Akos Kopper

• In the past decades a paradigmatic change has been taking place concerning the concept of citizenship with the fading of the former prohibitive attitude towards dual citizenship. With this transformation the former congruity between citizens, the territory of the state, the nation and the sphere of political authority is undermined, which has major ramification on the concept of sovereignty. The thesis contends that sovereignty is the attribute of two entities of the political: the state and the individual and modern political life could be interpreted as the dialectic relationship of these two, with the individual seeking to realize his freedom and the state to create effective means to govern collectives of man. The Westphalian structure provided the framework to divide the world into distinct units of states, on the one hand with the domestic - where democratic politics offered the room for man to realize his freedom - and on the other hand the international - where states interacted in an anarchic environment. It was the corollary of this setup to neatly package individuals into states, creating a hierarchical primacy of states over their citizens. The prevailing of dual citizenship, however, could be conducive to transform this setup and shift it towards a 'more cosmopolitan reality' by entailing changes both for individuals and for the system states. For individuals as the result of dual citizenship membership in states increasingly turns into a choice and the proliferation of citizenships would bring about also the stratification of citizenship statuses, beyond the former rigid dichotomy of citizens and foreigners. On the system level dual citizenship could be conducive to realize cosmopolitan forms of governance, promoting questions of morality and solidarity to trespass borders of states.