Citizenship between Past and Future brings together some of the most prominent scholars in the field of citizenship studies to assess, critically and contextually, the ongoing significance of citizenship as an object of study. The authors reflect on the major issues and debates that have emerged in the field of citizenship studies over the last decade as well as to point out some of the new challenges ahead. The book recasts traditional thinking about citizenship beyond issues of legal status and investigates it rather as a strategic concept that is central in the analysis of identity, participation, human rights, and emerging forms of political life. Seeking to broaden the debate on the meaning, significance, and practices of citizenship, the authors engage with an impressive and challenging array of theoretical and substantive issues. Citizenship is investigated in terms of debates over inclusion and exclusion, statism and cosmopolitanism, status and rights, gender and race, and multiculturalism and global inequality. The book revitalizes the debate over a key political concept and offers new ways of thinking about citizenship that take into account contemporary challenges.

Citizenship between Past and Future brings together some of the most prominent scholars in the field of citizenship studies to assess, critically and contextually, the ongoing significance of citizenship as an object of study. The authors reflect on the major issues and debates that have emerged in the field of citizenship studies over the last decade as well as to point out some of the new challenges ahead. The book recasts traditional thinking about citizenship beyond issues of legal status and investigates it rather as a strategic concept that is central in the analysis of identity, participation, human rights, and emerging forms of political life. Seeking to broaden the debate on the meaning, significance, and practices of citizenship, the authors engage with an impressive and challenging array of theoretical and substantive issues. Citizenship is investigated in terms of debates over inclusion and exclusion, statism and cosmopolitanism, status and rights, gender and race, and multiculturalism and global inequality. The book revitalizes the debate over a key political concept and offers new ways of thinking about citizenship that take into account contemporary challenges.

States define who their citizens are and exert control over their life and movements. But how does such power persist in a global world where people, ideas, and products constantly cross the borders of what the states see as their sovereign territory? This groundbreaking work sets to examine and interprets such challenges to offer a new way of thinking about citizenship. Abandoning the sovereignty principle, it develops a new image of citizenship using the connectedness principle. To do so, it interprets acts of citizenship by following "activist citizens" across the world through case studies, from Wikileaks and the Gaza flotilla to China's virtual world and Darfur. Written by a leader in the field, this accessible and original work imagines citizens without frontiers as a politics without community and belonging, inclusion without exclusion, where the frontier becomes a form of otherness that citizens erase or create. This unique work brings forth a new and creative way to approach citizenship beyond boundaries that will appeal to anyone studying citizenship, social movements, and migration.

`The overall conception of the volume is absolutely splendid, and the editors skilfully place the material in the context of disciplinary and post-disciplinary developments in sociology. This is a major contribution to the field, as well as a comprehensive and reliable guide to its main components' - William Outhwaite, Professor of Sociology, School of European Studies, University of Sussex

`It is hard to think of anything that has been left out in this masterly survey of contemporary historical sociology. The editors have done a superb job in the selection of both themes and contributors. We now at last have an up-to-date book to assign in our graduate courses on comparative historical sociology. There?s really nothing else like it out there.... The editors? introduction is one of the best things I have read on how the field developed, and the problems it has encountered' - Krishan Kumar, William R Kenan, Jr Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia

What is important in historical sociology? What are the main routes of development in the subject?

This Handbook consists of 26 chapters on historical sociology. It is divided into three parts. Part One is devoted to Foundations and covers Marx, Weber, evolutionary and functionalist approaches, the Annales School, Elias, Nelson and Eisenstadt. Part Two moves on to consider major approaches, such as modernization approaches, late Marxist approaches, historical geography, institutional approaches, cultural history, intellectual history, postcolonial and genealogical approaches. The third part is devoted to the major substantive themes in historical sociology ranging from state formation, nationalism, social movements, classes, patriarchy, architecture, religion and moral regulation to problems of periodization and East-West divisions. Each part includes an introduction that summarizes and contextualizes chapters. A general introduction to the volume outlines the current situation of historical sociology after the cultural turn in the social sciences. It argues that historical sociology is deeply divided between explanatory `sociological' approaches and more empirical and interpretative `historical' approaches.

Systematic and informative the book offers readers the most complete and authoritative guide to historical sociology.

This book introduces the concept of 'act of citizenship' and in doing so, re-orients the study of what it means to be a citizen. Isin and Nielsen show that an 'act of citizenship' is the event through which subjects constitute themselves as citizens. They claim that such an act involves both responsibility and answerability, but is ultimately irreducible to either. This study of citizenship is truly interdisciplinary, drawing not only on new developments in politics, sociology, geography and anthropology, but also on psychoanalysis, philosophy and history. Ranging from Antigone and Socrates in the ancient world to checkpoints, euthanasia and flash mobs in the modern one, the 'acts' and chapters here build up a dynamic and wide-ranging picture. Acts of Citizenship provides important new insights for all those concerned with the relationship between individuals, groups and polities.

From women's rights, civil rights, and sexual rights for gays and lesbians to disability rights and language rights, we have experienced in the past few decades a major trend in Western nation-states towards new claims for inclusion. This trend has echoed around the world: from the Zapatistas to Chechen and Kurdish nationalists, social and political movements are framing their struggles in the languages of rights and recognition, and hence, of citizenship.

Citizenship has thus become an increasingly important axis in the social sciences. Social scientists have been rethinking the role of political agent or subject. Not only are the rights and obligations of citizens being redefined, but also what it means to be a citizen has become an issue of central concern.

As the process of globalization produces multiple diasporas, we can expect increasingly complex relationships between homeland and host societies that will make the traditional idea of national citizenship problematic. As societies are forced to manage cultural difference and associated tensions and conflict, there will be changes in the processes by which states allocate citizenship and a differentiation of the category of citizen.

This book constitutes the most authoritative and comprehensive guide to the terrain. Drawing on a wealth of interdisciplinary knowledge, and including some of the leading commentators of the day, it is an essential guide to understanding modern citizenship.

About the editors:

Engin F Isin is Associate Professor of Social Science at York University. His recent works include Being Political: Genealogies of Citizenship (Minnesota, 2002) and, with P K Wood, Citizenship and Identity (Sage, 1999). He is the Managing Editor of Citizenship Studies.

Bryan S Turner is Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. He has written widely on the sociology of citizenship in Citizenship and Capitalism (Unwin Hyman, 1986) and Citizenship and Social Theory (Sage, 1993). He is also the author of The Body and Society (Sage, 1996) and Classical Sociology (Sage, 1999), and has been editor of Citizenship Studies since 1997.

Series Information:
Governance and Change in the Global Era

Democracy, Citizenship and the Global City focuses on the controversial, neglected theme of citizenship. It examines the changing role of citizens; their rights, obligations and responsibilities as members of nation-states and the issue of accountability in a global society. Using this interdisciplinary approach, the book offers an innovative collection of work from Robert A. Beauregard, Anna Bounds, Janine Brodie, Richard Dagger, Gerard Delanty, Judith A. Garber, Robert J. Holton, Warren Magnusson, Raymond Rocco, Nikolas Rose, Evelyn S. Ruppert, Saskia Sassen, Bryan S. Turner, John Urry, Gerda R. Wekerle and Nira Yuval-Davis.

Through a detailed introductory discussion of the relation between the civil and the political, and between recognition and representation, this book provides a comprehensive vocabulary for understanding citizenship. It uses the work of T H Marshall to frame the critical interrogation of how ethnic, technological, ecological, cosmopolitan, sexual and cultural rights relate to citizenship. The authors show how the civil, political and social meanings of citizenship have been redefined by postmodernization and globalization.

What does it mean to be a European citizen? The rapidly changing politics of citizenship in the face of migration, diversity, heightened concerns about security and financial and economic crises, has left European citizenship as one of the major political and social challenges to European integration. Enacting European Citizenship develops a distinctive perspective on European citizenship and its impact on European integration by focusing on 'acts' of European citizenship. The authors examine a broad range of cases - including those of the Roma, Sinti, Kurds, sex workers, youth and other 'minorities' or marginalised peoples - to illuminate the ways in which the institutions and practices of European citizenship can hinder as well as enable claims for justice, rights and equality. This book draws the key themes together to explore what the limitations and possibilities of European citizenship might be.

What does it mean to be a European citizen? The rapidly changing politics of citizenship in the face of migration, diversity, heightened concerns about security and financial and economic crises, has left European citizenship as one of the major political and social challenges to European integration. Enacting European Citizenship develops a distinctive perspective on European citizenship and its impact on European integration by focusing on 'acts' of European citizenship. The authors examine a broad range of cases - including those of the Roma, Sinti, Kurds, sex workers, youth and other 'minorities' or marginalised peoples - to illuminate the ways in which the institutions and practices of European citizenship can hinder as well as enable claims for justice, rights and equality. This book draws the key themes together to explore what the limitations and possibilities of European citizenship might be.

States define who their citizens are and exert control over their life and movements. But how does such power persist in a global world where people, ideas, and products constantly cross the borders of what the states see as their sovereign territory? This groundbreaking work sets to examine and interprets such challenges to offer a new way of thinking about citizenship. Abandoning the sovereignty principle, it develops a new image of citizenship using the connectedness principle. To do so, it interprets acts of citizenship by following "activist citizens" across the world through case studies, from Wikileaks and the Gaza flotilla to China's virtual world and Darfur. Written by a leader in the field, this accessible and original work imagines citizens without frontiers as a politics without community and belonging, inclusion without exclusion, where the frontier becomes a form of otherness that citizens erase or create. This unique work brings forth a new and creative way to approach citizenship beyond boundaries that will appeal to anyone studying citizenship, social movements, and migration.

Previous notions of what constitutes "citizenship" within a country have been steadily challenged by the movement towards a globalized world. Examining the everyday habits of citizens and non-citizens, the contributors to Recasting the Social in Citizenship show how citizenship has increasingly been determined by social behaviours rather than by civil or political affiliations. Broadening the debate by interpreting the social not only as rights and privileges, but also as everyday struggles, this volume offers studies that range from environmental and security issues to transnational migration and military transformations. It further discusses debates over multiculturalism and integration and takes a fresh look at how social activities such as eating, commuting, smoking, as well as sexual habits of citizens and non-citizens have become increasingly governed by the state.

Tracing developments in politics and social actions that have bound together citizens and non-citizens, Engin F. Isin and the volume's contributors explore the social sites that have become objects of government, and considers how these subjects are sites of contestation, resistance, differentiation and identification. In doing so, they provide significant insights into the changing states of citizenship and social governance, making Recasting the Social in Citizenship an engaging collection that will be of interest to sociologists, political scientists, and anyone with a concern about immigration and citizenship.

Previous notions of what constitutes "citizenship" within a country have been steadily challenged by the movement towards a globalized world. Examining the everyday habits of citizens and non-citizens, the contributors to Recasting the Social in Citizenship show how citizenship has increasingly been determined by social behaviours rather than by civil or political affiliations. Broadening the debate by interpreting the social not only as rights and privileges, but also as everyday struggles, this volume offers studies that range from environmental and security issues to transnational migration and military transformations. It further discusses debates over multiculturalism and integration and takes a fresh look at how social activities such as eating, commuting, smoking, as well as sexual habits of citizens and non-citizens have become increasingly governed by the state.

Tracing developments in politics and social actions that have bound together citizens and non-citizens, Engin F. Isin and the volume's contributors explore the social sites that have become objects of government, and considers how these subjects are sites of contestation, resistance, differentiation and identification. In doing so, they provide significant insights into the changing states of citizenship and social governance, making Recasting the Social in Citizenship an engaging collection that will be of interest to sociologists, political scientists, and anyone with a concern about immigration and citizenship.

This book introduces the concept of 'act of citizenship' and in doing so, re-orients the study of what it means to be a citizen. Isin and Nielsen show that an 'act of citizenship' is the event through which subjects constitute themselves as citizens. They claim that such an act involves both responsibility and answerability, but is ultimately irreducible to either. This study of citizenship is truly interdisciplinary, drawing not only on new developments in politics, sociology, geography and anthropology, but also on psychoanalysis, philosophy and history. Ranging from Antigone and Socrates in the ancient world to checkpoints, euthanasia and flash mobs in the modern one, the 'acts' and chapters here build up a dynamic and wide-ranging picture. Acts of Citizenship provides important new insights for all those concerned with the relationship between individuals, groups and polities.

Through a detailed introductory discussion of the relation between the civil and the political, and between recognition and representation, this book provides a comprehensive vocabulary for understanding citizenship. It uses the work of T H Marshall to frame the critical interrogation of how ethnic, technological, ecological, cosmopolitan, sexual and cultural rights relate to citizenship. The authors show how the civil, political and social meanings of citizenship have been redefined by postmodernization and globalization.