lunedì 29 dicembre 2014

Going Home? ‘European’ Citizenship Practice Twenty Years after


Antje Wiener 


University of Hamburg

December 4, 2014

in: Dimitry Kochenov, ed, 2015, EU Citizenship and Federalism: The Role of Rights, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming 

Abstract:      
Where do European citizens eventually turn to go home at the end of the day? Does it matter whether they feel that they belong, or whether they actually know what is ‘theirs’? This chapter argues that there is a considerable distance to be covered between formally stipulating citizenship on the one hand, and practically ‘owning’ citizenship, on the other. As the literature on norms research has demonstrated, the formal validity of a norm offers little guidance as to its social recognition, let alone its cultural validation. Yet, it is the latter normative segments, which matter with regard to whether or not a norm is accepted, understood and hence complied with. The contestations in the proceedings of the European Court of Justice’s ruling in the Rottmann case demonstrate quite clearly that their quite detailed and extensive elaborations about the European normative order with its fundamental norms and standardised procedures, they remain largely confined to a legal environment. Meanwhile, the larger question about where European citizens are to turn at the end of the day, and under which conditions, is not as straightforward as the literature on citizenship in the context of modern state-building would suggest.

As citizenship practice unfolds, stateness – defined as the sovereign competence to initiate and control constitutionally defined borders and comply with sovereign obligations – is challenged. Given the widening gap between two distinctly different perceptions of ‘European’ citizenship as constitutive for a new normative order of the Euro-polity, on the one hand, and as an apparently rather elusive concept that comes mainly down to carrying a burgundy coloured passport, on the other, this chapter addresses the effect of these changes on the re-constitution of normativity as the constitutional ‘home’ of European citizens. It is argued that at a time – some twenty years after Maastricht – when the fragmentation of citizenship rights has not only generated confusion among citizens but also with lawyers, the onus is on social scientists to bring the theoretical tools to bear which have been developed in order to generate a better understanding of citizenship and state-building. To that end, the following recalls the continuity of citizenship practice with reference to the two packages of ‘special rights’ and ‘passport policy’ and how they have contributed to the social construction of normativity.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 25

Keywords: European citizenship, norms, citizenship practice, rights, acquis communautaire, special rights, passport, TH Marshall

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