about identity, it is about nationality as well. Someone holding an American passport is an American national. His nationality gives him rights and duties in respect to the United States, the country of which he is a citizen. This form of citizenship is the most classical form the world has known for ages. During the 19th and 20th century, the concept of citizenship has always been linked to the nation state. Citizens' rights and duties have always been enforced by nation states, who effectively claimed citizens in doing so. The great struggles of that era have always been caused by the desire of groups within society to achieve full citizenship, e.g. the working classes or the women's movement.
Today, a great number of scholars claim that this traditional view of citizenship is being undermined by the reality of globalisation. As Bloemraad (2004; 390) states: "Older notions of state sovereignty butt against advances in communication and transportation, the spread of international norms, a global economy and, in particular, substantial international migration." These changes seem to alter the concept of citizenship from two directions. The first change is a top-down movement that comes along with the founding of supranational institutions. Our desire for a more just and peaceful world has led to institutions who claim authority on a higher level than the nation state. Though supranational institutions like the European Union (EU) or the United Nations (UN) do not issue passports, they give citizens of allied nation states the possibility of claiming substantial rights with them, thus overruling the level of nation states. The second influential movement shows a bottom-up pattern. Post-war patterns of migration have changed the notion of citizenship. Brubaker (1990) claims that the traditional notion of citizenship is (amongst others) egalitarian, national, democratic and unique. Those qualifications do not hold in an era in which a growing number of people acquire a nationality through migration. That means that, as Bloemraad (2004; 392) notes: "When immigrants move from one country to another, they complicate the link between the citizen and the nation-state." Holding a nationality does not automatically mean a unique identification with one nation anymore. These two processes have led over time to the globalisation of citizenship.
Three days in short
The aim of the 2007 edition of the IAPSS Annual Conference is to bring a mixed group of political science students from all over the world together to discuss this phenomenon. In three days, the conference will highlight several aspects in which the globalisation of citizenship becomes visible.
Assuming everyone will be well-prepared for the conference, we will pay little attention to the definition of the concept of citizenship. Instead, we will immediately turn over to the factors that make citizenship globalising. The first day will put emphasis on the earlier noted top-down process that influences notions of citizenship. It will look at the supra- and transnational alternatives to traditional citizenship: institutions like the European Union and movements like the feminist and anti-globalist. The first day will have room for debates on the importance of these alternatives: how important are these alternatives in the present world? The second day will be more practical. It highlights the influence of migration patterns on the notion of citizenship. This day will be focused on Amsterdam as well. The University of Amsterdam cooperates closely with the local government in monitoring the integration of cultural minorities in local society. This has given the University, especially the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES), considerable knowledge on this topic. The conference will make use of it, in order to relate theory to the Amsterdam praxis. The last day of the conference will be focused on the institute that seems to have come under pressure: the nation state. Although a great number of scholarly analyses points at the fading importance of nation states, some claim the opposite. From a realist point of view they remind us that the nation state still is the sovereign institution it has been for years. Some even go further and have findings of a nationalist backlash. This day will explore those claims and will do so taking the Netherlands as a case. What is the Dutch national identity? Where does it come from and who does belong to that nation? In other words: Who are they, the Dutch?
Day one : alternatives to traditional citizenship
This day will look into some institutions and movements that already offer an alternative to traditional citizenship as a 'locus of identity'. Of course, students in International Relations will immediately think about supranational institutions like the United Nations of the European Union. In part, the day will cover these institutions, where probably most of the attention will be paid to the European Union. It is this supranational institution that makes it possible for its 'citizens' to derive rights from itself (e.g. through the European Court of Justice). At the same Brussels issues directives that put duties on their 'citizens'. In doing so, the institution claims the citizens of the member states, creating a new form of supranational citizenship.
Another challenge to the traditional notion of citizenship is created by the relatively new, transnational social movements. For this day, three examples have been chosen . The women's movement for example, though offering a source of identity to people alternative to traditional citizenship, is almost not institutionalized. ATTAC clearly is an organisation, an example of how a part of a movement that tries to get itself incorporated into institutionalized world politics. The European green parties even go further: they already possess a place in the European Parliament, allowing them to try to influence society through an institutionalized way. This is contrary to the women's movement that mainly exists outside political structures. However, these organisations all show today how people get themselves organized transnationally in either way, marking the fading importance of traditional citizenship.
The women's movement is, as the term already says, only a movement and not an organisation. However, there is a great number of scholars who claim membership of the movement. There even are some institutions who gather information about the movement or are part of it. In Amsterdam the movement is being represented by the Internationaal Informatiecentrum en Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (IIAV, International Information centre and Archive for the Women's movement).
ATTAC (Association pour la Taxation des Transactions pour l'Aide aux Citoyens) is a semi-institutionalised organisation. The organisation was founded in 1998 in France but exists everywhere in the world now. Originally their one goal was the introduction of the "tobin-tax", a tax on international trade of currencies in order to forecome currency speculation. They have developed into an anti-globalisation organisation with further aims such as "fair instead of free trade" and general amnesty for all debts of third world countries. What makes ATTAC interesting is that, even though they call themselves a worldwide organisation, their principle is decentralisation. The institution functions as a network of different anti-globalist activist groups that are organised locally. As long as those groups support the mission statement of ATTAC, they can be member of it. This tie-up between localised organisations and the mission to influence global politics completely leaves out the national level and therefore offers an interesting example of a challenge to the traditional notion of citizenship.
The several political parties in the European Parliament are well-institutionalized transnational organizations. They are an example of the trend towards transnationalisation. The European Green Party, for example, has been founded only two years ago, which is quite late if one considers the history of European parliamentary democracy. The EGP emerged from a federation of national green parties, like Dutch GroenLinks, French Les Verts and German Bündnis 90/die Grünen. Although the formation now is called a European political 'party', it is not a political group in the classical meaning: no individual can directly become member of it. Supporting the EGP is only possible through the membership of one of the national member parties as with nearly all other European Parties. Therefore, it seems impossible to be a European political citizen, since no membership of a European political party is possible.
Day two : migration
The second day will look at the bottom-up process challenging traditional notions of citizenship: migration patterns. People do not seem to live their lives within the borders of only one nation state anymore. Given that fact, people no longer derive their identity from membership to one nation either. In their 1998 book "Transnationalism from below", editors Luis Eduardo Guarnizo and Michael Peter Smith write: "(…) Personal identity formation in transnational social spaces can best be understood as a dialectic of embedding and disembedding which, over time, involves an unavoidable encumbering, dis-encumbering, and re-encumbering of situated selves." (1998; 21). If they are right, migrants will always be situated between two or more nations than being part of one. They will be living evidence of a connection between the two or more nations they are related to. If both nations are equally important, these people should live two lives: they should have two different identities, one for each nation. In doing so, they derive rights and duties from both the sending and receiving state. This double identity claim leads, in many cases, to the possession of double nationalities as well. They are the institutionalization of double identities and make sure people have rights and duties in respect to two or more nations. Several scholars have found evidence of a rising number of citizens with a double nationality. As Bloemraat notes: "If we control for country of origin, we fund a number of immigrant groups in which two fifths or more report dual citizenship. …. Given the rapid rise in dual citizenship claims (…) it is likely that multiple nationalities will increasingly become the norm." (2004; 421)
With her research paper, Bloemraat proves the bottom-up pressure on traditional notions of citizenship. From a transnational perspective one could very well claim that migrants will see the different nations they belong to as equally important, undermining the exclusive claim of nations on their citizens that is so characteristic of the traditional notion of citizenship. That means all societies, the Dutch as well, are confronted with members who are not loyal to one nation, but to more. How does a nation state deal with that?
In the Netherlands, the highest advising counsel to the government WRR has given research into identity a top priority. Prof. dr. Pauline Meurs is one of the members of the Wetenschappelijke Raad voor Regeringsbeleid (WRR) and is currently setting up a new research programme on the formation of identity in a pluriform society. However, more visible elements of the subtopic can be found in Amsterdam. There, the government has given top priority to the integration of (cultural and ethnic) minorities in local society. This is a departure from traditional multiculturalist policies. Moreover, it asserts the transnationalist claim that migrants could consider both nations they belong to as equally important as a problem. Amsterdam policies are aimed at making migrants fully committed to the Dutch society.
On this day, we could have a short overview on where the immigrants come from and what has been done by the government to deal with the situation (the 1989 raamnota gemeentelijk minderhedenbeleid and the 1999 de kracht van een diverse stad, what has been done since then, especially since the murder of Theo van Gogh).
Day three : The nation state
Today, the conference will analyse how nation states respond to the pressures that are being put upon them by the processes described in the two days before. In a globalizing world, one might expect that the notion of sovereign nation states is being put under pressure. Nevertheless, many scholars point at the nationalist reactions processes of globalization seem to trigger. Even globalization itself is often described from the nation states' point of view. Problems on migration issues or supranational institutions for example, are discussed within a national discourse.
It might be a good idea to take the Netherlands as leading subject for the day. What does citizenship mean to this country? Do we feel ourselves Dutch, European or even citizens of this planet? Furthermore, what role do our institutions play in our nationalist sentiments?
Are nation-states nothing more than an anachronism? Or, otherwise, how can they hold up with this situation?
Sources
Bloemraat, I. "Who claims dual citizenship? The limits of postnationalism, the possibilities of transnationalism, and the persistence of traditional citizenship," in: International Migration Review (38) (2), pp 389-426 (2004).
Guarnizo & Smith (1998) 'The locations of transnationalism'. In: Idem (Ed.), Transnationalism from below, 3-34. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Huntington, S.P. (2004). Who are we? The challlenges to America's national identity. New York: Simon & Schuster.
