TY - JOUR

T1 - Citizenship and European integration

AU - Lemke, C.

PY - 1998

Y1 - 1998

N2 - In this article, I propose to reconceptualize European citizenship as a complex, multilayered concept. It is neither the compilation of previously existing rights, duties, and benefits granted by individual member states, nor is it the policial application of European community rights derived from a common European 'state' and a common identity. Rather, as Elizabeth meehan has observed, a new kind of citizenship is emerging 'that is neither national nor cosmopolitan but that is multiple in the sense that the identities, rights and obligations associated... with citizenship, are expressed through an increasingly complex configuration of common community institutions, states, national and transnational voluntary associations, regions and alliances of regions'. Recent scholarship has attempted to chart these new configurations of European citizenship, but with preliminary and unclear results. Whether the acceptance of plural conceptions of citizenship within the Union is a solution to this complex issue is debatable (preuss and Everson 1996). When we place the process of European integration into a broader context of sociopolitical change in postwar Europe, a dynamic institutionalist approach seems to be most appropriate to delineate the changes in the relationships among citizens, member states, and the European Union. Identities, rights, and political participation are key demensions in the process of conceptualizing European citizenship. How they are defined is a matter of institutional development and political practice.

AB - In this article, I propose to reconceptualize European citizenship as a complex, multilayered concept. It is neither the compilation of previously existing rights, duties, and benefits granted by individual member states, nor is it the policial application of European community rights derived from a common European 'state' and a common identity. Rather, as Elizabeth meehan has observed, a new kind of citizenship is emerging 'that is neither national nor cosmopolitan but that is multiple in the sense that the identities, rights and obligations associated... with citizenship, are expressed through an increasingly complex configuration of common community institutions, states, national and transnational voluntary associations, regions and alliances of regions'. Recent scholarship has attempted to chart these new configurations of European citizenship, but with preliminary and unclear results. Whether the acceptance of plural conceptions of citizenship within the Union is a solution to this complex issue is debatable (preuss and Everson 1996). When we place the process of European integration into a broader context of sociopolitical change in postwar Europe, a dynamic institutionalist approach seems to be most appropriate to delineate the changes in the relationships among citizens, member states, and the European Union. Identities, rights, and political participation are key demensions in the process of conceptualizing European citizenship. How they are defined is a matter of institutional development and political practice.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0031680689&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:0031680689

VL - 160

SP - 212

EP - 217

JO - World Affairs

JF - World Affairs

SN - 0043-8200

IS - 4

ER -