Publié le 30/11/2006

The EU anti-discrimination agenda, as set out by the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997, has become a major issue for understanding the future of citizenship in Europe. This timely collection, which features internationally renowned contributors, including Andrew Geddes, Etienne Balibar, Stephen Castles and John Rex, examines the impact of anti-discrimination policies in Britain and France. Arguing that national citizenship has entered a 'citizenship dilemma', based on the contradiction between the widespread existence of discrimination and citizenship as a central project of an equality-based society, this study explores key issues including the impetus behind the anti-discrimination agenda, the limits of achieving inclusion via national citizenship, how institutional and sociological contexts, primarily prisons and the military, encourage discrimination and the gender dimension of discrimination. Highlighting the inherent contradictions in the notion of citizenship, these essays move the debate beyond the oppositition between ethnicity and citizenship and demonstrate ways to achieve equality in multicultural and globalized societies.