08 June 2020
“Passport Trade”: A Vicious Cycle of Nonsense in the Netherlands
“How can you justify the fact that your work was translated into Russian? This goes against the claim that you engage in academic work. Is Russian not the language of billionaires interested in getting another citizenship?” Following the persistent repetition of this question by a four-person independent investigation committee installed by my home University, my lawyer, seeing that I have no words – indeed, am unable to speak – asks for a break and leads me out of the room. We sit on the steps in front of the beautiful Academy building. This is Groningen, January 2020, I am a Dutch professor of European Constitutional Law and Citizenship here and Russian is my mother tongue. Continue reading >>
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28 February 2020
The Constitutional Status of Indigenous Australians
In two recent judgments, the apex Australian court, the High Court, decided what intuitively seems obvious: that Aboriginal Australians, as that term is understood in Australian law, cannot be deported from Australia. The case exposed several fault lines that run through Australian law. Continue reading >>
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24 January 2020
From De Facto Urban Citizenship to Open Borders
I will take Rainer Bauböck's closing words as my point of departure and offer an answer that is less predictive and normative, and more empirical. I agree with his assertion that we need a robust urban citizenship. I would suggest that we already have some important examples of urban citizenship that challenge and complement national citizenship in crucial ways and it is important to shine a light on those examples to chart a course forward. Continue reading >>
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23 January 2020
‘Zombie Urbanism’ and the Search for New Sources of Solidarity
How can ‘staged urbanism’ provide spaces of urban citizenship? Under what conditions can urban citizenship “contribute to overall democratic integration within and beyond nation-states”? Continue reading >>
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22 January 2020
What’s the Added Value of Legalising City-zenship?
Josephine van Zeben's response to Bauböck’s reflections on urban citizenship considers some legal implications of the postnational view that Bauböck finds most promising. Specifically, it questions how suited citizenship is – as a legal instrument – for accommodating the concerns raised in Bauböck’s contribution. Continue reading >>
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21 January 2020
Urban Citizenship Threatens Democratic Equality
It seems urgent that “urban citizenship” is properly characterised to understand not only the rights and responsibilities citizens of cities may well have, but also their grounding. I have no quarrel with this project. However, so far, accounts of urban citizenship – like Rainer Bauböck’s in the piece that launched this forum – do too little to consider the citizenship that is “left over” for those who do not, or cannot, move to cities. Continue reading >>
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21 January 2020
City-zenship and national citizenship: complementary and competing but not emancipated from each other
Nir Barak deepens the ambivalence in Rainer Bauböck’s account of urban citizenship and suggests a skeptical but friendly critique towards notions of emancipating urban citizenship from nationality. The relationship between urban and national citizenship should not be seen as mutually exclusive; claims for enhancing city-zenship and decentralizing state power are warranted only insofar as they provide forward-thinking urban response to the decline in democratic participation and civic solidarity at national levels. Continue reading >>
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20 January 2020
Thinking Like a City, Thinking Like a State
The city is not only a "densely populated area of continuous settlement, which is organized as a single jurisdiction" (an often used formal definition of a city); the city is also a state of mind, a certain political and social consciousness. Continue reading >>
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20 January 2020
Cities vs States: Should Urban Citizenship be Emancipated from Nationality?
Since the first decade of the millennium – for the first time in human history – more people are living in urban areas than in rural ones. According to UN projections, in 2050 the share of urban populations could rise to more than two thirds of the world population. Will this demographic change also lead to a decline of nation-states and a rise of cities as the dominant arenas of politics, democracy and citizenship? Continue reading >>
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21 July 2019