61 PART II Constitutional Citizenship Unpacked In a classic contribution to understanding citizenship, Verena Stolcke (1997, 61) argued that: Of the three constitutive elements of the modern state, a territory, a government, a people, circumscribing the “people” proved to be the most controversial issue…. A territory without a people, a government without a clearly bounded community to be governed, makes no sense. Hence, bounding the citizenry, that is determining the conditions for becoming a member of a state, acquired a logic of its own as a
SIx Constitutional change I always maintained that our loyalties had an order – to Ulster, to Ireland, to the British Archipelago, to Europe; and that anyone who skipped a step or missed a link falsified the total. (John Hewitt, 1964) Introduction Brexit will not simply reshape the UK’s relationship with the European Union (EU); it will upset what the Belfast poet John Hewitt understood as multiple interdependent layers of governance and identity. In so doing, it could trigger wholesale reform in the legal and political rules by which the UK and Ireland
All studies of territorial politics recognise the underlying importance of a cultural identity underpinning the construction and/or expression of territorial claims. It is simply that a strong vein of literature looks outside the assumption that there is a linear relationship between the expression of cultural identity and the political development of ideas of sovereignty and constitutional rights. Realist approaches recognise that there is an inherent politics to the development of group interests and the mobilisation of territorial support, whether it be for
This is the first of a major two-volume work which provides an authoritative account of devolution in the UK since the initial settlement under New Labour in 1997.
This first volume meets the need for a comprehensive, UK-wide analysis of the formative years of devolution from the years 1997 to 2007, offering a rigorous and theoretically innovative re-examination of the period that traces territorial politics from initial settlements in Scotland and Wales and the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland to early maturity. Bradbury reviews the trajectory and influencing factors of devolution and its subsequent impacts, using a novel framework to set a significant new agenda for thinking and research on devolution.
99 4 The Acquisition and Loss of Citizenship in a Constitutional Context Introduction In this chapter, we go under the bonnet of constitutional citizenship by examining how constitutions shape or affect the processes of acquisition or loss of citizenship. The conceptual connection between questions of acquisition and loss and those core issues of constitutional and citizenship theory, which structured the discussion in Chapter 3, is very hard to pin down. Patrick Weil issued a warning about this, arguing that there is often a ‘complete opposition between
149 5 Filling out Citizenship: Citizenship Rights, Constitutional Rights and Human Rights Introduction: constitutional rights and citizenship This final chapter of Part II turns to the topic of the rights associated with citizenship.1 Here we will need to confront the ambiguous role of the state and of state institutions in relation to citizenship. Significant questions can be raised over whether it is appropriate to equate citizenship rights with constitutional rights, and what conclusions can be drawn from the differing treatment – across the globe – of
35 2 What Is Constitutional Citizenship and How Can We Study It? Introduction Throughout Chapter 1, I placed inverted commas around the terms ‘constitutional citizen’ and ‘constitutional citizenship’, in order to suggest that they are terms of art requiring further definition and specification in the particular context in which I am using them. Rainer Forst (2014) has argued that citizenship is a ‘normatively dependent concept’ in the sense that its full meaning only emerges through context and usage and by reference to other principles and concepts
181 6 The Populist Challenge to Constitutional Citizenship: The Closing of Discursive Space Introduction This chapter presents reflections on how constitutional citizenship is challenged by the practice of populist politics. It includes, among other examples, a short exposition of the remarkable explosion of populist politics in the UK, its move from the fringes to the mainstream and its impact on issues of citizenship, in particular in the context of the referendum on leaving the EU. This discussion is framed by further case studies focused on Canada
Aims and approach This book is intended as a work of practical constitutional scholarship applied to an urgent, pressing problem. It is not a book on constitutional history, constitutional law, constitutional theory or comparative politics – although it draws upon each of those disciplines. It is, rather, an attempt to identify the pressing affliction of the British body-politic and to recommend a remedy. The affliction is a deep constitutional crisis. The ‘unwritten constitution’, which grew up over the centuries from a hotchpotch of statutes, judicial
185 SEVEN Constitutional language: lessons from beyond Westminster The State shall organize a democratic planning system to support national development, which shall provide solidity, dynamism, competitiveness, continuity and equity to economic growth for the political, social and cultural independence and democratization of the nation. Article 26 of the Mexican constitution … the state shall be under a primary duty … to promote an increase in people’s social and economic well-being and quality of life, especially those of the most disadvantaged persons
