Det svenska medborgarskapet bortom retoriken : en granskning av ett kommittédirektiv

Sammanfattning: This essay investigates whether or not a governmental directive from 2012 con-cerning the use of citizenship in achieving better integration and a more dynamic Sweden, can be said to express Jürgen Habermas ideas of ‘constitutional patriot-ism’. The essay also scrutinizes how and if the directive’s ambition is achievable through the methods and means described therein, more specifically, the para-doxical relationship between the particularistic citizenship and universal human rights. One important polemic is found in on the one hand, the directive’s pro-claimed goal of giving the citizenship a higher symbolical value (e.g. by ‘improv-ing’ inaugural ceremonies) with the hopes of thereby implementing democratic values and societal virtues in the citizen, and, on the other, academic studies which show that ‘symbolic involvement’ with the state does not result in a higher degree of interest concerning state affairs. The directive’s ambitions concerning national symbol and inaugural ceremonies are therefore judged to backfire.