Security, Flexible Sovereignty, and the Perils of Multiple Citizenship

Abstract

In this paper we unpack the concept of dual citizenship in relation to the meaning of sovereignty claims in situations of political exception. We take up two contending analytical frameworks to examine dual citizenship. The first framework examines dual citizenship as a human right, and makes liberal legal arguments about the increased rights and privileges afforded to dual citizens. The second framework, which we develop here, examines dual citizenship as a form of hierarchical citizenship, whose genealogy owes substantially to orientalist mythologies, and whose technologies of governance work through securitized state policies and practices of flexible sovereignty. As a form of hierarchical citizenship, dual nationality produces hyphenated citizenships that exist on a transnational plane, yet are always rooted in relations among particular nation-states. Some of the recent cases of extraordinary rendition, detention, and torture of dual national men of Muslim and Arab background will be discussed to illuminate the securitization and racialization of diplomatic protection. While citizenship is not a standard set of rights available to all, the cases we examine reveal that dual citizens with “dangerous” nationalities caught up within the post-9/11 security paradigm may find themselves as unprotected persons, existing in a vacuum devoid of diplomatic protection, human and citizenship rights.