Between openness and resilience: rethinking citizenship in times of polycrisis

Under present conditions of multiple, overlapping, and mutually reinforcing crises, both the internal and external dimensions of citizenship have come under pressure. Externally, higher migration flows, growing multiculturalism, and the commodification of transnational belonging make it increasingly difficult – both morally and politically – to sustain hard boundaries between insiders and outsiders. Internally, democratic backsliding and the increasingly oligarchic character of contemporary societies weaken citizenship’s integrative function and, with it, its capacity to overcome difference and foster civic equality. This introduction to the special issue Citizenship in Times of Polycrisis argues that these interlocking transformations generate a conflict over the breadth and depth of citizenship. Growing transnational interdependence, war, climate change – and the human mobility they trigger – simultaneously pressure the membership regimes of democratic states to become more open and fuel a conservative backlash that, by intensifying fragmentation and polarization, endangers democratic resilience. Yet while the global polycrisis may exacerbate tensions and contradictions already inherent in modern citizenship regimes, it may also catalyse their radical renewal, inviting political theorists, practitioners, and ordinary citizens to rethink the apparent conflict between citizenship’s broadening and deepening dynamics. This introduction begins that work by tracing the conflict through the history of political ideas, examining its present-day intensifications, and opening a new conversation about the normative reasons and political opportunities for expanding and reinvigorating citizenship in ways that make it both more just in access and more democratically robust.