Nationalism’s Challenge to European Citizenship, Democracy and Equality: -Potentials for Resistance from Transnational Civil Society

This paper considers the challenges to democratic citizenship posed by the growth of new forms of nationalism in post-crisis Europe, a set of challenges made even more daunting by the present refugee crisis. (2015-16). In light of these challenges, scholars have argued that it is necessary to reframe the meaning of citizenship. They have proposed a new, multilayered conception of what it means to be a European citizen, one which can encompass the privileges and responsibilities of an EU citizen from the local level all the way up to the transnational. Their reconsideration is rooted in skepticism about the continuing capacity of the nation-state to promote equality and social justice. In this essay, I explore the conflict between attachment to national identity on the one hand and the inability of nations on the other to secure the social, civil, and political rights of their people. I ask whether the two can be reconciled using an intersectional approach