Page 190 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

176 Citizenship

civic and ethnic nationalism that has been such an important feature of
the exclusion of “ foreigners ” from enjoying equal, or even fundamental,
rights. Instead of civic nationalism, Tariq Modood suggests rather that
“ civic multiculturalism ” might be a good term for the balance between
solidarity, cultural difference, and individual rights that is needed in con-
temporary Western liberal - democracies (Modood, 2007 ). Ideals of “ equal-
ity ” and “ difference ” are rather abstract, not least because they have such
a variety of meanings and applications. On the other hand, it seems that
nationalism must itself become more abstract if feelings of solidarity are
to be forged more around the civic than the ethnic pole on the continuum
of nationalism. Creating new names like “ civic multiculturalism ” to
describe the realities of a country of which we might be proud, and as an
ideal to which we might aspire, is surely necessary to guide collective life
within and beyond the nation. And, no doubt, it will be necessary to
invent new names again in the future.

4.5 Post - National Citizenship?

A further challenge to settled assumptions about citizenship comes from
the way states now grant rights to non - citizens. The paradigm case of
non - citizens who are entitled to rights as long - term residents within state
territories in Europe is “ guest - workers. ” Originally invited and given
temporary work visas, there are guest workers who have been resident
now for decades in Western Europe, especially Germany and France, and
many of them now have children born in their new home states. Other
non - citizens with entitlements in Europe and North America include
asylum - seekers and refugees who, with illegal migrants, make up the
majority of the most recent wave of migration. As a result of successful
rights - claims on states by non - citizens, it is argued that citizenship itself
is changing: it no longer involves rights for nationals to the exclusion of
all those who do not have nationality. As rights are extended to residents
and others who make claims on the state on the grounds of universal
human rights, membership of the civil sphere is also extended to include
persons as human beings.
In addition to changes within states, the European Union, which now
confers European citizenship on individuals within its borders, is seen as
a manifestation of the development of post - national citizenship between
states. The EU is not a state; it has not developed into the United States
of Europe, and the prospect of it doing so is in many ways as remote as
ever, despite the hopes of European elites (Kivisto and Faist, 2007 : 125).