Challenging the Nation-State from within: The Emergence of Transmunicipal Solidarity in the Course of the EU Refugee Controversy

• Heimann, Christiane ^[1] ; Müller, Sandra ^[1] ; Schammann, Hannes ^[1] ; Stürner, Janina ^[2]
  1. [1] University of Hildesheim

     University of Hildesheim

     Distrito de Hildesheim, Alemania

     
  2. [2] Centre for Area Studies, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
• Localización: Social Inclusion, ISSN-e 2183-2803, Vol. 7, Nº. 2, 2, 2019 (Ejemplar dedicado a: The European Refugee Controversy: Civil Solidarity, Cultural Imaginaries and Political Change), págs. 208-218
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In the context of the so-called refugee crisis, political disputes about solidarity become a central issue with member states applying competing concepts. At the same time, European cities use transnational networks to implement a new form of solidarity among municipalities via city diplomacy (Acuto, Morissette, & Tsouros, 2017). Analyzing the deadlock between member states and the emerging activities of cities, we scrutinize the limits of existing approaches to political solidarity (e.g., Agustín & Jørgensen, 2019; Knodt, Tews, & Piefer, 2014; Sangiovanni, 2013) to explain this phenomenon. Based on expert interviews and document analysis from a study on transnational municipal networks, we identify an emerging concept of solidarity that challenges the nation states as core providers of solidarity from within: transmunicipal solidarity focuses on joint action of local governments to scale out and scale up.