Industrial Citizenship, Cosmopolitanism and European Integration

There has been an explosion of interest in the idea of European Union citizenship in recent years, as a defining example of postnational cosmopolitan citizenship potentially replacing or layered on top of national citizenships. We argue that this form of EU citizenship undermines industrial citizenship, which is a crucial support for social solidarity on which other types of citizenship are based. Because industrial citizenship arises from collectivities based on class identities and national institutions, it depends on the national territorial order and the social closure inherent in it. EU citizenship in its current ‘postnational’ form is realized through practices of mobility, placing it at tension with bounded class-based collectivities. Though practices of working class cosmopolitanism may eventually give rise to a working class consciousness, the fragmented nature of this vision impedes the development of transnational class based collectivities. Industrial and cosmopolitan citizenship must be reimagined together if European integration is to be democratized.