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Free rider or Trailblazer?
Atypical Citizenship and the Meaning of Membership
Daniel Naujoks
United Nations Development Programme, New York
Notions, features and forms of ‘citizenship,’ understood as legal membership in a state, are
changing the world over. As atypical citizenship concepts are on the rise, this paper
analyzes the use of the ‘citizenship label’ in contexts that deviate from classic notions of
full state membership.
Drawing on the experiences of the Overseas Citizenship of India, the British Overseas
Citizenship, Citizenship of the European Union and the project of UNASUR’s South
American Citizenship, this paper argues that while the rhetoric of citizenship is based on a
common understanding and an ideal type of full membership there are important
differences in the actual conceptualization of such statuses. The paper highlights the
communication function of citizenship and the connection to ideas of ‘national’ and
‘cultural identity’, as well as the different rights and privileges granted.
The increasing number of atypical citizenship concepts raises the question whether these
are ‘free riders’ that are designed to benefit from the common notion of citizenship while
being permanent exceptions, or whether they are trailblazers that show the way toward a
more differentiated and diverse notion of citizenship itself. This has significant
repercussions for citizenship and democracy theory and the meaning of membership.
BIO Daniel Naujoks
Based in New York City, Daniel Naujoks works as a UN migration consultant and
migration researcher with a focus on international migration and development, citizenship
policies and homeland-diaspora relations. He has published widely on the effects of
migration on social, economic and political development. His book ‘Migration,
Citizenship, and Development’ was published by Oxford University Press in July 2013.
Daniel holds a Ph.D. in political science and economic policy from the University of
Münster, Germany. A graduate in law from the Humboldt University in Berlin and La
Sapienza in Rome, he also holds a post-graduate degree in economics for jurists from the
University of Hagen.
Daniel has been working on development, migration, and population affairs at the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP), EC-UN Joint Migration and Development
Initiative (JMDI), the UN Population Division, UNICEF and the International Labour
Organization (ILO). He is a research fellow at the Hamburg Institute of International
Economics, as well as Research Coordinator at ODI International.