La cittadinanza di Schrödinger. Recensione a D. Kochenov, Cittadinanza. La promessa di un alchimista, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2020

Citizenship is the status certifying full membership to a given community: it is a concept with a strong identitarian nature, whose potentially discriminatory effects always take second place with respect to the beneficiary ones that, according to many, it would determine. The objective of the volume “Citizenship”, written by Dimitry Kochenov and translated in Italian by the publisher “Il Mulino”, is to bring to light the reasons that had justified the creation of such a concept: in brief, it seems to be an indispensable instrument in the hands of the States, which, according to their tolerance level towards minorities, decide who is entitled to “belong” (or not) to the community concerned. In other words, it is a tool to normalize discrimination and justify exclusion. This dynamic is nowadays challenged by a series of phenomena: first and foremost, the so-called ideology of human rights; however, as long as our world will remain a “States world”, the latter will unlikely give up the instrument that allows them to control the level of homogeneity (and, thus, of governability) of the addressees of authoritative acts.