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Citizenship, Migration and Identity in Europe

This conference intends to explore how migration may be changing the way we understand citizenship in Europe. The development of EU citizenship and post national theories of citizenship suggest that there is a decoupling of rights from identity. Large scale migration can be seen as contributing to this trend. At the same time there may be counter trends. Heightened concerns about security may mitigate against conceiving of citizenship in post national terms and prompt a (re)assertion of traditional ways of thinking about national identity, citizenship and rights.

Participants include: Richard Bellamy (UCL); David Chandler (University of Westminster); Thomas Diez (University of Birmingham); Eleonore Kofman (Middlesex University)

 For further details and a booking form see: www.surrey.ac.uk/politics/uaces-2007.htm

Contact: Michael Lister (m.lister@surrey.ac.uk) and Chris Flood (c.flood@surrey.ac.uk)

Conference Report: Citizenship, Migration and Identity in Europe

The conference was attended by around 40 speakers and guests from across the UK and Europe who gathered to hear and present a range of papers which explored how our conception and understanding of citizenship in Europe may be changing.  The development of EU citizenship and post national theories of citizenship suggest that there is a decoupling of rights from identity. Large scale migration can be seen as contributing to this trend. At the same time there may be counter trends. Heightened concerns about security may mitigate against conceiving of citizenship in post national terms and prompt a (re)assertion of traditional ways of thinking about national identity, citizenship and rights.  The conference was divided into three panels, two of which broadly examined questions concerning Citizenship, Rights and Identity in Europe, and the final panel which examined Security, Migration and Citizenship, and the effect that contemporary debates about security had upon citizenship.

In the first panel of the day, two papers laid out the broad themes of the conference, which were, in different and interesting ways, returned to throughout the conference.  Richard Bellamy, from University College London, in his paper ‘The Values of Citizenship: Belonging, Rights and Participation within the EU’ explored the value and preconditions of citizenship, and investigated if these are either necessary or possible in the EU context. He defined citizenship as a condition of civic equality that has both a liberal and a democratic aspect. These, he contended, are mutually supportive and the paper criticized attempts to uncouple the liberal from the democratic, or to see it as somehow a precondition for democracy. He then looked at challenges to the liberal democratic settlements of established democracies such as the Member States. The EU is often offered as a solution to those problems broadly associated with globalisation and the control of transnational processes and effects. However, he suggested that it also aggravates some of the difficulties these have created for citizenship.  This discussion and debate about EU citizenship was to be followed up in a number of different papers.

Eleonore Kofman, from Middlesex University, presented a paper entitled ‘Re-asserting the national: challenging cosmopolitan identities and transnational practices in Europe’.  In this, she pointed to the fact that cultural and social theories have in the past 20 years vaunted cosmopolitan and transnational identities, often in opposition to the fixed boundaries of the nation-state.  She noted that calls have been made for “partaking of new relational spaces of citizenship beyond the ‘tyranny of belonging to a ‘local community’ with shared interests” (Amin 2004).  In contrast, European states have increasingly stipulated obligations of citizenship and ways of belonging for both migrants and settled populations of migrant origin, and sought to foreclose more fluid and diasporic identities that transcend nation-states.  The paper examined the multiple ways in which many European states are seeking to reassert the primacy of a dominant identity around shared values and demand demonstrations of undivided loyalty and allegiance. Thus, she argued, the much celebrated dispositions of the privileged national (detachment from local communities, mobility, being at home anywhere, no fixed allegiance) are on the contrary treated with suspicion and hostility when demonstrated by minorities and migrants.

In the second session of the conference, these themes were developed further.  Jan Palmowski, from King’s College London, presented a paper entitled ‘Citizenship and the challenge of identity’, in which he adopted a historian's scepticism about the concept of identity. Without denying the problems related to the concept of citizenship, the paper asserted that citizenship is better able to formulate assertions of belonging and common identification than the nebulous concept of identity. It evaluated this proposition through recent debates in Germany about naturalization, arguing that debates about what it meant to be German only materialized fruitfully when attached to questions of integration and immigration. In this way, he suggested, feelings of European belonging might best be promoted through public debates about immigration as a European problem. 

The analysis of German debates about and conceptions of citizenship continued in Claire Sutherland’s (University of Manchester) paper, ‘Multicultural, Post-national or Constitutional? Twenty-first century German citizenship’.  In this, she argued that European Union (EU) citizenship can be considered an example of decoupling the

rights and status associated with citizenship from its importance as a badge of belonging to the nation, a feature the EU notoriously lacks.  In turn, the paper suggested, the Constitutional Treaty, with its incorporation of a Bill of Rights, can be seen as reinforcing that trend. In light of Germany's current  presidency of the EU and its attempt to revive the EU Constitution, she sought  to compare this approach to citizenship with Germany's own. The paper focussed on naturalisation as a litmus test of how to measure belonging and the values on which it is based.  She pointed out that the naturalisation process in Germany is the preserve of individual German Laender and is characterised by language and citizenship tests which differ widely across states.  Each is imbued with an ideology of citizenship as identity, which is likely to be premised on more or less multicultural, constitutional or nationally based understandings of what it means to be German.  The parameters of the language test, it was argued, however, suggest that despite recent reforms, all are far removed from a postnational form of citizenship according to the European model.

The role and status of EU citizenship was returned to in the paper by Tim Sinnamon and Theodore Konstadinides from the University of Surrey, ‘EU Citizenship: embracing adolescence and the prospects for adulthood’.  In this, they sought to examine the evolving concept of citizenship in the European Union from a practical legal perspective. The paper commenced with a brief analysis of the status quo and an assessment of the jurisprudential achievements since the Treaty of Maastricht (1994). Particular reference was  paid to the manner in which the orthodox legal framework of Article 39 EC has been extended to take into account the principle of citizenship as embodied in Article 18 EC and the broader resort that has been made to the principle of non-discrimination as enunciated in Article 12 EC. The paper then examined the extent to which the case law of the European Court of Justice can be seen to be positively influencing the development of citizenship.  Their analysis made particular reference to the provisions of the recently enacted Citizenship Directive, the position of third country nationals as compared with citizens from the ‘enlargement 12’, and finally it illustrates a number of contentious issues that will likely be the subject of challenges before the European Court of Justice. These included issues of identity documents, application of general principles of Community law to migrants and the substantive application of Directive 2004/38.  The paper concluded that in adolescence, the concept of citizenship has evolved meritously, yet it exhibits significant potential that needs to be exploited. In terms of embracing adulthood, they argued,  a number of fundamental issues need to be rationalised in the short term, before wider issues associated with “citizenship” can be attended to in the long-term.

The final panel of the day, after lunch, focussed on the impact that contemporary concerns with and debates about, security have on citizenship in Europe.  Thomas Diez, from the University of Birmingham, in his paper ‘Traditions of Citizenship and the Securitisation of Migration’ pointed out that It is often argued that European integration, globalisation and the increasing flow of migrants has changed citizenship practices in Europe. By looking at the cases of Germany and the UK, the paper took the opposite view and argued that established citizenship discourses still have an impact on policies regarding immigration. The starting point of the paper was the observation that migration has been securitised after 9-11 in different ways in the public discourses of the two countries: While in Germany, the traditional securitisation of a “politics of exception” prevailed, at least the parliamentary debate in the UK was much more focused on securitisation as the “politics of unease”. While there are some coincidental factors that play a role in accounting for this difference, it was argued that different citizenship traditions lead to different conceptions of who counts as “foreign”, and therefore have imposed different constraints on the debate on a public policy level, while the same cannot be said about the broader public discourse.

Emily Pia’s (University of Birmingham) paper, ‘The Migrant and the Political: De-securitisation and Hospitality’ sought to open up political space and discourse for the de-securitisation of migration.  The paper presented an examination of the political implications of Derrida’s concept of hospitality in relation to migration. It began by examining the tragic and aporetic experience of hospitality in both politics and ethics.  The paper then went on to  present the subject of decision and responsibility within desecuritised discourses of migration, which could transform the political realm by keeping it open and welcoming for the other.

Daniel Wunderlich, from the University of Sheffield, in his paper, ‘Patterns of Securitisation and Europeanisation in News Coverage on Immigration: empirical findings, theoretical clarifications’ attempted to trace patterns of securitisation empirically via framing analysis of media coverage. In a comparative approach, the reportage on the mass attempts to enter Ceuta and Melilla in the late summer of 2005 was analysed in Spanish, British and French broadsheets. Through the means of framing and claims analysis, this examined if Europeanised patterns are discernible. The central argument was that while securitisation occurred, it largely depended on the institutional context in which the discourse was situated. Spanish party politics securitised immigration in their struggles over electoral popularity. Immigration herein becomes linked to stigmatised actors, in this case Spain’s traditional other, Morocco. While patterns of Europeanisation are discernible, it was argued that a shared system of meaning is not spread evenly among the different public spheres; rather geographical proximity and organisational concern play an important role. Though further clarification is needed on this point, it was suggested that it becomes clear that the EU has established itself as a common frame of reference as well as a claims maker, forum and addressee alongside national governments in the area of migration policy.  The paper argued that a similar hierarchy of security dimensions was transnationally discernible and that the overall impression is that although securitisation occurred in the news coverage of the events, it was not as complex and multi-faceted as the theory suggests.  The paper concluded that although the qualitative stand of frame analysis is a helpful device in this quest, it becomes apparent that it needs a firm methodological base and to be complemented with contextual information.

Last Modified: Friday, 11 May 2007
idD410633  +07 September 2006  ©UACES 2006