Over the last decades we have witnessed the proliferation of problems in most European and North-American democracies involving issues of citizenship. Some of these problems, like the patterns and degrees of citizen’s participation in politics and related issues of civic education, seem perennial and even intrinsic to modern democracies. Others, like the causes and consequences of migration, including questions of integrating immigrants into existing nation-states, have become more urgent and complex due to economic and cultural trends toward globalization and growing international interdependencies. 

In addition, various political problems have exacerbated religious and cultural differences precisely when more traditional notions of community are changing or being challenged. International human rights frequently clash directly with exclusionary national identities. This at a time when economically induced migrations and cultural clashes increase the need for ‘belonging’ to groups capable of providing individuals and families with not only basic securities, but also with meaningful, socially supported modes of life.  

The ‘Future Citizenship’ network aims to facilitate access to the more important ongoing research under the rubric of citizenship undertaken by either individual scholars or institutes. By providing a central website for identifying various projects, it will be far easier not only to gather detailed information about them, but also to compare and contrast them, note points of concentration as well as possible areas requiring more attention, and be inspired to locate new research areas and focal points.  

To this end, the websites will also include publication of research papers and project reports of our participants according to their needs and specifications.

Our project of coordinating and presenting these materials will not favor any one political orientation, and will adhere to the high standards of scholarship prevailing in the area of citizenship research today.

‘Future Citizenship’ intends to sponsor or cooperate with international conferences and seminars concentrated on specific problem areas of citizenship.  Special attention will be paid to new aspects, as for instance developments in the concept of EU citizenship, or immigrant admission policies in NAFTA. An example of events integrated in the ‘Future Citizenship’ network is a graduate seminar on EU citizenship offered in Lisbon, Portugal, in the spring of 2008 (see our www.citizensandaliens.org project website), which eventually will be expanded to include students from Europe and the US in future editions.

Finally, ‘Future Citizenship’ will offer a new bi-annual, peer-reviewed electronic journal called ‘Future Citizens,’ which will enable us to publish new articles and reports as rapidly and expeditiously as is possible today.   

With these efforts we hope to contribute to a better understanding of the problems confronting modern democracies and its growing numbers of various new citizens. Whether such understanding will contribute to addressing and solving those problems in the spirit of basic human rights could in part determine the future course and well being of modern democracies, and of new forms of political communities.


Horst Mewes
Paulo Zagalo-Melo