Abstract
It should be made clear that any disruptive behaviour will not be tolerated and will not lead to the aborting of the removal operation; … seatbelts shall be kept fastened throughout the entire duration of the flight; … coercion may be used on individuals who refuse or resist removal .… any coercive measures should not compromise or threaten the ability of the returnee to breathe normally. In the event that coercive force is used, it shall be ensured that the chest of the returnee remains in upright position and that nothing affects his or her chest in order to maintain normal respiratory function … .
This statement by the Council of the European Union on return practices for illegal migrants is quoted by Hansen and Hager in their book, which explores the contradictions behind it.
Hansen and Hager’s work looks at the issue of citizenship in European politics, in particular relation to migration policies. It is distinctive in its approach, with its uniqueness stemming from the critical historical approach it takes. Hansen and Hager analyse the history of the EU politics since the 1970s until the present day, and argue that the politics of citizenship is inherently contradictory in this period of history. On the one hand it has rendered labour flexible and forced it to accommodate to the needs of the market, while on the other hand it has created a space for discriminisation and racialisation of third-country nationals.
The book opens with a discourse around the referenda on the EU’s Constitutional Treaty in 2005. No-voters in the referenda were then labelled as ‘nationalist, racist, anti-immigration, ignorant or at best lazy’. The authors draw their argument from the beginning that the EU citizenship inherits a vast number of inconsistencies. The book is then divided into two parts, with the first dedicated to explaining the theoretical approach they choose. It is based on critical political economy, and posits that none of the popular approaches (post-national cosmopolitanism/multilevel governance) is able to analyse the historical dimension of the EU project, nor to theorise upon the asymmetrical power relations behind it. Instead, they offer what they call ‘a critical history’ to explain the social purpose of citizenship within a capitalist context.
The remaining chapters in the first part (Chapter 2 and 3) explore changing policies from this perspective. In Chapter 2, they suggest that a supranational citizenship regime is not a new paradigm, yet had been set from the onset of European integration in the 1950s. Beginning with the 1960s, there emerged a dualised system of migration, bifurcated between the member states and the third countries. The notions of ‘European values’ and ‘illegal migration’ started to be articulated in the 1970s. Yet it was not until the 1980s that the emphasis on social rights of citizenship was replaced by an emphasis on growth and more jobs. The Single European Act and the Single Market Program of the 1980s meant a clear deviation of European policies.
Chapter 3 shows that the 1980s witnessed a hollowing of ‘social citizenship’ in the name of a ‘market citizenship’. Hansen and Hager’s argument is clear: behind these policies there existed an enormous contradiction. ‘Market citizenship’ was insufficient to create a collective space for the market to operate. ‘European values’ were instead propagated with the aim of creating a community for the market. The European citizenship’s ‘cultural’ aspect gradually replaced its ‘social’ aspect, marginalising third-country nationals. The ultimate aim was that an integrated European society could serve the market on top of it. EU policies aimed at establishing a competitive knowledge-based economy and an increasingly flexible labour. For that, they simultaneously advocated fostering of greater tolerance and understanding between different cultures.
The second part of the book explains the developments taking place within the framework of the Lisbon Strategy (2000–2010), in particular the ever-growing importance of migration policies within the 1999–2004 Tampere Program (chapter 5) and the 2005–2010 Hague Program (chapter 6). The contradictions mentioned above endure and grow successively in each programme. While on the one hand the discourse of threat is directed against ‘illegal migrants’ and ‘bogus asylum seekers’, on the other hand there seems to be almost authoritatively tougher migrant integration policies.
In elaborating on creation of the neoliberal market, Hansen and Hager take insights from Polanyi, who analysed the British free market that was not free in itself but rather planned and managed. They illustrate that the planned and constructed cultural aspect of the European citizenship paved the way for prosecution of ‘illegal immigrants/bogus asylum seekers’ as traitors and subjects incapable of integrating into European values. That further opened a space for security politics, considering migrants in relation to the perceived threats of ‘terrorism’.
The authors conclude their book by discussing who an ideal EU citizen would be. An ideal EU citizen seems, they argue, to be ‘someone who is not reliant on social rights, is completely flexible in the labour market, does not exercise political rights in a way that hinders further EU integration, and is also devoid of national allegiances toward any particular member state’ (p. 205). This definition illustrates to the reader that the ideal EU citizen would be, paradoxically, an undocumented third-country national. Although the authors state at the outset that their intention is not to provide any recommendation, they at least point to the need to upend the study of EU citizenship. This brings us to the conclusion that, in our contemporary times, full of riots and protests emerging in the aftermath of the global crisis, this book ought to be compulsory reading for all those who are interested in citizenship issues within the European context.