upcoming Volume 3.1,  European identity beyond the brink – Call for Papers  and Author Style Guide

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About the journal

Open Citizenship is a hybrid journal published by Citizens For Europe e. V. to bring EU citizenship issues to an engaged general readership Open Citizenship combines scientific discourses on the subject of European citizenship with articles and reports on positive and negative effects of its current legal definition. Its objective is to contribute to the development of a new and modern concept of European citizenship, to serve as a platform for the exchange of knowledge and opinions and to compare experiences from both private European citizens and from European political, social and cultural actors. Thus, it includes articles about and insights from the European Union and its citizens’ everyday lives.

The articles published in this journal will reflect the scope and complexity of the issue of citizenship in the present day situation in Europe. The basis for accepting papers for publication is the agreement among a committee of reviewers that the article makes a new, definitive, important, developmental contribution to the discourse on European citizenship.

Volume 2.2, Winter 2011 – EU Mobility

This issue of Open Citizenship takes a closer look at mobility in the European Union. Since the European Economic Community was created to allow free movement of workers, the concept of mobility has changed. Today, the EU allows for free movement of citizens from all Member States within its borders and utilises mobility programmes to enhance EU identity. At the same time, citizens’ increased mobility leads to new challenges concerning voting rights, social rights or international marriage and divorce laws.

Volume 2.1, Summer 2011 – Exclusion and Discrimination

In the second issue of Open Citizenship, we take a closer look at exclusion and discrimination in Europe. This includes legal discrimination caused by limiting citizenship concepts at the EU and Member State level, as well as cultural obstacles to integration. In addition, the issue will explore possible solutions, by outlining, for example, cases in which progressive forms of citizenship have partly overcome these practices.

Exclusion and discrimination are relevant to different fields such as political participation, social services, cultural inclusion, education and others. Discrimination can take place when EU citizens cross Member State borders or affect third-country nationals lawfully residing in the EU. Discrimination may also take place at the personal level, in cultural definitions of what is ‘European’. The subject of discrimination is broad and open to diverse interpretations.

Volume 1, Autumn 2010 – Citizens for Europe

The ongoing integration process of the European Union and the increasing cross-border mobility of its peoples challenge the traditional legal definition and political construction of citizenship as national identity. As increasingly more people in the Union choose a transnational lifestyle, and with an increasing rate of residency outside the country of citizenship (at present: 11 million EU citizens), the social contract as represented by national citizenship looses the ability to fully delineate individuals’ roles, rights and responsibilities.

Such residency patterns and the current model of citizenship has a significant impact on individual’s participation in political society. As a result many European expatriates are disenfranchised at the regional (county, state or provincial) and national levels. Moreover, non-European expatriates can find themselves excluded from all political participation. Unfortunately, the Treaty of Lisbon enhanced this discrimination. Consequently, the central theme of the first edition of Open Citizenship is “European citizenship”.