Current citizenship laws in the European Union vary dramatically. The tension between freedom of movement and national self-determination of citizenship within the EU has the potential to create serious conflicts in the future, writes Rainer Bauböck. Taking European citizenship seriously means a shared understanding of who the future citizens of Europe are to be.
Rainer Bauböck
is a political scientist and senior researcher at the Austrian Academy of Science, Institute for European Integration Research, and, as of January 2007, professor in political and social theory at the European University Institute in Florence. His research interests are in normative political theory and comparative research on democratic citizenship, European integration, migration, nationalism, and minority rights. He has taught at the Universities of Innsbruck and Vienna and the Central European University, Budapest. He has also been a visiting academic at the Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation, Yale University, the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, the University of Bristol, the University of Malmö, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the University of Warwick. In 2003-2005, Bauböck was president of the Austrian Association of Political Science. For his work on immigration and social cohesion, he was awarded the 2006 Latsis Prize of the European Science Foundation.
