Creating European Citizens

By (author) Willem Maas

Publication date:

01 February 2007

Length of book:

190 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780742554863

Exploring a key aspect of European integration, this clear and thoughtful book considers the remarkable experiment with common rights and citizenship in the EU. Governments around the world traditionally distinguish insiders (citizens) from outsiders (foreigners). Yet over the past half-century, an extensive set of supranational rights has been created in Europe that removes member governments' authority to privilege their own citizens, a hallmark of sovereignty. The culmination of supranational rights, European citizenship not only provides individuals with choices about where to live and work but also forces governments to respect those choices. Explaining this innovation—why states cede their sovereignty and eradicate or redefine the boundaries of the political community by including "foreigners"—Willem Maas analyzes the development of European citizenship within the larger context of the evolution of rights. Imagining more than simply a free trade market, the goal of building a "broader and deeper community among peoples" with a "destiny henceforward shared"—creating European citizens—has informed European integration since its origins. The author argues that its success or failure will not only determine the future of Europe but will also provide lessons for political integration elsewhere.

Introduction
Chapter 1: Introducing European Rights
Chapter 2: From Rights to Citizenship
Chapter 3: Maastricht's Constitutional Moment
Chapter 4: Europe's Homogeneous Space
Chapter 5: Toward a Constitution
Chapter 6: The Limits of European Citizenship
Conclusion
Selected Bibliography

Skillfully guiding the reader through a complex history, the author illustrates how the EU has multiplied the sources of rights and political identity available to individuals, thereby challenging orthodox notions of citizenship based on a mutually exclusive set of relations between state and citizen. . . . An important contribution towards understanding the contemporary condition of, and future challenges to, the European polity.