Very few narratives go as unchallenged about the transition of Central and Eastern European countries from state socialism to market democracies as the following: before the transitions people in these countries had strong social rights but were lacking any civic and political rights, and while the transformations provided the people with firm civil and political citizenship, they lost out on social rights. In my dissertation I argue that this is an oversimplifying and highly distorted narrative that is blind to the deep inequalities in these societies. My research focused on one particular means of reproducing these inequalities, namely welfare institutions, and explored what recipients of social assistance provision learned about their citizenship in the post-transition Hungarian welfare complex. This analysis not only demonstrated an inextricable interrelationship between civil, political and social citizenship, but also allowed for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms through which apparent political inequalities were reproduced in practice. By the innovative method of institutional ethnography I constructed a mosaic of the various component elements of the institutional system of social assistance provision in contemporary Hungary and investigated the influence that each had on recipients' civil and political citizenship. This study indicated a marked discrepancy between recipients' ideal and their lived experiences of citizenship, and found that certain characteristics of the system of social assistance provision played a crucial part in reproducing this discrepancy. The high level of discretion in the system, recipients' lack of information, the treatment they underwent in the welfare office, as well as the lack of institutional guarantees that could ensure that they enjoyed equal and fair treatment in all the welfare offices in the country proved to be the most important characteristics of social assistance provision that had direct or indirect effects on recipients' democratic subjectivity.

This thesis conceptualizes and documents transformations underlying the contemporary condition of Canadian political membership. Through an examination of recent changes in Canadian immigration policy underwritten by the neoliberal reconfiguration of the state, the imperatives of ‘skills discourse’ and the exigencies of economic globalization, this thesis interprets the effect of globalization on the state and state-based membership as a process referred to by Saskia Sassen as ‘incipient denationalization’. / Graduate

This is paper is an argument analysis of citizenship and its allocation using an interpretation of Linda Bosniaks theory of Divided Citizenship. The starting point of this paper is the absence of a thorough or exhaustive legal definition of citizenship and legal binding and enforceable citizenship allocation laws within international migration law. Referring primarily to the absence of principals of social justice and global ethics within the legal framework. In total this leads to a multitude of different ethical problems. Therefore, there is a need for researching and evaluating alternative definitions and principles concerning citizenship and its allocation beyond the most common ones.The research material of this paper consists of chapters from two books Spheres of Justice by Michael Walzer and Scales of Justice by Nancy Fraser. The conclusion of this paper is that the combination of the “all subjected-principle” and “the membership-principle” are best suited to the demands that a wide definition of citizenship poses. Citizenship and its allocation are today less and less dependent on the state itself and can today easily be supplemented by other institutions depending on geographic and political needs, while still using democratic governance. Therefore, it is desirable to link the allocation of citizenship to the goal of establishing participatory parity. Deliberative democracy is the necessary foundation of all political organization. All other forms of citizenships and rights are necessary preconditions for people to be able to participate in the political process and protect all equal value of all people. The denial of citizenship is always the first in a long train of abuses.