The Politics of Mobile Citizenship in Europe

Book excerpt: The Politics of Mobile Citizenship in Europe explores contemporary models of national and European Union (EU) citizenship in the context of intra-EU mobility. Scholars have often addressed these models from separate disciplinary standpoints. National citizenship has been studied through the prism of citizenship studies and EU citizenship from an EU studies viewpoint. To contribute to their ongoing discussion and offer a politically embedded perspective, Siklodi applies the citizenship studies lens to the analysis of EU-wide survey data and original focus group evidence of young and highly educated EU mobiles and stayers in Sweden and Britain. Specifically, she investigates political community building processes, including processes of differentiation and exclusion, and the dimensions of citizenship – identity, rights and participation – at the national and EU levels. Siklodi proposes a redefinition of the active/passive citizen dichotomy in terms of mobiles/stayers to provide a more accurate description of contemporary citizen attitudes and behaviours across the European community.