ABSTRACT
The central question in this chapter is to inquire what it means when we speak about ‘European citizenship’ from the perspective of political theory. It raises the question if it makes sense to use the concept ‘citizenship’ beyond the borders of the nation-state.1 The concept ‘citizenship’ is an essential contested concept. It is therefore argued in the first place which concept of possible conceptions should be used in the context of a nationstate, and also which institutional structure the specified concept requires. Next it is argued that, when discussing ‘citizenship’ across the borders of a nation-state, a ‘postnational’ conception of membership, so to speak, the concept that has been developed for application within the boundaries of the nation-state should be extended when we talk about a more universal concept of citizenship or-at least-when we defend a normative conception of citizenship for the ‘European Union’.
