Migrants, Minorities, Belongings and Citizenship. Glocalization and ...

● which existing national and international institutions can continue to be democratic,
inclusive and empowering within the new glocalized contexts of the European
Union;
● what new institutions and norms are needed for sustaining an inclusive and
empowering politics and a democratic society;
● which supranational strategies are needed for introducing the required democratic
norms and institutions in which transnational, national, regional, and glocal
contexts. Concerning improvement strategies, three models will be taken as the
point of departure: Functional Equivalence, Subsidiarity, and Differentiated Scale of
Rights.
Taken together, this should also point to some crucial areas of political contestation in
the European Union, as well as provide an increased understanding of what a closer
association to the Union will mean for some of the states yet not being members.
The point of departure in Glocalmig is the conviction that the new European realities
cannot be understood and described with the concepts and tools of the past. New
concepts and perspectives that are based on the present reality should also be employed.
Glocalmig has, therefore, set out to produce research based facts and concepts which
can constitute the basis of a new European citizenship structure and a European public
space. For achieving these research objectives, the Glocalmig Consortium has developed
certain research tools, which are specially designed in order to address questions relating
to the quality of citizenships in the contexts of diversity, mobility and
changing/ambigious geographical, cultural and political boundaries. Since the European
Union, with its ongoing processes of integration and enlargement is one such context,
these research tools are highly relevant for any research on citizenship and citizen
involvement in the European Union.
However, although the major aim is to develop and test the required research tools,
Glocalmig has also created certain knowledge about the present state of affairs regarding
the quality of citizenships in those six European countries which it focused on. This
knowledge relates to the importance of the relationship between citizens’ and residents’
belongings and the formal citizenship structures. What Glocalmig achieved in this respect
is the discovery of the glocal spaces, which can be the prototypes of a future diverse
society, and, in this respect, which can be used as an alternative model in attempts to
form the new inclusive European public spaces.
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