Broadening through blurring? Rethinking citizenship across the ‘us’/‘them’ divide

This contribution explores an argument for the deepening of citizenship as political membership through the blurring of the boundary between the ‘us’ of the citizens and the ‘them’ of the non-citizens. The argument is based on a vision of ‘cosmopolitanism from within’ and on a reinterpretation of national citizenship as a status that simultaneously entails belonging in a national community and belonging in humanity at large. This double capacity of the national citizen entails a norm of mutual reflexive recognition between the citizen and the ‘other’ migrant, or else non-citizen. The article focuses on three logics through which this norm of reflexive recognition may apply in the context of the national demos and facilitate, on the part of the citizen, the embracing of the interests and positions of ‘others’ as the citizen’s own. The three logics are sharedness, analogy, and reflexivity. After weighing possible objections to this argument of deepening citizenship as political membership through the operation of these three logics, the article considers the implications of the argument for broadening citizenship as legal status. It hints in this respect to a possible ‘third model’ of migration regulation, where citizen-regardingness complements security- and rights-based strategies for migration governance.