Citizenship and the European Community, (Paperback)

As the European community develops a program of social policies at the transnational level, is a new kind of citizenship emerging? If so, how does European citizenship differ from citizenship at the national level, and how does it affect national citizenship rights? In this timely contribution to the debates on citizenship, Elizabeth Meehan provides an incisive analysis of the meaning of citizenship, and the links between civil, political, and social citizenship. She provides a clear account of the development of social rights within the European Community in three key areas: social security and assistance, participation by workers in undertakings in which they are employed, and the equal treatment of men and women. The author critically assesses the extent to which inequalities of class, gender, and ethnicity are successfully addressed by community social policies. Citizenship and the European Community will appeal to a wide readership across the social sciences, and will be of particular interest to academics and students of political studies, social policy, social and political theory, social inequalities and European studies. "This important little book provides the first overview in English of the practices of the European Community with respect to citizenship. It documents in detail the emergence of a solid tissue of new economic and social rights for workers throughout the Union. Elizabeth Meehan pays particular attention to the EC′s actions in the area of equal protection, which have resulted in recalcitrant member states being pressed and prodded to move in the direction of gender equality. Meehan is careful to trace and document the roots of such new rights, which lie not only in the Treaty of Rome but also in the decisions of the European Court and directives of the Commission. In this analysis she clearly demonstrates the breadth of the commitment to extending citizenship rights within the institutions of the community." --Economic & Industrial Democracy