1. Summary
There have been a lot of contributions by scholars to the widely discussed topic of European citizenship. In his article Espen D.H. Olsen argues in contrast to many others, “that the Maastricht Treaty was not year zero in the EU citizenship discourse” (Olsen 2008, p. 40). His study deals with the time before the general discussion over the European citizenship started in the 1970s (cf. ibid, p. 41ff.) The article’s main finding states that European citizenship has been in existence from the European integration’s starting point, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Olsen defines his concept of citizenship “as a status of individuals in relation to a political unit” (ibid, p. 41) which he divides in the four dimensions “membership, identity, rights and participation” (cf. ibid, p. 41). Following this research design he then applies these dimensions on four milestones of European Integration: “the ECSC, the Rome Treaties, jurisprudence from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the 1960s and free movement legislation in the 1960s/1970s” (ibid, p. 42). After applying each of the four dimensions to these events, Olsen concludes that his concept of European citizenship can be found in all four of these instances and has gradually gotten stronger (cf. ibid, p. 53, see table 2).
2. Critique
While Olsen’s approach looks rather intriguing at first sight and his article’s structure is generally good and comprehensible, there are severe deficits in the application of his concept of European citizenship to the four instances. This will be made clear on three exemplary points of his argumentation. Due to the limitations of breath for this paper, this, unfortunately, cannot be done for all four dimensions.
Firstly, O...
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...ly is not. The workers can in no way be regarded as general citizens.
3. Conclusion
In the analyzed documents individuals are mentioned as workers and such more or less accidentally, because they had to be included since the treaties related to their industries, nevertheless the article’s author draws conclusions out of said treaties that he can only explain by stretching his developed concept of citizenship beyond applicability. Olsen’s conception of citizenship needs definitely to be revised. Through the confusion of the worker and a real citizen his whole approach becomes useless and loses relevance for the interesting and important research on the topic of European citizenship.
Works Cited
Olsen, Espen D.H. (2008): The origins of European citizenship on the first two decades of European integration. In: Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 15:1. p. 40-57
He examines these norms using public opinion surveys and other types of research, one of which proposes that modern day citizens are the “most educated, most cosmopolitan, and most supportive of self-expressive values than any other public in the history of democracy” (Dalton 2008, 2). He suggests there are two types of citizenships – duty-based and engaged (D...
Irene Bloemraad. The North American Naturalization Gap: AN Institutional Approach to Citizenship Acquisition in the United States and Canada. Retrieved from https://courses.ryerson.ca/@@/CF12EBC688315C67DED46723CFC1F310/courses/1/pog100_w14_01/content/_2488288_1/Bloemraad2002.pdf
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Rose, Sonya O. Which People’s War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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Webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk, (2014). Citizenship, Key Stage 2 - Schools. [online] Available at: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130904095049/https://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/primary/b00198824/citizenship/ks2 [Accessed 22 Apr. 2014].
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Schmitter, P. C. 2001. What is there to legitimize in the European Union… and how might this be accomplished? IHS Political Science Series: 2001, No. 75. Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna.
Schneider, C. J. (2007). Enlargement Processes and Distributional Conflicts: The Politics of Discriminatory Membership in the European Union. Public Choice, 132(1/2), 85-102.
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