Europe in the World after the Crisis: A Relational Approach

The economic crisis that has invested Europe since 2008 and the political crisis that peaked in the hot Greek summer of 2015 exposed the fractures and conflicts within the EU, but also within Europe at large. Arguably, this has led to a repositioning of Europe in the world, which is still ongoing. This reconfiguration of the internal European space happens in connection with the redefinition of the relations that Europe entertains with its outside (Moisio et al. 2013). Also, the crises have shown that ‘Europe’ means different things in different places. In this paper, it is argued that classical European studies need to be rethought accordingly: it is no longer possible (and perhaps never was) to conceive of Europe in hermetic categories, but European space and politics need to be re-conceptualized as heterogeneous and uneven, and this always in connection with the transformations happening beyond the artificial idea of Europe as a defined continent (Manners, 2012). Following the call of Jean and John Comaroff (J. Comaroff & J. L. Comaroff 2012), this paper argues that there is a need to look at transformations in contemporary Europe as a consequence of restructuring happening in other parts of the world. The uneven development characterizing today’s Eurozone may be read as a return of colonial relations or unfettered capitalism to Europe

La citoyenneté européenne : les mesures transitoires concernant la libre circulation des travailleurs comme productrices de différences

The object of the present article are the EU legal and the political documents concerning the transitional arrangements on free movement of workers that were put into being for the EU citizens coming from the Eastern countries during the enlargements of 2004 and 2007. The paper offers a reading of the transitional measures as an instrument of government and among their effects one of the most notable is the creation of a European citizenship that works as a difference machine, producing differential relations within the group of EU citizens. This is done through the attribution of differential rights, especially concerning the right to free movement and the right to work within the EU. European citizenship is thus working as a dispositif or technique of differential government, and the transitional measures have relevant political effects on the hierarchy of political subjects and on the redefinition of EU statehood. European citizenship can thus be read as the result of a process of statehood restructuring, and as one of its main elements. This paper focuses on the way in which the right of European citizenship has relevant political and concrete effects, even though its justifications are formulated in economic or legal terms

La citoyenneté européenne : les mesures transitoires concernant la libre circulation des travailleurs comme productrices de différences

The object of the present article are the EU legal and the political documents concerning the transitional arrangements on free movement of workers that were put into being for the EU citizens coming from the Eastern countries during the enlargements of 2004 and 2007. The paper offers a reading of the transitional measures as an instrument of government and among their effects one of the most notable is the creation of a European citizenship that works as a difference machine, producing differential relations within the group of EU citizens. This is done through the attribution of differential rights, especially concerning the right to free movement and the right to work within the EU. European citizenship is thus working as a dispositif or technique of differential government, and the transitional measures have relevant political effects on the hierarchy of political subjects and on the redefinition of EU statehood. European citizenship can thus be read as the result of a process of statehood restructuring, and as one of its main elements. This paper focuses on the way in which the right of European citizenship has relevant political and concrete effects, even though its justifications are formulated in economic or legal terms

What is European Citizenship? The Dilemmas of Public Opinion in the Age of Maastricht

This article argues that it is possible to understand the ambiguities of European public opinion only if we approach the question in terms of how, both at the continental and at the national level, public opinion in Europe has been produced through socio-economic and political mechanisms, rather than being given by the sum of individual preferences. In particular, the paper focuses on how the specific conditions of being a citizen, and thus constituting public opinion, are produced through the restructuring of national spaces at the continental level. Taking as an example the case of the Greek referendum of July, 5, 2015, on the structural adjustment program proposed by the European institutions, the paper argues that the EU is characterized by a process of continuous differentiation of the conditions of possibility and of the rights of national citizens. Finally, the paper proposes to read these transformations through the model, proposed by Nicos Poulantzas, of restructuring of the matrix of European statehood

A feminist perspective on urban politics and social space in the neo-liberal city. Theoretical outlooks and social practices in the Italian context

Gender dimension, from a feminist perspective, in urban policies is a subject that urban planners, urban sociologists, politicians, and activists have often grappled with over time. However, the need to achieve an overall feminist take (Mol) or a gender urban advocacy approach (Kern, 2020) has frequently clashed, in urban activism or in the analysis of policy areas and segments open to gender issues, with a cultural climate resistant to gender inequalities, especially in the context of the neoliberal city. The latter is focused on maximizing its ability to extract value from cities and citizens, and naturally tends not to pay the necessary attention to the spatialization of inequalities (both gender and intersectional) that occur in the urban context. On the other hand, the increasingly widespread adoption of the gender mainstreaming paradigm seems to permeate various institutional levels, descending from the supranational level of the EU, where it was formulated, down to a more formal than substantive incorporation in urban contexts. This paper aims to analyse, first and foremost, from a theoretical perspective with the necessary reference to the gender claim of urban space and the introduction of the gender mainstreaming paradigm in public policies, and secondly with an empirical approach dedicated to Italian metropolitan cities, the ways in which the right to the city (Lefebvre) is interpreted in terms of gender. The goal of the work is to highlight a formalistic and non-substantive adherence to the gender mainstreaming paradigm in the context of Italian cities, where, in the light of references to gender equality in the right to the city, predominantly symbolic and commemorative references to the role of women are made, proceeding only in limited cases towards planning urban spaces and services tailored to women, supporting women's participation in city life, and fully integrating gender issues into the programming of social, educational, and city-sized welfare services