compar1son the EU and USA

This paper begins with a reminder of the constitutional and institutional frameworks of allegiances, identification and citizenship rights. Then it argues that there are grounds for questioning the customary conceptual and political overlap between nationality and citizenship. Some decoupling has taken place in the EU and the paper considers competing assessments as to how well these specific supranational institutions are protecting rights. In conclusion, Carlos Closa s idea is drawn on that supranational citizenship has more potential than national citizenship to be democratic. His claim that civil society in the European Union (EU) is too weak to take advantage of this potentiality may be reinforced by enlargement. This is not because of the introduction of a further set of nationalities into a supranational citizenship system but because of a new complexity in the principled norms which Closa says have to be present in a site of democratic citizenship. in view of this, there are lessons to be learned from American theories of republican federalism which, as expounded by Sam Beer, have much in common with a modern interest among radical democrats in deliberative or dialogic democracy.