Urban Citizenship is About Improving the City – not Just About Letting Foreigners Vote

In a way, the question of urban citizenship is easy. If a state were to give non-citizens citizenship rights with respect to local elections or urban affairs more generally, it would be fully within its powers to do so. As Rainer Bauböck and others have argued, there are many good reasons why a state might want to do so – and just as many reasons to protect the state’s authority to uphold the system of rights as a whole. That said, many issues remain. There is no consensus, and perhaps there never can be on the key terms at issue: state, nation, urban, and citizenship.

22. Januar 2020

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Urban Citizenship Threatens Democratic Equality

It seems urgent that “urban citizenship” is properly characterised to understand not only the rights and responsibilities citizens of cities may well have, but also their grounding. I have no quarrel with this project. However, so far, accounts of urban citizenship – like Rainer Bauböck’s in the piece that launched this forum – do too little to consider the citizenship that is “left over” for those who do not, or cannot, move to cities.

21. Januar 2020

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City-zenship and national citizenship: complementary and competing but not emancipated from each other

Nir Barak deepens the ambivalence in Rainer Bauböck’s account of urban citizenship and suggests a skeptical but friendly critique towards notions of emancipating urban citizenship from nationality. The relationship between urban and national citizenship should not be seen as mutually exclusive; claims for enhancing city-zenship and decentralizing state power are warranted only insofar as they provide forward-thinking urban response to the decline in democratic participation and civic solidarity at national levels.

21. Januar 2020

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Cities vs States: Should Urban Citizenship be Emancipated from Nationality?

Since the first decade of the millennium – for the first time in human history – more people are living in urban areas than in rural ones. According to UN projections, in 2050 the share of urban populations could rise to more than two thirds of the world population. Will this demographic change also lead to a decline of nation-states and a rise of cities as the dominant arenas of politics, democracy and citizenship?

20. Januar 2020

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Toward a Glorious Revolution

In the closing article, Gábor Attila Tóth offers a twofold argument. First, despite all its shortcomings, the 1989 coordinated regime change is a unique success story in the region. It resulted in revolutionary changes in the constitutional system. Second, there is a need again for a peaceful, revolutionary establishment of legitimate government, but without a revolution as such.

13. Dezember 2019

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History with a Future? The Relevance of the 1989 Round Table Experience for Today

The experience of the Central European round tables has no specific relevance today, but it may be significant in the future. Not in a direct way of copying them and it would be unwise to frame any future political consultation as a being inspired by the 1989 round tables. Yet, if we look at the round tables’ essence, negotiating a peaceful transition with an outgoing power, charting a course between legality and legitimacy, the round tables can tell us something of remaining relevance.

12. Dezember 2019

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Causes and Consequences of the »Failure« of the GDR Central Round Table (Dec. 1989- Feb. 1990)

On one hand, I wish to give credit to the Central Round Table which is often seen as not having fulfilled its aspirations. Given the particular structural context in which the round table was operating, it was remarkably successful and achieved more than could have been anticipated given its weak legitimacy and power base, in particular, providing a sense of stability and moral guidance in tumultuous times. On the other hand, my thesis is that it was unable to exert a major influence on what was to follow, neither in the short-term or long-term.

11. Dezember 2019

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