A Cosmopolitan Polity? Exploring Cosmopolitan Legimitacy in the EU’s Immigration & Asylum Policies

This paper looks into the fundamental restraints placed on the EU polity as a representative vanguard of political cosmopolitanism. The research stipulates that following its long modification and ratification, the Lisbon Treaty, has largely failed to serve the EU as it was originally intended to (as a unifying constitution producing a post-national demos). Aside from manipulating bureaucratic structure of power, for instance the increased power of the Parliament, its ability to respond to crises (financial or otherwise) or to immigration and asylum pressures, remain uncertain. This study grounds itself on Klosko’s  and E.O Eriksen’s cosmopolitan theories  claiming  how the EU has politically institutionalized humanitarianism. Through a humanitarian-economic lens, the paper argues that a legitimizing cosmopolitan vision has not (yet) been fulfilled and is currently restrained by political practices of member states.

The Lisbon Treaty did not foster a cosmopolitan vision of governance. Humanitarian cosmopolitanism is impeded by rightward fundamentalism and individual state driven immigration policy prioritization. This research furthers the discussion on how cosmopolitanism is hindered within the EU by analyzing the growth of right-of-center political influence occurring in Scandinavia and Western Europe (the states that have arguably the greatest effect on EU policy formulation). Therefore, the EU, once thought to be the vanguard of cosmopolitan polity development, including a post-national demos, is impacted by nationalistic agendas and individual state demands. Using comparative policy-tracing, the post-Lisbon tensions between economic stability and ethnic diversification, by way of immigration and asylum policy formulations become apparent.