Introduction

Citizenship is a very old concept that has undergone many transformations. Since the times of Athenian democracy and the Roman Republic its core meaning has been a status of membership in a self-governing political community. This idea has been revived at every transition from authoritarian regimes to democratic ones. However, this is not the only meaning of citizenship. In periods of decline or absence of popular rule, the concept has been often reduced to a formal legal status with certain attached privileges or duties guaranteed or enforced by political authorities. In contemporary liberal democracies political citizenship has to compete with other affiliations in all kinds of associations, organisations, or communities in civil society. Recent governmental discourses about citizenship also tend to emphasise virtues of self-reliance and the responsibilities of individuals to contribute to the wider society more than active participation in political life (Smith 2001).

This report does not aspire to discuss all facets of the history of the concept and contemporary citizenship discourses. It will use citizenship in its broad political meaning that refers to individual membership, rights and participation in a polity and it has a specific thematic focus on conceptions of citizenship and comparative research questions that emerge from migration studies. Studying migrants’ social networks and organisations as well as their cultural and religious identities is still crucially important since these are among the most important factors influencing their political opportunities and activities. Our research agenda differs thus from other clusters in the IMISCOE network in its focus on citizenship as the object of study, not in the context variables that we consider when explaining citizenship policies or migrants’ choices and political behaviour.

In migration contexts, citizenship marks a distinction between members and outsiders based on their different relations to particular states. Free movement within state territories and the right to readmission to this territory has become a hallmark of modern citizenship. Yet, in the international arena citizenship serves as a control device that strictly limits state obligations towards foreigners and permits governments to keep them out, or remove them, from their jurisdiction. A migration perspective highlights the boundaries of citizenship and political control over entry and exit as well as the fact that foreign residents remain in most countries deprived of the core rights of political participation.