Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Lynn Dobson lectures in Political Theory and EU/International Politics at the University of Edinburgh<p>The book makes an original contribution to the treatment of EU democracy and citizenship through close and rigorous theoretical argument. It also suggests how supranational forms of citizenship – such as that of the EU – might inspire rethinking of moral and political agency in other contexts and polities.<br />UACES Best Book Award, Judges comments</p>
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Can we conceptualise a kind of citizenship that need not be of a nation-state, but might be of a variety of political frameworks? Bringing together political theory with debates about European integration, international relations and the changing nature of citizenship, this book, available at last in paperback, offers a coherent and innovative theorisation of a citizenship independent of any specific form of political organisation. It relates that conception of citizenship to topical issues of the European Union: democracy and legitimate authority; non-national political community; and the nature of the supranational constitution.
The author argues that citizenship should no longer be seen as a status of privileged membership, but instead as an institutional role enabling individuals’ capacities to shape the context of their lives and promote the freedom and well-being of others. In doing so, she draws on and develops ideas found in the work of the philosopher Alan Gewirth.
Introduction
Part I
1. Citizenship, part I: membership, privilege, and place
2. Citizenship, part II: status, identity, and role
3. Citizenship of the European Union
Part II
4. Gewirth: action and agency
5. Political agency
6. Nexus, framework: constituting authority
7. Agency, authorisation and representation in the EU
Part III
8. Gewirth: community, rights, values
9. Mutual recognition in the supranational polity
10. The good supranational constitution
Conclusion
Can we conceive of a citizenship that could, in principle, be relevant to a variety of types of political framework? This book, available at last in paperback, offers a coherent and innovative conception of citizenship that is independent of any specific form of political organisation, and discusses topical issues of European Union – democracy and authority, political community and identity, the supranational constitution – in the light of it.
Bringing political theory together with debates in international relations and in citizenship studies, the author argues that citizenship should no longer be understood as a status of privilege and belonging. Instead, it is an institutional role, through which persons might exercise their political agency – their capacities to shape the contexts of their lives and promote the freedom and well-being of themselves and others. In advancing this conception of citizenship, Dobson draws on and develops ideas found in the work of the philosopher Alan Gewirth.
Supranational citizenship will be principally of interest to researchers in the fields of European integration, international normative theory, political and moral philosophy, and citizenship.