Obywatelstwo jako zgłaszanie roszczeń. Dekonstrukcja idei w kontekście pytania o możliwość obywatelstwa kosmopolitycznego
Citizenship as the submission of claims: Deconstructing the idea in the context of cosmopolitan citizenship

Summary/Abstract: The article concerns the understanding of citizenship as the social practice of filing claims for the legal status of a citizen, which is increasingly more common in contemporary political and legal thought. This idea implies that the criteria for granting civil rights are separated from the will of members of the political community that guarantees these rights: until now citizenship was understood as an attitude of commitment to a specific political community or as a legal status ensuring membership in this community, based on clear criteria and enabling protection of private interests. The new concept of citizenship can be found particularly in post-structuralist Marxism, the liberalism of equality and the political thought of the so-called ‘new social movements’: feminism, environmentalism and the queer movement. These trends call for deep transformations in the understanding of basic political ideas, including the idea of civic rights and civic community. At present, the status of a citizen and the related rights cease to be based on a criterion other than filing civil rights claims by an individual or a group of individuals. This concept has been described by Engin Isin and Carl Stychin. In this way, by separating citizenship from the will of a specific political community and its legal order, and thus reducing it to the practice of filing claims, the content of the idea of citizenship, which so far enabled the development of political bonds and the protection of individual interests, disappears.

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