Citizenship

Learning to be a citizen through policy analysis and protest

Karin Doolan
student protests Zagreb

The legacy of the student protests in Croatia is multi-faceted. On a societal level, they were the first protests to bring into question the country’s contemporary economic and political order from a radical Left perspective, invoking Marxist vocabulary in the process. In the educational field, they were the first to exercise a critical reading of educational policies by locating them in the broader neoliberal context and critiquing them from a human rights and social justice standpoint. They were successful in terms of influencing tuition fee policy, innovative in terms of their organisational creativity, which included gathering in assemblies and exercising direct democracy principles, and using social network websites for mobilising. They provided a spontaneous site for citizenship education and they had a biographical impact on certain student protesters who became committed to activism. 

 “We are students not customers”, “This is not a production line”, “Education is not for sale”, “Education is a right not a privilege” and “Save schools not banks” are some of the slogans expressed in the wave of student protests that swept across the globe from California and Austria in 2009 to Chile and Canada in 2012.

‘What is the problem here?’ - The new non-wave of EU immigration

Ani-immigration wave

What has been conspicuously lacking in most of the ‘debate’ around the issue is the fact that member states are seeking to evade or fudge their legal responsibilities, as well as a more principled debate about what being an EU member state should mean on an ideological level. 

Switzerland’s announcement earlier this week that it will impose a quota on immigration was greeted with dismay by France, Germany and other EU members.

‘What happens after the square’s empty?’- An interview with Costas Douzinas

empty square

So the question as far as I'm concerned is that lots of people have now in a sense rejected that older type of social organisation, the social contract that you were talking about based on debt and consumption. And the reason I think a widespread demand for different ways of relating to others, relating to the community and dealing with power. So I'm optimistic about that. It seems to me you’d expect that whether or not the left in other parts of the world win elections, I think we've moved perhaps away from the model of the 1990s and the 2000s and a greater sense of community, of going back to certain common values and virtues and idea of the good, the public good, of the Commons, has returned. This is extremely hopeful. 

Costas Douzinas is Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London. He is well known for his work in Human Rights, Aesthetics, Postmodern Legal Theory and Political Philosophy.

Fifty shades of racism, or the inclusion of Romani minorities in Europe

Julija Sardelić
50 shades of racism

Framing the position of Romani minorities in terms of social exclusion usually remains undisputed. It is also not questioned that social exclusion sometimes alludes that Romani minorities are themselves to blame for their position and now the wider society as their saviours has to work out how to integrate them.  

In 1613, Miguel de Cervantes published Novelas Ejemplares, a collection of short stories. The first of these was entitled La Gitanilla or The Little Gypsy Girl. This story presented a narrative about a girl named Preciosa, who lived with the Gypsies and was considered to be the most beautiful among them.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet? - The Role of the Writer as an Engaged Citizen

Nick Holdstock
Writers and political engagement

I can’t pretend that the aesthetic dimension of a writer’s work isn’t the most important thing, nor that being a writer and an activist are the same kinds of role. But if we don’t want to influence people’s thoughts and beliefs, why do we bother to write? Isn’t there always a degree of didacticism? I don’t think it’s superfluous or redundant to pose that old question: what is literature for?

Recently I have been wondering whether writers should care about suffering.  I ask this neither flippantly, nor as some existential query: what I want to know is whether writers — by which I mean fiction writers; I doubt the kinds who don’t make up their worlds have much choice in the matter — should be trying harder to engage with global events.

Is being ‘Scottish’ a matter of birth, descent or residence?

Professor Jo Shaw
scotish citizenship

If Scotland votes yes next year, then the Scots will have to decide who they are - who gets to be a Scottish citizen? And can they still be a British citizen too? And if so, does that mean London gets a say? Jo Shaw explains...

This piece originally appeared in Open Democracy digital commons. 

LGBT rights and EU accession process in Southeast Europe

Katja Kahlina
LGBT YU

As the case of on-going transformations of sexual citizenship in post-Yugoslav space shows, globalization and EU-isation open up a space for introducing positive practices related to sexual citizenship into the local contexts. However, as this case also reveals, the improvement of citizenship policies may easily be instrumentalised by different actors involved at the national and international arenas. Thus, more attention should be paid to the ways in which LGBT rights intersect with other discourses and relations of power on the global and local levels.

This is an extended summary of a longer paper that was originally published in the CITSEE working paper series and is available for download here.

When counting counts. The Bosnian Census

Florian Bieber
Bosnian census

Nobody knows how many people live in Bosnia. The numbers given suggest around 3.8 million, but these are at best estimates. As a result, one does not really know that GDP per capita and other crucial data cannot be determined without the population size. In addition, the specific numbers across the country might correct some misconceptions. Generally speaking, one would except a trend in urbanisation as a result of the war and the post-war period as poor rural areas have been abandoned. Yet the cities might have not grown as much as some expect. 

This piece originally appeared in the authors personal blog.

‘Perceived Co-Ethnics’ and Kin-State Citizenship in Southeastern Europe

Dejan Stjepanović
perceived co-ethnics

In my terms, ‘perceived co-ethnics’ are defined as people who are recognised by the citizenship (or ethnizenship) conferring state as belonging to its main ethnic group although they themselves not only do not embrace that definition but have a distinct national project of their own. In other words, this imagined political community is seeking recognition in its own right under a different name and with different claims from that of the self-fashioned kin-state. However, the self-fashioned kin-state offers citizenship to them.

This is an extended summary of a longer paper that was originally published in the CITSEE working paper series and is available for download here.

CITSEE: 8 new working papers on various aspects of citizenship in Southeast Europe

CITSEE Working Papers

This brings the number of working papers produced so far by CITSEE researchers and associated scholars to 33, and shows our increased focus on thematic and comparative studies

The CITSEE team is pleased to announce the publication of eight new papers in its Working Paper Series on citizenship regimes in post-Yugoslav states.

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