Call for papers: Rainer Bauböck 2025 Essay Award on the Global State of Citizenship
The Global Citizenship Observatory (GLOBALCIT), a global research network committed to fact-based and non-partisan analysis of citizenship laws and electoral rights around the world, is soliciting submissions for the GLOBALCIT – Rainer Bauböck 2025 Essay Award on the Global State of Citizenship. This is the second edition of the competition, and we welcome submissions from recent graduates with a master’s or equivalent degree, current doctoral researchers, or those within 3 years after the award of the doctorate.
Each year, the prize committee asks a question that the essays should try to answer. The question for the 2025 competition is:
How will geopolitics affect future citizenship laws and policies?
We invite essays of up to 3,000 words. These should include a list of references that are not counted towards the word limit. Essays could explore how the attribution of citizenship can be weaponized against other states; whether the global trend towards toleration of multiple citizenship might be reversed or restricted to nationals of friendly states; how geopolitical concerns will affect extraterritorial citizenship offers to investors, kin minorities or on grounds of emigrant ancestry; and whether the aspirational norms of mutual recognition of citizenship between states and a human right to a nationality are likely to give way to patterns of discrimination between allied and enemy nationals.
The essays should be written in English and in a non-technical style that is accessible to a broader public audience (but entries should follow standard academic citation practices)
Essays should be submitted online by 31 March 2025 at 23:59 CEST to globalcit@eui.eu, together with a short CV and photo.
Prize
The selected essay will be published on the GLOBALCIT website and in the Cadmus research repository of the European University Institute. The author of the best essay will receive a prize of 1,000 euros and will be invited to present the essay at a workshop in Florence on 8-9 May, 2025 (online or in person; travel funding cannot be provided).
Eligibility
Early career scholars from any academic discipline are invited to participate in the competition. Anyone currently contracted by GLOBALCIT, or who has been so in the last five years before the submission deadline, is excluded from participation. Essays must be single-authored.
Selection
A jury composed of the four GLOBALCIT co-directors and one external member with expertise in the domain of the annual theme of the competition will evaluate submissions and choose the winning essay. Essays will be evaluated based on the originality of the arguments and the ability to inspire and convey ideas in a concise and engaging way.
By entering the competition, participants agree to the terms of the competition, and agree to us processing and using their personal data for the purposes described – including to administer the contest, to attribute the winner publicly, and for promotional purposes. We will not share personal details with third parties. Copyright remains with the author.
About the essay award
The GLOBALCIT– Rainer Bauböck Essay Award is sponsored by the funds of the City of Vienna 2023 Prize in Humanities and Social Sciences awarded to Rainer Bauböck for his work on citizenship and democratic theory. Bauböck is a former professor of Social and Political Theory at the European University Institute (EUI) and founding GLOBALCIT Co-Director. GLOBALCIT is a global research network based at the Robert Schuman Centre of the EUI.
For more inspiration, be sure to check out the two runner-ups and the winning essay of the 2024 Competition, ranked highest by the jury on the question of Climate Change and the Future of Citizenship.