Industrial citizenship, cosmopolitanism and European integration

In European Journal of Social Theory Volume 18 Issue 1

There has been an explosion of interest in the idea of European Union citizenship in recent 
years, as a defining example of postnational cosmopolitan citizenship potentially replacing 
or layered on top of national citizenship. We argue this form of EU citizenship undermines 
industrial citizenship, which is a crucial support for social solidarity on which other types of 
citizenship are based. Because industrial citizenship arises from collectivities based on 
class identities and national institutions, it depends on the national territorial order and the 
social closure inherent in it. EU citizenship in its 'postnational'form is realized through 
practices of mobility, placing it in tension with bounded class-based collectivities. Though 
practices of working-class cosmopolitanism may give rise to a working-class consciousness, 
the fragmented nature of this vision impedes the development of transnational class.

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