European Citizenship: Mixing Nation State and Federal Features with a Cosmopolitan Twist

Abstract European citizenship poses a challenge to the paradigmatic understanding of citizenship as congruence between nation, state, and membership rights. Contrary to previous research which has focused on single elements or normative ideas, this paper addresses this challenge by comparing ideal typical models of the EU polity. Is EU citizenship more nation-based, federal, or cosmopolitan? Utilized heuristically, the models account for different features of European citizenship practice, and the relative weighting between them. Based on this conceptual analysis, the main argument is that despite important developments towards granting rights based on ‘personhood’ and not ‘nationhood’, European citizenship is also marked by the interface between nation state and federal arrangements in EU politics. The degree of ‘incongruence’ in European citizenship is therefore dependent on the mixed nature of EU politics, rather than the effect of post-national projects that address the ‘liberation’ of citizenship from nationality.