ABSTRACT Beck (2006) has suggested that trans-national migration and the consolidation of human rights are features of an emergent cosmopolitan society in which we see a blurring of distinctions with respect to the rights of citizens and non-citizens. This paper argues that the presence of noncitizens on national territory has rather been accompanied by an expansion of distinctions in a system of civic stratification. It outlines the construction of asylum seekers as a ‘target group’ within this complex, and the withdrawal of welfare support from ‘late claimers’. However, the paper also considers the limits placed on the erosion of rights through the human rights challenge that followed, in which the European Convention on Human Rights played a central role. Finally, the paper elaborates the interplay of formal entitlement and informal status in the process of change, and examines the implications of the whole account for cosmopolitan thinking.

This article offers a comparative study of rights and controls with respect to migration, based on research in Germany, Britain and Italy. These three countries were chosen both for their differing histories and for their contrasting contemporary circumstances, as a means of identifying the problems which confront any attempt at harmonization. The analysis offers an approach midway between an exaggerated view of national closure and control, and an over-emphasis on the power of transnational rights. Focusing instead on stratified rights or ‘civic stratification’, the article examines the different legal statuses available to non-EEA migrants, and identifies key contrasts in the management of migration in each of the three countries studied. It offers a tentative typology to capture these contrasts, and reflects on their significance for a harmonized Europe.