ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the role of citizenship at the junction of law and politics. Citizenship operates on the one hand as a legal status, and on the other as an account of political activity and practice. A purely formal understanding of citizenship cannot explain the claims made about its just scope, a conception of citizenship as political practice alone, in turn, ignores the role of formal rights that decisively shape political influence. Against this background, the chapter discusses how law and politics interrelate in regulating and enabling access to political membership on different levels. Beyond formal participation, law structures political voice and visibility, for instance regarding the right to assembly and association. The case of refugees highlights how the mutual relationship of law and politics plays out at the very margins. The Arendtian expression of the “right to have rights” points to the fact that a minimal recognition of political agency and the safeguarding of rights interdepend. The expression has become a focal point in debates about refugee rights as it illuminates the specific precarity of the refugee situation. Whereas legally recognized citizenship marks the junction of law and politics at the center, the “right to have rights” marks the junction of law and politics at the outer edge.
