ABSTRACT
The problem of citizenship and of its relation to the nation-state is a crucial issue for contemporary politics, as well as for political philosophy. The uncertainties and the contradictions of the conditions of contemporary politics shake the ideas that were taken for granted in the everyday life, and the academic vocabulary. This chapter discusses mainstream, liberal visions of post-national citizenship, in its different forms and meanings, and describes the critical strands in contemporary political and social theory and their elaboration of post-national political subjectivity. Critical approaches to European Union (EU) citizenship claim that mainstream liberal theories fail to explain the effects of exclusion, differentiation and domination that characterize large parts of EU citizenship policies. The relationship between the EU and national citizenship is the main problem discussed by the literature that adopted a cosmopolitan approach, such as the work of David Held or Daniele Archibugi.
