International Sociology 1999 Cohen 245 68

8/3/2019 International Sociology 1999 Cohen 245 68

1/25

http://iss.sagepub.com/ Internat ional So ciology

http://iss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/245The online version of this article can be foun d at:

DOI: 10.1177/02685809990140030021999 14: 245International Sociology

Jean L. CohenChanging Paradigms of Citizenship and the Exclusiveness of the Demos

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

International Sociological Association

can be found at:International Sociology Additional services and information for

http://iss.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://iss.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://iss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/245.refs.htmlCitations:

What is This?

- Sep 1, 1999Version of Record>>

at UCLA on January 9, 2012iss.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://iss.sagepub.com/http://iss.sagepub.com/http://iss.sagepub.com/http://iss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/245http://iss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/245http://iss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/245http://www.sagepublications.com/http://www.sagepublications.com/http://www.isa-sociology.org/http://www.isa-sociology.org/http://iss.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://iss.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://iss.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://iss.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://iss.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://iss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/245.refs.htmlhttp://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://iss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/245.full.pdfhttp://iss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/245.full.pdfhttp://iss.sagepub.com/http://iss.sagepub.com/http://iss.sagepub.com/http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://iss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/245.full.pdfhttp://iss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/245.refs.htmlhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://iss.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://iss.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://www.isa-sociology.org/http://www.sagepublications.com/http://iss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/245http://iss.sagepub.com/


2/25from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.


Changing Paradigms of Citizenshipand the Exclusiveness of the Demos

Jean L. CohenColumbia University

abstract: Three distinct components of the citizenshipprinciple have been identified in the literature: a politicalprinciple of democracy, a juridical status of legal personhood and a form of membership an d political identity. Themodern parad igm of citizenship was based on the assump

tion that these components would neatly ma p onto oneanother on the terrain of the democratic welfare state.Globalization, ne w forms of transnational migration, thepartial disaggregation of state sovereignty an d the development of human rights regimes have rendered this modelanachronistic. Only i f the various elements of the citizenshipprinciple are disaggregated an d reinstitutionalized on independent levels of governance, some national, some supranational, will the exclusiveness constitutive of the ideal ofcitizenship be tempered with the demands of justice.

keywords: citizenship + democracy + disaggregation +identity + membership + rights

Due to the impact of 'globalization' the relationship between democracy,identity and justice is being vigorously debated these days. 'Globalization'involves a major intensification of transnational economic exchanges and

competition, of communications, of migration and of social and culturalinteractions, all made possible by key technological advances (Falk, 1992;Held, 1995; Ruggie, 1993; Sassen, 1996).

These processes facilitate fantastic technical and social creativity.However, they also have side effects that transcend borders an d which canbe very destructive i f uncontrolled: just think of the ecological issues orthe ne w forms of inequality generated by the intensely competitive globalized market.

International Sociology+ September 1999 + Vol14(3): 245-268SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks, CA an d Ne w Delhi)[0268-5809(199909)14:3;245-268;009947]

245
http://iss.sagepub.com/http://iss.sagepub.com/http://iss.sagepub.com/http://iss.sagepub.com/


3/25


International Sociology Vol. 14 No. 3

Recently doubts have emerged about the ability of democratic nationstates to control developments directly affecting their citizens' lives. Bothfrom the point of view of efficacy and moral legitimacy the nation-state isnow considered by many to be obsolete (Archibugi and Held, 1995; Held,1995; Soysal, 1994). That the revival of liberal cosmopolitanism focused onfostering international principles of justice (human rights) and global institutions able to back them up is hardly surprising in such a context (Ferrajoli, 1996; Nussbaum, 1996; Pogge, 1994; Soysal, 1994; Waldron, 1995).

On the other side, identity politics have re-emerged in a number ofshapes generating both legitimate multicultural demands for the recognition of diversity, an d virulent forms of exclusionary nationalist movements. In response, democratic and republican political theorists try totheorize an inclusive 'civic' or constitutional patriotism that is distinctfrom 'ethnic' nationalism, based on democratic political principles and oriented toward the strengthening of egalitarian citizenship rights (Arendt,1973; Brubaker, 1992; Cohen, 1996; Viroli, 1995). Some focus on revisingcitizenship laws so that they become less exclusionary and on strengthening democracy in existing states (Habermas, 1995; Miller, 1995; Tamir,1993; Walzer, 1983). Others stress the need for democratic institutions tostructure the power of emergent regional polities such as the EuropeanUnion (Habermas, 1996b; Held, 1995; Poli, 1991; Preuss, 1996). In either

case, for democratic and republican political theorists, only a strong polityof the appropriate size can preserve democracy and social justice from thedisintegrative forces of globalization and from divisive, inegalitariannationalisms.

Thus the debate in recent political theory over the proper response toglobalization is increasingly being cast as a choice between liberal cosmopolitanism an d some form of democratic civic republicanism. The formerconsiders illiberal an d unjust the claims of any group, no matter how it isdefined, to the special membership rights and privileges attached to

citizenship in a particular polity. These allegedly violate the moral principle that posits the equal worth of all persons by elevating the good ofmembers of the demos above non-members. Accordingly they push anorientation toward the universal rights of individuals as persons, seekingto foster a more cosmopolitan conception of political life (Bader, 1995;Ferrajoli, 1996; Pogge, 1992; O'Neill, 1996).

The civic republican an d committed democrat, on the other hand, arguethat democracy and participation are intrinsically valuable, and shouldplay the most important role in specifying, justifying and protecting citizens' rights. Democracy involves the sovereign self-determination of apeople, and the will to act in its name and to make sacrifices for its sake.I t requires a demos, a 'we' to which individual citizens feel they belong,in whose deliberations they have voice, and toward which they can

246


4/25


Cohen Changing Paradigms of Citizenship

accordingly feel a sense of shared fate and solidarity. If , however, the collective identity of the demos is understood in civic and political rather than

ethnic and cultural terms, it can, so the republican or democratic theoristargues, be open and egalitarian and, hence, neither exclusionary norunjust (Arendt, 1973; Habermas, 1995; Miller, 1995; Viroli, 1995).

I want to challenge the terms of this debate as well as the political andinstitutional choices it delineates. I argue that it is based on a lack of analytical clarity regarding the concept of citizenship and a questionable coreassumption that both sides share, even i f they evaluate it differently: thatthe various dimensions of the citizenship principle must be aggregatedinto a uniform bundle of rights and protected by the same politicalinstance: the national state. I t is this assumption that in my view generatesa set of false alternatives in the face of what can only be described todayas the decomposition of the paradigmatic conception of citizenship thathas been hegemonic in the West ever since the democratic revolutions ofthe 18th century.

The mutual criticisms leveled by advocates of each position often hittheir mark. I t is certainly easy to point out the abstractness of cosmopolitanindividualism, its failure to take particular identities (political and cultural), contexts an d traditions into account, as well as its quixotic effort toconjure away the discreteness of the political and to replace it with universalistic juridical relations based on the most abstract identity of all:humanity (Arendt, 1973; Cohen, 1996). Republican and democratictheorists are right to insist that 'humanity', even i f positivized into 'legalpersonhood', is too thin an identity to motivate much mobilization, participation or solidarity on its behalf. They are also right to insist that democratic political institutions and active citizenship are indispensable fordetermining the common good an d for protecting liberty, both public andprivate. The reciprocal illusions of civic republicanism are less obvious, andI come back to them later, but certainly they include a peculiar naivete vis

a-vis the exclusiveness, particularism an d arbitrariness that are usually atwork when sovereign states or sovereign citizens delimit membership inthe demos and articulate the special rights of citizens.

Our choice is no t between liberal universalism that is focused on humanrights and the rule of law US democracy construed as the sovereign selfdetermination of a people whose representatives have exclusive rule overall the affairs an d inhabitants of a territory. This old antinomy betweenrights and democracy (reminiscent of Carl Schmitt) re-emerges todaybecause theorists fail to adequately analyze the citizenship principle and

to transcend core assumptions of a no w anachronistic paradigm. Thusneither approach is able to discern what I consider to be exciting possibilities for a ne w paradigm of citizenship and new political forms oforganization.

247


5/25



Before turning to these, I first briefly present an analysis of the citizenship principle. I then discuss the classic synthesis and its limits. I concludeby suggesting some new combinations and directions for the future thatare made possible by the partial disaggregation of the various componentsof the citizenship principle - a salutary development in my view.

The Analytic of the Citizenship PrincipleThree distinct components of the citizenship principle have been identified in the literature: citizenship as a political principle of democracy thatinvolves participation in deliberating and decision-making by politicalequals for a body politic; citizenship as a juridical status of legal personhoodthat carries a set of legally specified rights including the all-importantability of the legal subject to sue in court and to claim the state's protection; and citizenship as a form of membership in an exclusive category thatforms the basis of a special tie and affords a social status and a pole ofidentification that can itself become a rather thick and important identityable to generate solidarity, civic virtue and engagement (Pocock, 1995;Marshall, 1964; Tilly, 1995; Walzer, 1983; Brubaker, 1992). Depending onwhether they are republican or democratic theorists for whom the activeparticipatory dimension is the most salient, liberals concerned with per

sonal rights an d matters of justice, or communitarian theorists for whomthe dimension of collective identity and solidarity matters most, politicaltheorists have focused on (and often hypostatized) one or another component when conceptualizing citizenship.

Analytic clarity about what each component logically entails facilitatesinsight into how an historically dominant paradigm of citizenship synthesizes them and at what cost. I t is my thesis that the components of thecitizenship principle can and do come into conflict, and that every historical synthesis entails a set of political choices and tradeoffs that tend to

be forgotten once a conception becomes hegemonic. Since I also believethat we are experiencing the decomposition of the modem paradigm ofcitizenship and a ne w set of choices, it is worth the effort to become reflexive about the logic of each dimension and the nature of the now decomposing modem paradigm.

Citizenship as a political principle of self-rule by a demos was first articulated by Aristotle and has been embraced in some form by all modemrepublican theorists (Aristotle, 1981; Pocock, 1995). In this approachcitizenship is construed as an activity that involves participation in rulingand being ruled by equals who have uniform political status and rights.The citizen exercises his or her voice in the public sphere, participates indeliberations and decision-making about common concerns, an d considers the common good as well as particular interests. Citizens are

248


6/25



directly or through their elected representatives the authors of the lawsand procedures of decision-making by which they are bound (Petit, 1997).

This strong democratic conception of citizenship puts political equalityand participation at its center, but it is also particularizing and exclusionary. Indeed, it has always been associated with certain prerequisites formembership that exclude important segments of the population. I t hasalso entailed the rule of citizen peers not only over one another, but alsoover non-citizens. In short, in the republican conception, the competentexercise of public autonomy requires a unique set of capacities which,until very recently, meant that only some could become equals. We allknow that in the classical ideal, the citizen had to be male, of knowngenealogy, propertied, the head of a household and able and willing to

take up arms (Pocock, 1995). Even i f today the prerequisites for the democratic and/ or republican conception of citizenship have changed, nodemocracy is completely free of them (Pocock, 1995). The circle of peopleendowed with full participation rights ha s everywhere remained narrower than the class of persons subject to the law (Neuman, 1996). Thequestion that must be faced, then, is whether or not exclusion is constitutive of the very ideal of democratic citizenship.

Modem struggles for inclusion in the category have reconfigured theideal of citizenship by drawing on a juridical conception derived from

Roman law (Pocock, 1995). The citizen in this approach is not a politicalactor but a legal person free to act by law and expect the law's protection.The focus of the juridical reconceptualization of citizenship is legal standing and personal rights: the citizen can su e in court and invoke a law thatgrants him rights. This does not entail having a hand in making the law.Nor does it require uniformity of rights among the citizenry.

The juridical dimension of the citizenship principle is thus universalizing, elastic and potentially inclusive: it is no t tied to a particular collectiveidentity, or membership in a demos, it can go well with a plurality ofdifferent statuses, an d it need not be territorially bound. The universalisminherent in the juridical model of citizenship as legal personhood is opento the politics of inclusion, and it is on this basis that transnational orglobal citizenship is at least conceivable. Indeed, once the juridical modelof citizenship is taken up by liberals in the modem era it gets equated withthe practice of claiming and asserting rights, logically open to all. The pushtoward the global positivization of human rights is an example of thistrend.

However, when dominant, the juridical model seems to be depoliticizing and desolidarizing. I t undermines the will to political participation, aswell as the strong identification with a particular republic and the socialsolidarity that the democratic/ republican conception deemed so desirable(Miller, 1995).

249


7/25


International Sociology Vol. 14 No.3

Apparently the juridical and democratic components of the citizenshipprinciple are in tension: the former universalizing and inclusive but apolitical an d individualistic, the latter political, internally egalitarian an duniform but externally exclusive an d particularizing. Certainly the democratic dimension coheres well with the membership component of thecitizenship principle, for it seems to presuppose and to foster a commonidentity of the demos that is engaged in self-rule: as differentiated andbounded. But citizenship as membership, however it is acquired, is, asBrubaker (1992) correctly points out, a mechanism of social closure.

I t is obvious that the membership dimension of the citizenship principleis exclusionary. From this perspective, citizenship forms a special tie anda specific identity: it includes some while excluding others and it is alwaysbased on particularistic considerations regarding access to membership.Indeed citizenship itself is a special and privileged status of membershipin a socially esteemed category. I t is desirable apart from any democraticconsiderations regarding the intrinsic value of participation in deliberations or the instrumental value of the vote. Judith Shklar has understoodwell the status dimension of the membership/identity component of thecitizenship principle. In her analysis, citizenship confers social standing-higher social status - on those allowed into the exclusive circle vis-a-visthose outside (Shklar, 1995). Indeed, she argues that the desire for status

and honor attached to the citizenship principle (and no t for voice orliberty) is the major motivation driving struggles for inclusion on the partof those categories of the population that have been denied full citizenshipstatus (Shklar, 1995: 27-62). The desire for social esteem as distinct fromthe intrinsic or instrumental value of voice is also what seems to drivemulticulturalist demands for recognition in the contemporary context(Honneth, 1995: 92-130; Taylor, 1992).

The membership component of the citizenship principle is thus particularistic, exclusionary and exclusive. This is hardly news. But my point is to

indicate that there is an 'elective affinity' between a strong democraticstress on citizenship as the self-rule of a sovereign demos (which presupposes membership) and a communitarian stress on belonging and identity, as Michael Walzer (1983) noticed long ago. Both involve a privilegedstatus vis-a-vis the non-citizen. We cannot ignore this logic or Wahlver-wandtschaft. Nor must we follow the democratic communitarian (Walzer)or liberal nationalist (Hollinger, Lind, Miller, Tamir) and conclude thatdemocratic citizenship requires a thick, shared, homogeneous, nationalcultural tradition that is given, no t chosen (Hollinger, 1995; Lind, 1995;Miller, 1995; Tamir, 1993; Walzer, 1983). For democratic communitariansfocused on membership, this is necessary to motivate the commitment andengagement that make democracy work an d to generate the solidaritynecessary for civic virtue. The exclusiveness of the demos is not their

250


8/25



worry. I, on the contrary, argue that the exclusionary thrust of the democratic component of the citizenship principle can and should be tempered,i f articulated and institutionalized in the proper way: that is, i f it is decoupled from the premises of exclusive territoriality and absolute sovereignty of the political body that confers citizenship and informed by theuniversalistic principles of justice. For only under such conditions can thetension between democracy and justice be lessened, although I do notbelieve it can ever be entirely abolished.

The Modem Synthesis and its Limits

The democratic constitutional nation-state synthesized the three elementsof the citizenship principle in a particularly successful way. T.H. Marshall(1964) provides the classic articulation of the hegemonic paradigm formodernity. Marshall defined citizenship as a personal legal status that isbestowed on full members of a political community and endows themwith a set of common rights and duties. This conception foregrounds thejuridical component but links it to the principle of equality. Although it isa juridical status of personal freedom and legal standing, citizenship in themodem state involves uniform and equal rights that all members have incommon. As such, modem citizenship is inclusive, universalizing andegalitarian and uniform. This is partly why democratic citizenship inliberal juridical terrain has important effects on social identities and amajor role to play in social integration.

I t is also well known that Marshall offers an evolutionary scheme for thedevelopment of national citizenship whereby the emergence of the threesets of rights - civil, political and social - he sees associated with fullcitizenship is presented as a story of geographic fusion (a shift from localto national levels of belonging) and functional separation among the categories of rights. The trajectory involves the enrichment of the status of

rights-bearing citizens (expansion of the civil rights of personhood) an d afuller measure of equality for all those subject to the law (the granting ofpolitical rights to ever more categories of the population) (Marshall, 1964).Yet equal citizenship also requires social rights not only to guarantee theworth of liberties to the working class but also as a mechanism of social inte-gration: to ensure that workers feel like full members of society wh o are ableto identify with the national community - as citizens. Indeed, the equality,uniformity and universality of the modem conception of citizenshiprequire that social protections take the form of universal rights of citizenship and no t group-differentiated benefits (Kymlicka and Norman, 1995).

In short, Marshall assumes that on the terrain of the liberal democraticconstitutional, national, territorial and, now, welfare state, the three components of the citizenship principle that I identified (the juridical status of

251


9/25



the legal person, the political status of the active citizen an d the dimension of the identity of the citizenry) would all map onto one another in acoherent and frictionless whole. Justice and the rule of law, the democraticdemand for voice and equal rights, and the communitarian concern forsolidarity and collective identity could come together on the terrain of thedemocratic welfare state provided that social rights of citizenship areacknowledged. This is the core of what I have called the modern paradigmof citizenship.

I t is this paradigmatic conception of citizenship that ha s lost its powerto convince today. But it always ha d a disturbing ambiguity that has nowbecome apparent: are the uniform equal rights and respect owed to everycitizen due to their individual status as legal persons or to their membership status as belonging to a particular political community? To put thisdifferently, is the legal recognition of the rights-bearing individual presumptively granted to all human beings on this model or only to the citizens of a particular state? Marshall's happy consciousness regardingcitizenship as a principle of inclusion and equality and his assumption thatthe components of the citizenship principle come together in a frictionlessway paper over this ambiguity. In fact, he never confronted it because hesimply assumed, like so many others, that the identity component of thecitizenship principle into which he hoped to integrate the working classthrough social rights was a given: the cultural identity of the demos construed as a nation.

I f we shift perspective away from the substantive rights of citizenship(Marshall's focus) to the formal dimension of membership things lookrather different. The background presupposition of the modern paradigmof citizenship is that citizenship involves membership in a sovereign, territorial nation-state within a system of states. The nation-state is not only aterritorial organization monopolizing legitimate rule within a boundedspace, it is also, as Brubaker rightly argues, a membership organization

(Brubaker, 1992). Citizenship in such a state is an instrument of socialclosure. I t always has an ascriptive dimension and it always establishesprivilege insofar as it endows members with particular rights denied tonon-members (today, primarily, the resident alien or foreigner). Thus, inthe modern system of states, the republican ideal of the self-determiningdemos merges with the sovereign state's interest in control over all thosein the territory through the construction of national citizenship as a formalcategory of membership. Exclusion and inequality, not inclusion, thusattach to citizenship seen as a membership principle (Brubaker, 1992).

To be sure, certain republican political theorists noted long ago the tendency of the nation-state to violate the egalitarian logic of constitutionaldemocracy by fostering inequality and exclusion vis-a-vis nationalminorities and aliens. Hannah Arendt (1973) argued that this danger is

252


10/25



intrinsic to the nation-state system. Because the nation-state equates thecitizen with the member of the nation it collapses a poli tical/legal categoryinto a category of identity an d perverts the egalitarian logic of the constitutional state by rendering those who are not members of the nationimplicitly into second-class citizens. On the republican account, theproblem lies in the reduction of the political principle of citizenship to asubstantive exclusionary conception of collective identity: nationality.Accordingly Arendt argued for disaggregating citizenship from ascriptivecriteria of national belonging (ethnic or cultural) and insisted that civil andpolitical rights of citizens should not be allocated on the pre-political basisof nationality. States should no t be nation-states but civic polities thatgrant citizenship on legal criteria (Arendt, 1973).

Every attempt to distinguish civic from ethnic nationalism, orcivic/ constitutional patriotism from nationalist communitarianism, relieson some form of this argument including contemporary theories of liberalnationalism (Brubaker, 1992; Habermas, 1995; Miller, 1995; Tamir, 1993;Viroli, 1995). The revival of this discourse in recent years is a response tothe resurgence of ethno-, racialized an d very illiberal or anti-democraticversions of nationalist/ cornrnunitarian identity politics. The fear that suchnationalisms undermine liberal an d democratic institutions motivatespolitical theorists to draw distinctions between good and pernicious forms

of political identity, an d between open and inclusive as opposed to essentialized and inegalitarian criteria of belonging and access to citizenship.

But we cannot leave the matter there. For there is another set of contradictions inherent in the nation-state system that Arendt noted, namely thetension between the rule of law and the concept of sovereignty regardlessof whether it is attributed to the nation, to the state or to the people (thedemos). Arendt understood that the attribution of exclusive territorialityand inviolable sovereignty to each nation-state over internal matters contributed to the willingness of states to deprive non-citizens of basic rights

and to threaten the rights of national minorities, even i f they were citizens.I t is the presumed sovereignty of the territorial nation-state, howeverdemocratic, that is at the heart of the ambiguity noted above, namelywhether the legal status of the rights-bearing individual is granted to allhuman beings or only to the citizens of a particular state.

Until quite recently the dilemma was resolved everywhere in the sameway: legal personhood was attached to citizenship status in a discretestate. Rights of non-citizens depended on the state's (as representative ofthe sovereign demos') will and on little else. Arendt and other democraticrepublican political theorists tried to reconcile the egalitarian universalistic principles they believed in with the discreteness an d exclusionary logicof democratic citizenship in the modern paradigm in two ways: first, byapplying universalism to the idea of citizenship as membership, such that

253


11/25



citizenship itself becomes the core human right: everyone born into a territorial state ha s the right to citizenship within it an d ought no t to bedeprived of it (Arendt, 1949). Second, democracy and the rule of law couldbe reconciled if , internally, the claim to unified sovereignty by the state(representing the demos) is resisted, disaggregated and controlledthrough a constitutionalism which establishes an d limits powers byguaranteeing rights, by creating an overall separation and balance ofpowers, and by creating counter-powers through erecting a federaliststructure. Constitutionalism of this sort would reconcile democratic selfrule of the demos, state power and the rule of law by denying the claimof absolute sovereignty (in the sense of legibus solutus) of 'the state' or anyof its particular organs (Arendt, 1963; Arato, 1995: 202-4.)

There are several theoretical and normative inadequacies with this solution. I address three of them. First, the assumption that the 'exclusivenessof the demos' is simply a function of rules of access to citizenship thatstress pre-political (ethno/cultural) instead of universalistic legal criteriais wrong. As I already indicated, i f the democratic component of thecitizenship principle is interpreted to entail self-rule by a self-determiningdemos (directly or through its representatives), an d i f this idea mergeswith the concept of the sovereign state that rules all the inhabitants of aterritory, then such a polity will be a nation-state, and the demos will

inevitably understand itself as a nation. Democratic citizenship in a stateentails a distinction between members and non-citizens, and it inevitablybecomes a pole of identity-formation and identification even in the mostliberal democratic constitutionally articulated states. The very ambiguityof the term 'national' implies as much: it is used both as a synonym for astate's citizenry (to be a French national is to be a French citizen) and, atthe very least, as a cultural category of collective identity. Even i f citizenship laws are open and 'civic', even i f civic patriotism is all that is legallyrequired of ne w and old citizens, even i f he identity of the nation is under-

stood as an amalgam and open to constant reinterpretation, nationalcitizenship tends to 'thicken' an d to take on a cultural connotation andidentity over time (Hollinger, 1995; Lind, 1995).

Democratic, republican citizenship understood in the above termsfosters this tendency, it does not limit it. Democratic self-rule does not andcannot exclude exclusion, because the political body in which it is institutionalized is inevitably particular (one among several) and because thedemos must be defined an d delimited. Who belongs to the demos cannotinitially be democratically established: it always involves an ascriptive,unchosen, ethical-political element no matter how liberal the criteria ofaccess for newcomers become (Whelan, 1983). In other words, the tensionnoted by Arendt between the political/ constitutional (potentially inclusive, egalitarian, and just) an d 'pre-political' (potentially exclusive and

254


12/25



unjust) conceptions of belonging exists within liberal constitutionaldemocracy, between the juridical and democratic components of the

citizenship principleand no t

only between liberal democratic constitutionalism and illiberal or anti-democratic nationalisms. To put this anotherway, states create nations when states are construed to be sovereign political entities that exist in a system of sovereign states, and when the demos,the citizenry, is construed as a membership organization that exercisesself-determination through its own state. In short, the demos of the civicrepublican is, on the modem paradigm of citizenship, a nation.

Second, as the case of Germany shows, federal states can still be nation-states with very restrictive rules regulating access to citizenship. Citizenship as a birthright does not redress the precariousness of the rights ofnon-citizens who are resident in a territory that is not their ow n state(Cohen, 1996).

Third, as the example of the United States shows, even if they institutionalize a separation an d division of powers, have a federalist structure,and positivize fundamental rights, constitutional democracies can still besovereign entities if the international system of states (the internationalregime) accords sovereignty to them and to all other polities recognized asstates. Such polities would still have full powers over internal affairs, overentry to the territory, access to citizenship, distribution of rights and privileges and so forth. Thus the at tempt to disaggregate sovereignty by constitutionalism internally will no t suffice if it is no t complemented by similardevelopments on the supranational level (Cohen, 1996).

My argument here is not intended as a critique of civic republicanismper se but as an analysis of the paradoxes of any democratic conception ofcitizenship in the modem paradigm and of the logic of the democraticcomponent of the citizenship principle generally. I t thus also applies to theidea of constitutional patriotism recently developed by Habermas (1992,1995, 1996a). The latter wants to construct a liberal democratic conception

that avoids the tendency of civic republicanism to thicken into communitarianism. In a series of important essays on citizenship, he offers the ideaof constitutional patriotism as a way to address the problem of access tocitizenship within existing states and the problem of how to construe theidentity of the citizenry on the level of the nation-state or within emergentregional polities (the European Union), in a just way.

Constitutional patriotism involves commitment to liberal an d democratic principles and procedures of a constitution. That is all that can berequired as a criterion of gaining access to citizenship. Neither cultural

homogeneitynor

ethnic lineage shouldplay an y

role here.If , in

addition,popular sovereignty is understood in procedural and communicativerather than substantive terms (as the will of a macro-subject) the exclusionary thrust of the demos can be blocked (Habermas, 1996a: 463-90).

255


13/25



Habermas acknowledges the discreteness of the political an d theunavoidable 'ethical' dimension of any actual, institutionalized consti

tution (Habermas,1993:

1-19). Constitutional patriotism entails allegianceto 'our' particular constitution, not to any and every constitution. Thisentails attachment to the particular wa y in which a specific polity has institutionalized and interpreted abstract liberal an d democratic principles,provided that these are open to reinterpretation. Accordingly, politicalidentification with the specific constitution of a specific polity, and thepolitical identity of the demos construed as those wh o so identify, is particular but not anti-universalist or illegitimately exclusionary.

With this synthesis of liberal and democratic principles of constitutionalism Habermas apparently avoids the illiberal thrust of citizenship construed as membership in a territorially based, culturally specific, nationalidentity. The trick is accomplished by linking the three components of thecitizenship principle in a specific way: the 'ethical' or particular constitutional ethos is seen as a specification of universal moral principlesthrough democratic procedures and discussion on the part of a particularpolitical community.

But there's the rub. The ethical component of constitutional patriotismcannot be reduced to a mere specification of universal moral principles(liberal or democratic). What makes a constitution American, German,French and so on, entails a lot more culture, tradition, habits of the heart,than this conception allows (McCarthy, 1991: 181-99). The ethical-politicalor collective identi ty component cannot be reduced to a contextual application of universal moral principles of justice.

Moreover the problematic of the 'exclusiveness of the demos' is notresolved either on the national or supranational (regional) level so long asone assumes, as Habermas clearly does, that the various components ofthe citizenship principle will come together on the same institutional level.Habermas's constitutional patriotism remains within the modem para

digm of citizenship, even as he applies it to the supranational level of theEuropean Union understood as a federal polity in the making (Habermas,1996b). Europe, in this approach, once it has a democratically legitimateconstitution an d a European-wide societe politique (involving Europeanpolitical parties), would simply be a federalist mega-state with a newethos forming around it. No other word would better capture the political identity that such a sovereign liberal democratic constitutional European federalist mega-state would foster, i f successful, than nation.Constitutional patriotism even on this level would not avoid the paradoxical dialectic inherent in the modem paradigm of citizenship thatdrives republican or liberal democratic conceptions into the arms ofthicker, more communitarian understandings of identity. I t certainly doesnot exclude exclusion.

256


14/25



The 'Postmodern' Conundrum

While themodem paradigm

of citizenshipwas

never normatively satisfactory, it did promise to resolve the tensions between democracy, justice,and identity if only it was institutionalized in the right way. Todayglobalization ha s undermined its core presuppositions and made thatpromise appear hollow. The exclusive territoriality and sovereignty inheren t in the nation-state model are being transformed du e to the emergenceof transnational economic practices, supranational legal regimes and postnational political bodies. The notion that the state must be a sovereigntotality - bounded, self-sufficient and exercising uniform control over itscitizen-subjects- is no longer empirically accurate (Sassen, 1996; Ruggie,1993; Falk, 1992; Held, 1995; Mendovitz and Walker, 1990). That is why theimage of the demos as a unified an d homogeneous collective subject composed of sovereign self-determining citizens is no longer convincing. Anew paradigm of citizenship has to be invented that is both adequate toempirical developments and normatively justifiable.

The nation-state still exists and remains 'sovereign' in many respects. Idisagree with strong versions of the globalization thesis that assert that thenation-state is an anachronism doomed to go the same way as the earlymodem city-state, because it no longer can provide the conditions foreconomic well-being, security or protection to its subjects. I also disagreewith the overly eager pronouncements of the death of sovereignty as anempirical reality. We should be very clear here. The modem state continues to exercise jurisdictional authority, the power to sanction an d tolegitimately use force vis-a-vis those in its territory. Full citizenship in thestate remains a very important form of membership, security, status andpower.

Nevertheless, the international system of states no longer grants exclus-ive sovereignty over internal or external matters to any polity. The nation

state may continue to exist, but as 'weak' versions of the globalizationthesis correctly insist, the capacity of such states to act in fully autonomousways in such areas as the environment, the economy and even defense hasbeen seriously undermined. So has the normative legitimacy of imputingabsolute or exclusivesovereignty to such states over inhabitants of the territory they continue to control. Claims to justice that call for moral an d legalintervention regarding the rights of individuals or minorities within stateshave emerged, as has the insistence that states have obligations (forexample in environmental policy) toward those outside its borders

(O'Neill, 1996; Pogge, 1992; Soysal, 1994).Moreover, the drastic increase in transnational migration ha s renderedanachronistic the assumption (central to the republican model) that thosepresent in the state are, for the most part, its citizens. So is the expectation

257


15/25



that to have rights one has to become a full citizen and assimilate to thedominant cultural model. In the previous paradigm, all that equalityrequired for permanent residents was that blockages to the opportunity toacquire citizenship and to assimilate be removed. Today, however, thechallenge of multiculturalism raised by new immigrants and, increasingly,by minorities makes this expectation (cultural assimilation as a right butalso as a precondi tion for rights and equal treatment) both practically andmorally untenable. So does the claim to rights by non-citizens who haveno intention or desire to become citizens of the place where they resideeven for a large part of their working lives.

These developments mean that we have to think the next step theoretically and see that legal personhood can and should be disassociatedfrom citizenship status as a principle of membership in a discrete state orpolity. I t is not enough to disassociate the rights of citizenship from ascriptive (ethnoracial) criteria of belonging. Rather, we have to acknowledgethe disaggregation of the three components of the citizenship andrenounce the goal of resynthesizing them on a single political level ofeither a mega-state or, even more far-fetched, a world government.

Instead I want to make a normative case for the partial disaggregationand reinstitutionalization of the three components of the citizenship prin-ciple on different levels of governance. We must, in short, abandon th e

modern ideal (and ideology) of unified, uniform citizenship with eachcomponent mapped onto the same institutional level and protected by thesame sovereign legal/political instance. Once we take the step of disassociating legal personhood from citizenship status in a discrete state,once we see that the various dimensions of citizenship are open to avariety of new combinations, the appropriate institutionalizations of eachlevel can come into view so that new meaning can be given to the dimensions of legal standing, democratic participation, ident ity and belonging.

Some progress has already been made. I t has long been the case that

non-citizens enjoy legal rights. The expansion in the past four decades ofthe range of civil rights that residents enjoy (from freedom to associate andassemble, to social rights, and even to vote locally) an d the explicit articulation of the principle of the right to have rights ( and a legal persona) fornon-citizens and even illegal aliens in various international and nationalcodes can be understood as a healthy and desirable disassociation of thestatus of legal personhood from one's citizenship status (Soysal, 1994).Indeed, many rights that used to be construed exclusively as the rights ofcitizens are now deemed to be rights of persons that must be respectedeverywhere. Resident non-citizens have not only the most basic civil rightsbut also th e rights to freedom of speech, assembly, association an d evenclaims to social rights, cultural expression and local voting (Soysal, 1994).Thus the further extension and enrichment of the civil component of th e

258


16/25



citizenship principle discussed by Marshall is on the international agendaeven though each step is hotly contested and despite reversals.

States are coming increasingly under the pressure of international agreements, supranational courts, transnational institutions, including regionalfederations, to acknowledge and protect human rights. This emergentinternational regime signals the diminished legitimacy of claims to exclusive and absolute territorial sovereignty of the nation-state: national constitutions, parliaments, governments and courts are no longer necessarilythe highest authority when it comes to basic rights.

Indeed, vis-a-vis supranational courts and the quasi-governmentalbodies of regional federations, 'citizenship' has come to mean legal personhood and legal standing, not active membership in a demos delimitedwith respect to a territorially defined polity. The multiple levels of belonging and membership that are involved transcend the modem citizenshipparadigm. I have already said that one aspect of this complex situation isthe ability of persons to enjoy a wide range of rights in states in which theyare not citizens and do not have or demand the same political status as fullcitizens. Another is the r ight of individuals or groups (such as indigenouspeoples and minorities) who are citizens of the member states to appealto supranational courts and other political bodies to protect their rightsagainst their own polities. This, together with the increasing importance

of the decisions made by the quasi-governmental organs developedthrough regional treaties, indicates the degree to which rights and powersare being disassociated from 'sovereign' states and the importance ofunderstanding where their claims to legitimacy come from.

Liberal cosmopolitans are quick to point out that civil as distinct frompolitical society ha s taken the lead in reviving human rights discoursesincluding the crucial idea that everyone has the right to have rights (legalprotection and legal personhood) (Falk, 1992; Held, 1995). Claims forexpanding rights irrespective of citizenship status, for new sorts of rights

and for ne w forms of protections for rights emerge first from civil ratherthan from political actors (Alter, 1996). For civil society is a locus for thespontaneous development of free association, civil publics and newpowers. Civil actors establish connections and relations that render economic and technological interdependencies 'social', as the proliferationtoday on the transnational level of a wide and highly articulated range ofassociations, non-governmental organizations, networks, interconnectedpublics and social movements witnesses. Thus a context is being createdin which people can act in concert as peers, exchange opinions anddevelop the civic competence and trust needed for exercising influence onpolitical entities, administrative bodies and courts. The relations established by international civil society are what carry and give politicalweight to the universalist dimension of human rights discourses.

259


17/25



The more important supranational organizational structures become,the more important the role of international civil society is in monitoring,

gaining access to and influencing them and keeping them open to the concerns of relevant publics.Thus supranational courts an d the administrative/political bodies of

regional federations do no t function in a vacuum, but they do lack thedemocratic legitimacy that courts and legislative bodies on the level of theconstitutional territorial state enjoy. The only meaningful way to rectify thislegitimization deficit is to construe such quasi-governmental institutions asthe receptors of influence from civil society an d to institutionalize access tothese along with forums for public debate. But this influence no t only hasto be institutionalized, it must also be 'legitimate' in the sense of followingcertain standards. For this we must recognize the increased importance ofhuman rights discourses and supranational courts in such a constellation.From the point of view of the liberal cosmopolitan, the most importantdevelopment in this regard is the emergence of supranational legal regimesthat take cognizance of interdependency by acknowledging new subjectsof international law ranging all the way from individuals, indigenouspeoples, an d oppressed groups to non-governmental organizations(NGOs). These developments enable cosmopolitans to parry the charges offoundationalism and abstract, empty moralistic universalism. The referentof human rights is no longer a mere moral ought, a 'worldless' humanitystripped of all bonds, relationships and context. Rather, human rights discourse no w have a context (various interdependencies) and refer to realsubjects. This implies that the appropriate symbolic referent of legal personhood is not the territorial state but, rather an d after all, a globally interrelated humanity whose rights are articulated in international discoursesan d defended by a multiplicity of legal an d political instances (Cohen,1996). The diversity of levels of governance articulating and backing uprights is the key innovation here.

Indeed i t is increasingly the case that the legitimacy of rights now liesat the level of the international order. The transnational discourse ofhuman rights articulated in international law and incorporated increasingly in supranational (regional) covenants and national constitutions,backed up by supranational courts, and monitored by a range of NGOsprovides a normative framework that constrains governmental actors,even i f it remains the case that states are the entities that implement civiland political rights and provide for social rights (Alter, 1996). In short,human rights discourses are now a pervasive feature of global publicculture. Their effectiveness goes well beyond moralistic exhortation: theyconstitute an international symbolic order, a political-cultural framework,and an institutional set of norms and rules for the global system thatorients and constrains states.

260


18/25



The fact that these discourses refer to the rights of man rather than citizens should not be misconstrued. I t does no t return us to natural lawdogma, to empty abstractions, or to foundationalist forms of justification.But it does leave us with a question: if the new international institutionsrender discourses of human rights more effective, what serves to groundeither the principle of universal human rights or particular interpretationsand institutionalizations of them?

In the best analysis of the political meaning and possible justification ofthe discourse of human rights that I know, Claude Lefort argues that it isprecisely the indeterminacy of the concept of man as the subject of humanrights, the impossibility of deciding once and for all the content of humanrights, the fact that nobody and certainly no governmental instance canoccupy the place from which on e could claim full authority to grant rights,that gives to human rights discourses their 'groundless ground' and theirpolitical, creative thrust (Lefort, 1986). The indeterminacy of the discourseof human rights is its greatest advantage. Instead of opposing the 'concrete' rights of Englishmen to the rights of man like Burke, instead ofattempting to show that the indeterminacy of the concept of man entailsspecific content - man as member of the nation, or man as the atomistic,natural, needy individual, or even man as the pouvoir constituant - Lefortsuggests that one should construe human beings- the referent of such discourses- simply as those who declare and recognize one another's rightsand press for their realization in law (Lefort, 1986).

Human rights discourses are part of the same symbolic universe asdemocracy because both 'say' that we grant to one another the possibilityof testing out rights which have not ye t been institutionalized or incorporated in a particular body politic. The abstractness of 'man' entails thecontestability of who belongs to this 'we' and what precisely his or herrights are (Lefort, 1986). Indeed it is the availability of this discourse thatallows the marginalized an d the excluded to claim inclusion, those who

are treated unequally to challenge discrimination, an d those who aresilenced to exercise voice.

This understanding of the discourse of human rights cannot begrounded in a transhistorical principle nor does it derive its justificationfrom membership in a particular polity. But it ha s a context and a 'justification' nonetheless. In answer to the unavoidable question of 'who' manas distinct from the citizen is, Karl Marx answered that 'man' is themember of civil society. Indeed Marx wa s right, although he badly misunderstood the nature of the modern form of the social (Marx, 1972;

Cohen, 1982). Whilehe

grasped that modern society is disincorporated,and hence can no longer be represented as a totality that transcends itsparts, he nevertheless tended to base the new form of social relations onthe model of the market economy. That was the mistake. Instead, one must

261


19/25



represent modern civil society as a transversal domain of social relationscharacterized through the continually shifting establishment of contacts,relationships, associations, networks and publics which can be expandedacross locales, regions and borders, and 'of which individuals are theterms but which confer on those individuals their identity just as much asthey are produced by them' (Lefort, 1986: 257).

I have thus far given a liberal interpretation and justification for a disaggregated 'postmodern' paradigm of citizenship. Nevertheless, I do notwant to place myself in the camp of liberal cosmopolitans who hypostatize the juridical component of citizenship on the misleading assumptionthat we can make do with legal an d administrative guarantees of humanrights an d legal personhood while ignoring issues of democratic participation, symbolic identity and legitimacy. Certainly the developmentsjust discussed give body to the idea of universal human rights, institutionalizing them in a number of instances without reincorporating rightand power on a single level (Lefort, 1986). The proliferation of instances(courts, various types of federation and pacts among polities) on the postand international level articulating and protecting the human rights ofpersons is indeed noteworthy.

But even with such support, civil society cannot 'monitor' or influencethese institutions or existing states on its own. Indeed, civil society itself

requires monitoring. Civil organizations can be exclusionary, unjust, andanti-egalitarian, as we all know. Global justice requires attentiveness to thefactors of exclusion and inequality in civil as well as political society. Forthis, and in order to keep states just, the democratic component remainsindispensable in my view. Yet, as we have seen, it will always require a particular mode of identification to have any motivating force. Of course, thedemocratization of all existing states and emergent regional polities shouldaccompany the development of supranational institutions of justice. Butthe crucial issue would then be to distinguish between the set of rights that

should belong to citizens as members of a discrete polity, the rights associated with residence and the set of rights that should belong to everyone.What place should the democratic component of the citizenship prin

ciple have in a postmodern, disaggregated paradigm of citizenshipapplied to a political universe where institutional powers and sovereignties enunciating and partially defining rights exist on multiple levels andwhich renounces the phantasm of a final absolute authori ty incorporatingright, power, and embodying the identity of the whole? Let me try toapproach this question from a democratic civic-republican point of view.

Recall that the concern here is with participation, the ideal of selfgovernment, and the democratic legitimacy of law and policy. I f fullcitizenship in a state is to continue to have any meaning in a postmodernparadigm, its core would have to be democratic participation, involving

262


20/25



at the very least the right to vote and stand for office and hence to participate (directly or though representatives) in legislation and policymaking. Citizenship from this perspective involves the exercise of powerand not only of influence.

But who then decides who gets to enjoy full democratic citizenshiprights in this sense and on what basis? Membership in the active demosmust, as we already saw, be delimited, and it ha s an irreducible ethical an dsymbolic dimension to it. Identification with one another as a demos, as ademocratic community with something in common, and with a sharedfate is necessary to motivate participation and solidarity among the citizenry. Moreover, the demos cannot initially be defined through democratic procedures without infinite regress regarding who is an initialmember.

Communitarians conclude that history and tradition supply theanswers here: the identity of a demos and its thickness are not chosen butgiven. I f the political community wishes to condition membership on commonalties formed over time, if it wishes to preserve its cultural identitythrough political means, it has every right to do so in this approach.

The democratic civic republican, however, would insist that the relativethickness of national identity be open to democratic redefinition and,hence, could be made thinner, more open and receptive to diversity thana more traditionalist communitarian would prefer, shou ld the demos sodecide.

Where the democratic conception would be 'postmodem' and 'disaggregated' from this point of view, is in the readiness (already exhibited byArendt) to acknowledge the right of everyone to full citizenship somewhere. This is, of course, a universal moral principle that would have toconstrain every demos's citizenship laws. The liberal and republicanapproach could converge even more if the principle of non-discriminationalso informed whatever criteria the demos articulated regarding access to

citizenship so as to avoid unjustifiable exclusions. Finally, there are gooddemocratic as well as liberal grounds for avoiding the permanent presenceof a large immigrant population that is permanently denied access tocitizenship: this tends to tum democracy despotic (the rule of privileged'peers ' over a subject minority or even majority).

Beyond these strictures, however, the unders tanding of the thickness orthinness of the identity of the demos would have to be left to the democratic political process to decide. This is where the democratic dimensionof the citizenship principle has to lead. If, however, the above principlesare observed by every self-governing democratic polity, and if the basicrights of non-citizens as well as citizens are respected and backed up bysupranational instances, including their right to exercise voice in civilpublics, then the exclusiveness of the demos would be tempered in an

263


21/25



important way. After all, political freedom always presupposed personalautonomy, at least for the citizenry, even if the justification for personalfreedom through the doctrine of rights ha d to wait for modem liberal theorists. I t is democracy that opens a creative and permanent tensionbetween the person and the citizen, the juridical and the political.

But there is one more concern of the democratic civic republican thatmust be attended to. A key objection to liberal cosmopolitanism is that asthe human rights that are enunciated on the supranational level, backedup by courts and other governmental instances, become more extensive,the less is left to the demos of any polity to do. This makes the democraticcomponent of the citizenship principle paper-thin and cheapens participation. I t would, moreover, violate the principles of democratic legitimacyto leave the specification of all or the most basic rights up to courts,lawyers and bureaucrats.

The starting point for a disaggregated model of citizenship an d theimperative behind the articulation of universal rights of persons is thepresence of large numbers of non-citizens in most countries and hence theimpossibility of pretending that all those subject to or affected by the law(given interdependency) are also its authors. Consequently, the rights ofnon-citizens have not been elaborated as special rights but as universalrights to which, as indicated earlier, citizens themselves make claim, triggering the intervention of supranational courts on their behalf againsttheir ow n states. There is no convincing democratic argument against thelegal personhood of non-citizens. However, when the articulation of universal rights applies to the citizenry as well, this raises the legitimate fearthat in the long run there will be nothing left for the demos to decide. Thedemos, in order to be politically autonomous, must have the competenceto articulate and specify certain principles, certain areas and certain keyrights regarding the citizenry, otherwise democracy is eviscerated.

Thus even in the postmodem disaggregated conception, there remains

a tension between the various components of the citizenship principle: theliberal and democratic components, no t to mention the identity dimension, pull in opposite directions. But I believe that in the disaggregatedmodel the tensions can be reduced if the ideal of exclusive state sovereignty and territoriality is abandoned, if a plurality of instances of governance are acknowledged, and if some key rights are articulated an d justifiedin the civil public spaces of transnational civil society and guaranteed bythe supranational instances of a partly post-national international regime.Sovereignty must be made ever more democratic and guided by principlesof justice. Serious reflection on the institutional structure, competenciesan d powers of the components of the emergent supranational regime,especially of supranational courts an d the quasi-governmental bodies ofregional federations but also of member states, is now crucial.

264


22/25



New meaning can certainly be given to the multiple levels of belonging,the various loci of identity (local, national, regional, global), the differingforms of participation and the intersecting complexes of rights, duties andloyalties that characterize multicultural polities existing in a globalcontext. But we must honestly acknowledge that the distribution of competencies in specifying rights is an issue that can only be resolved politically. Hopefully this will be done democratically, informed as much aspossible by considerations of justice. We will avoid the Scylla of foundationalism and the Charybdis of democratic despotism only if weacknowledge that substance and process, justice and democracy are in arecursive relationship to each other. The assertion of basic rights in civilpublic spaces requires moral justification through the giving of substantive reasons and free argumentation. An independent judiciary to protectrights is crucial. But so are democratic political institutions that legislateand make policy in light of publicly justifiable reasons (Gutman andThompson, 1997). Democracy cannot guarantee justice, but neither canmoral justification appeal to some absolute truth that exists independentlyof consensus.

My abstract discussion of the logic of citizenship on a 'postmodern' par-adigm has institutional implications. I would like to suggest that insteadof assuming that the future will entail either a new system of sovereignfederal mega-states, a return to liberally national nation-states, a worldgovernment, or some sor t of cosmopolitan world legal order, one mustimagine a combination of the elements of all of these. The idea of worldgovernment in which liberal and democratic considerations would mergeis both implausible an d undesirable since it would threaten political diversity. As already stated, quasi-governmental institutions must be open tothe influence of civil society. Governmental structures on the national,supra- and subnationallevels must have 'receptors' for this influence.Indeed, it is entirely possible that political parties might emerge on the

supranational level to supplement national parties an d help to articulateand redesign political institutions in a democratic direction, as Habermashopes. Institutional redesign that makes federations more democratic andstates more open to norms articulated on higher levels and to the diversity emerging internally is also called for.

But it is not necessary to envisage federations replacing the territorialstate. Instead we must be open to a plurality of forums, and of modes ofinstitutionalizing voice on the supranational level. Existing state jurisdictions would certainly retain control in many areas and be the instances thatimplement many rights and norms articulated on other political an d legallevels (covenants, court decisions and so forth). Democratic, constitutionalnation-states could remain a level of political identification for the localcitizenry. But new identities and new forms of representation could follow

265


23/25



new institutionalizations, complicating the levels of belonging andallegiance in salutary ways. At the same time each state's sovereigntycould be tempered by the rules of the federation an d other supranationalbodies.

My theoretical point is that only i f the various elements of the citizenship principle are disaggregated and reinstitutionalized on independentlevels of governance with different powers articulating and backing themup will they be able to counter the flaws intrinsic to each of them and function productively as mutual counter-powers. For example, the disaggregation of the rights of persons from the rights of citizens has alreadydiminished the opposition between citizen and alien, allowing for agreater separation of the identity component and the rights component of

the citizenship principle. I t is only a further development in this directionthat would allow for the universalistic principles of justice (equal concernand respect for every individual) and the principle of democracy (participatory parity in public life) to be mutually reinforcing and to informeveryone's conception of the good.

Note

I thank Gerald Newman of Columbia Law School an d Nadia Urbinati of Columbia

University's Department of Political Science for very helpful comments on anearlier draft of this article. I also thank Jeff Alexander for inviting me to deliverthis article at the plenary session on 'Ethnos an d Demos' at the 1998 ISA meetingin Montreal.

References

Alter, Karen (1996) 'The European Court's Political Power: The Emergence of anAuthoritative International Court in the European Union', West EuropeanPolitics 19: 458-87.

Arato, Andrew (1995) 'Forms of Constitution Making and Theories of Democracy',Cardozo Law Review 17(2): 202-54.Archibugi, Daniele an d Held, David, eds (1995) Cosmopolitan Democracy.

Cambridge: Polity Press.Arendt, Hannah (1949) 'The Rights of Man: What Are They?', Modern Review3(1):

24-37.Arendt, Hannah (1963) On Revolution. Ne w York: Penguin.Arendt, Hannah (1973) The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich.Aristotle (1981) The Politics, ed. Ernest Barker. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bader, Veight (1995) 'Citizenship and Exclusion: Radical Democracy, Communityan d Justice, or What is Wrong with Communitarianism', Political Theory 23(2):211-46.

Beiner, Ronald, ed. (1995) Theorizing Citizenship. Ne w York: SUNY Press.

266


24/25



Brubaker, Rogers (1992) Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cohen, Jean L. (1982) Class and Civil Society: The Limits of the Marxian Critique.Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Cohen, Jean L. (1996) 'Rights, Citizenship and the Modern Form of the Social:Dilemmas of Arendtian Republicanism', Constellations 3(2): 164-85.

Falk, Richard (1992) 'Evasions of Sovereignty', in R. Falk (ed.) Explorations at theEdge of Time. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Ferrajoli, L. (1996) 'Beyond Sovereignty and Citizenship: A Global Constitutionalism?', in Richard Bellamy (ed.) Constitutionalism, Democracyand Sovereignty, pp .151-60. Brookfield: Avebury.

Gutman, Amy and Thompson, Dennis (1997) 'Disagreeing about DeliberativeDemocracy', Pegs: The Good Society 7(3): 11-15.

Habermas, Jurgen (1992) 'Struggles for Recognition in the Democratic Constitutional State', in Amy Gutman (ed.) Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition: An Essay by Charles Taylor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Habermas, Jurgen (1993) Justification and Application. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Habermas, Jurgen (1995) 'Citizenship an d National Identity: Some Reflections on

the Future of Europe', in R. Beiner (ed.) Theorizing Citizenship, pp . 255-82.Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Habermas, Jurgen (1996a) Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Habermas, Jurgen (1996b) 'The European Nation State, its Achievement an d its

Limitations. On the Past and Future of Sovereignty an d Citizenship', Ratio Juris9(2): 125-37.

Held, David (1995) Democracy and the Global Order: from the Modern State to Cosmo-politan Governance. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hollinger, David (1995) Post-Ethnic America. Ne w York: Basic Books.Honneth, Axel (1995) The Struggle for Recognition. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Kymlicka, Will an d Norman, Wayne (1995) 'Return of the Citizen: A Survey of

Recent Work on Citizenship Theory', in R. Beiner (ed.) Theorizing Citizenship.Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Lefort, Claude (1986) 'Politics and Human Rights', The Political Forms of ModernSociety. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lind, Michael (1995) The Next American Nation. New York: Free Press.McCarthy, Thomas (1991) 'Practical Discourse: On the Relation of Morality to

Politics', Ideals and Illusions, pp. 181-99. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Marshall, T.H. (1964) Class, Citizenship, and Social Development. Garden City, NY:

Doubleday.Marx, Karl (1972) 'O n The Jewish Question', The Marx Engels Reader. Ne w York:

Norton.Mendovitz, Saul H. and Walker, R.B.J., eds (1990) Contending Sovereignties: Redefin

ing the Political Community. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reiner.Miller, David (1995) On Nationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Neuman, Gerald L. (1996) Strangers to the Constitution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press.Nussbaum, Martha (1996) 'Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism', in Joshua Cohen

(ed.) For Love of Country. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

267


25/25


O'Neill, Onora (1996) Towards Justice and Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Petit, Philip (1997) Republicanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Pocock, J.G.A. (1995) 'The Idea of Citizenship Since Classical Times', in R. Beiner

(ed.) Theorizing Citizenship, pp. 29-53. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Pogge, T.W. (1992) 'Cosmopolitanism an d Sovereignty', Ethics 103: 48-75.Pogge, T.W. (1994) 'Cosmopolitanism an d Sovereignty', in C. Brown (ed.) Political

Restructuring in Europe: Ethical Perspectives, pp. 89-112. London and New York:Routledge.

Poli, S. George (1991) Policy and Politics in the European Community, 2n d edn.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Preuss, Ulrich (1996) 'Prospects of a Constitution for Europe', Constellations 3(2):209-24.

Ruggie, John (1993) 'Territoriality an d Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations', International Organization 47(1): 139-74.

Sassen, Saskia (1996) Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization. Ne wYork: Columbia University Press.

Shklar, Judith (1995) American Citizenship. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress.

Soysal, Yasemin (1994) The Limits of Citizenship. Chicago, IL: University of ChicagoPress.

Tamir, Yael (1993) Liberal Nationalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Taylor, Charles (1992) Multiculturalism and 'The Politics of Recognition'. Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press.Tilly, Charles (1995) 'Citizenship, Identity an d Social His tory', International Review

of Social History 40 (Supplement 3): 1-17.Viroli, Maurizio (1995) For Love of Country. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Waldron, Jeremy (1995) 'Minority Cultures an d the Cosmopolitan Alternative', in

Will Kymlicka (ed.) The Rights of Minority Cultures. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

Walzer, Michael (1983) Spheres of Justice. Ne w York: Basic Books.Whelan, Frederick G. (1983) 'Prologue: Democratic Theory an d the Boundary

Problem', in J.R. Pennock (ed.) Liberal Democracy. Ne w York: New York

University Press.

Biographical Note: Jean L. Cohen is Professor of Political Theory at ColumbiaUniversity. She is the author of Class and Civil Society: The Limits of MarxianCritical Theory an d co-author with Andrew Arato of Civil Society and PoliticalTheory. He r current project is a book on Sex, Law Privacy and the Constitution:Dilemmas of Juridification in the 'Domain of Intimacy'.

Address: Department of Political Science, Columbia University, Ne w York City, NY10027 (739 I.A.B.), USA. [email: [email protected]]

268

Documents

International Sociology 1999 Cohen 245 68