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Ouverture: l’antinomie de la citoyennete

The first part of this chapter is translated as ‘Antinomies of Citizenship: The Cassal Lecture in French Culture’, Journal of Romance Studies, Volume 10 Number 2, Summer 2010, pp. 1–20.

This chapter argues that the ‘democratic paradox’ reveals the problematic character of citizenship. It examines three moments of construction and destruction of the democratic citizen: 1) the permanent ‘trace’ of collective insurrections in the modern constitutions; 2) the contradictions of the ‘national social state’, which transformed civic into social citizenship; 3) the neo-liberal response to its crisis which neutralizes popular representation in the name of a ‘post-political’ governance of societies and markets. The conclusion discusses agencies that might provide an alternative and resurrect citizenship in a new era.