Citizenship without nation? : political and social citizenship in the Habsburg empire

Abstract

This article investigates constitutional laws and practices in the Austrian half of the former Habsburg Monarchy to argue for the possibility of forms of citizenship that are not connected to ethnic national identity, to ethnically defined territories, or to beliefs about membership in ethnic national communities. The article examines forms of citizenship and welfare provision at the local, regional, and imperial levels in the Habsburg Monarchy in the period 1867-1918, and critiques the presumed link between nationalism and democracy that have dominated our post-1918 understandings of citizenship.