Citizenship in a Post-Westphalian Community: Beyond External Exclusion?

Abstract

This article discusses the potential for reducing the externally exclusionary aspects of citizenship in a post-Westphalian community, as conceptualised in Andrew Linklater's critical theory. Linklater's claim that post-sovereign developments in the European Union provide encouraging signs in this regard is evaluated in the light of the EU's attempted harmonisation of free movement, asylum and immigration policies. It is argued that the case of the EU provides little support for Linklater's assumptions, largely because: (1) the theory fails to recognise the exclusionary consequences of the differentiation of outsider status; and (2) it relies too much on the causal effects of institutional frameworks. While fully supporting the theory's normative stance I suggest that the strong reliance on institutional remedies may have counterproductive effects, and thus that the regionally restricted attempt to externalise aspects of citizenship, while pushing the exclusionary boundary further outwards, has not eliminated the insider-outsider distinction in an EU context.