Citizenship as a ‘space of law’: the case of the new states in South Eastern Europe

In exploring the intricacies of the 'citizenship - rule of law' nexus, Shaw explores the emergence of new citizenship regimes in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia from the perspective of the rule of law. She assesses, first, the relationship between citizenship and the rule of law generally. Is citizenship a ‘space of law’ or a space of ‘non law’? She then examines different models of the rule of law (thin and thick conceptions) with a view to seeing how these have impacted upon the generation of norms within the citizenship regimes of the post Yugoslav states. Her paper takes both an external and an internal perspective on the development of new norms of citizenship, looking at the different ways in which states have adopted, or generated, different normative frameworks which reflect underlying objectives relating to polity building that they have pursued since independence/separation.