Citizenship Policies Research Articles

Extending comparative typologies of diaspora policies: Towards a "cautiously proactive" diaspora policy state

In the past two decades, the 'diaspora turn' in research and policy has led to the development of several typologies of diaspora policies around the world. This study explores and extends Francesco Ragazzi's established 2014 global typology of diaspora policies. We use in-depth qualitative analysis of Czech diaspora policies to assess the internal validity of the typology and identify new dimensions that are central to our understanding of diaspora politics. We then replicate Ragazzi's quantitative analysis with the inclusion of new data on the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and Poland, assessing the typology's external validity. We find a new cluster of diaspora policy types, characterized by a “cautiously proactive” mix of diaspora policy mechanisms based on relatively generous cultural and citizenship policies, variably accentuated symbolic policies and limited social and economic policies. We suggest that this mix has been structured by the tension between the countries' commitment to a (neo) liberal emigration regime and the continued importance of ethno-cultural conceptions of nationhood. In addition, we identify three new variables that should be included in future typologies: 1) the volume and distribution of funding for diaspora policy; 2) the symbolic recognition of diaspora in the legal system; 3) policy differentiation among different kinds of diaspora. Our mixed-method approach illustrates the importance of using nuanced qualitative data to provide a meaningful depiction of policy.

New People for the Old Empire: Russian Policy of Citizenship in the Occupied Territories of Ukraine and Beyond

ABSTRACT The Russian citizenship policy toward Ukrainian citizens, both in Russia and in the occupied Ukrainian territories, underwent significant transformation during periods of grey zone conflict and conventional war. We argue that the citizenship policy, which manifests itself in ‘passportization,’ is a function of Russian military—political tactics on the battlefield and the changing priorities of its policy of entrenchment in occupied territories. Russia’s citizenship policy is a comprehensive set of direct and indirect mechanisms that encourage Ukrainians to obtain Russian citizenship, which, in the long-term perspective, represents an obstacle to any attempts at de-occupation and reintegration of territories with Ukraine.

National register of citizens and citizenship amendment act 2019: following the logic of citizenship securitization in India

ABSTRACT The idea of securitization has an influence on citizenship policies since it enables them to regulate, control and separate secure identities from unsecure identities while also exploiting intercommunity dynamics, straining connections, resulting in exclusions. The thesis that securitization and citizenship are inextricably linked, following different logic at the national and provincial level but tied with the thread of securitization and identity management, is supported by a detailed examination of citizenship policies and legislation implemented after India's independence.

Standardised integration requirements for naturalisation: less rights and less discretion? A qualitative meta-analysis of ethnographic studies of naturalisation procedures in Europe

Since the late 1990s and early 2000s, in what can be called an ‘integrationist wave’, standardised integration requirements for naturalisation have become increasingly common in Europe. To examine the impact of such measures, I combine original ethnographic data on institutions involved in the implementation of citizenship policies in Belgium and the UK with a qualitative meta-analysis of existing ethnographic studies of the implementation of citizenship policies. I show how, in addition to introducing new obstacles to naturalisation, standardised requirements have also reduced the discretion inscribed in earlier procedures, albeit not uniformly across different cases. The integrationist wave could thus be understood not simply as the introduction of restrictive notions of integration, but also as the systemisation of earlier evaluation practices. I further show signs of a more recent tendency for states to retreat from examining the integration of candidates to citizenship, outsourcing the evaluation directly or indirectly to private actors.

The (Im)Mobile Ethnic Hungarian Minority Population in Transcarpathia, Western Ukraine

Abstract This article aims to contribute to the growing international literature on (im)mobility. Drawing on the aspiration/ability model introduced by Jørgen Carling and developed by Hein de Haas (aspiration/capability), it analyzes the patterns of (im)mobility in the Hungarian ethnic minority living in Transcarpathia, Western Ukraine, in the last decade. The data, deriving from qualitative fieldwork conducted regularly since 2016 in multiple municipalities in Transcarpathia, illustrates the interrelatedness of mobility and immobility in family livelihood strategies in a peripheral region. The article highlights the impact of Hungary’s kin-state policies, particularly citizenship policies, and the geographical proximity to the kin-state in the ethnic-kin minority community, which enables the mobility of certain family members while rendering others immobile. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the diversified, age and gender-specific (im)mobility strategies are applied in geopolitical turmoil.

Human Capital, Life Satisfaction, and the Floating Population’s Urban Settlement Intention in Cities—A Case Study of Six Cities in the Pearl River Delta

The urban settlement intention of the floating population and its influencing factors have received widespread attention, but there is less literature on the relationship between human capital, life satisfaction, and the urban settlement intention of the floating population. Employing 2146 questionnaire data from the Pearl River Delta’s floating population, this study establishes measurement indicators for human capital and life satisfaction, constructs a structural equation model, and examines the influence of human capital on life satisfaction, as well as their collective impact on the floating population’s urban settlement intentions. The findings reveal that human capital influences multiple facets of the floating population’s life satisfaction, which subsequently shapes its desire to settle. Considering individual life satisfaction, the economic well-being and social security contentment of the floating population exert a notable impact on its urban settlement intentions, whereas satisfaction with emotional life and public service facilities appears to have a less pronounced effect. Further investigation into how varying levels of human capital modulate the influence of life satisfaction on urban settlement intentions, alongside the transition from fundamental economic security to psychological needs (about life satisfaction), holds substantial referential value for research on population migration and the development of citizenship policies in China.

Representation of migrant accents in media discourse

Abstract This study looks at how migrants’ accents are portrayed, labelled, and constructed in media discourse, investigating media coverage of migrants’ accents in the Australian press from 2007 to 2017, a period highlighted by changes in Australian citizenship policies and public discourse. While language has been extensively discussed in policy discourse, there has been a notable dearth of research on the coexistence of dialects and accents within official languages as portrayed in media platforms. Using a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of 2,657,016 words from Australian newspaper articles, the study applies raciolinguistic ideologies to show how the press justifies and legitimizes migrant accent-related issues. The results suggest that speakers of Inner Circle English variants are positioned differently from non-white/Outer and Expanding Circle speakers. Speakers of the Inner Circle were far more likely than other speakers to have their accents described as ‘broad’ or ‘thick’, and they were more likely to have the national variation they spoke specifically named. Others, in contrast, regularly described racialized speakers as simply having a ‘foreign’ accent, and many of them frequently claimed trying to ‘change’ their accent or ‘fake’ an Australian accent in an effort to gain access to employment and broader social acceptance. These results emphasize the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that non-white migrant speakers are positioned as incompetent speakers and demonstrate how raciolinguistic ideologies, linguistic racism, and accent laboring concerns are widespread in Australian society. These findings highlight the significance of corpus approaches for studying language related issues and provide insight into accent biases produced by the media in Australian society.

Ambiguous citizenship policies: Examining implementation gaps across levels of legislation in Jordan

Despite the prevalence of ambiguous citizenship policies that say one thing in law and another in implementing regulations, few studies have focused on systematically studying this type of implementation gap, particularly in contexts beyond North America and Europe. This largely has remained the case despite research on discursive policy gaps, which occur between a policy’s stated objectives and its laws, efficacy gaps, which describe when a policy’s outcomes fail to meet its goals, and compliance gaps, which reflect disparities between a state’s commitments to international law and its corresponding domestic policies. How can we advance conceptualizations of law-regulation implementation gaps? This paper proposes one approach by focusing on the content of domestic laws, on the one hand, and the content of related implementing regulations, on the other. When law-regulation discrepancies occur, they illustrate the agency of senior officials in writing this intentional ambiguity into different levels of legislation, challenging assumptions about institutional weakness and lower-level bureaucratic discretion as chief drivers of implementation gaps. The paper illustrates this concept by analyzing discrepancies between Jordan’s nationality and passports laws and their related implementing regulations, particularly regarding Gaza refugees’ access to passports, investors’ access to nationality, and Palestinian-Jordanians’ subjection to nationality withdrawals. These diverse cases of intentional ambiguity demonstrate that such gaps can serve to partially exclude or include a group and can occur with noncitizen and citizen as well as more or less vulnerable groups.

The Specter of Potential Foreigners: Revisiting the Postcolonial Citizenship Regimes of Myanmar and India

ABSTRACT Revisiting the citizenship regimes of Myanmar and India through a comparative lens, this article argues that a specter of the “potential foreigner” is decisive in the adjudication of citizenship in both countries. Citizenship is conceptualized not only on the basis of who is a citizen, but a perennial suspicion towards those who may not be. We frame this argument in the context of increasingly restrictive atmospheres in both countries, epitomized by violence towards the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Citizenship Amendment Act in India. This paper employs an historical perspective, tracing the evolution of citizenship since the partitions of Burma and Pakistan from India. It interrogates the very notion of foreignness that is embedded in these discourses, through a detailed description of the religious, ethnic, racial, and administrative "other" etched in the legislative and socio-political fabric of both countries. In order to develop the idea of potential foreigner as a key element of national identity and citizenship policy, the paper examines crucial legislation over the last three-quarters of a century, and the consequences of linking narrowing definitions of ethno-national belonging to citizenship status.

Reconceptualizing the Nation in Sanctuary Practices: Toward a Progressive, Relational National Politics?

Abstract This article explores sanctuary in Wales, focusing on the Welsh Government’s recent declaration to become a Nation of Sanctuary (NoS), and identifying how the national scale provides an alternative locus for progressive sanctuary measures. In revealing the nation’s emergence as another crucial site of sanctuary, the work reconceptualizes the nation’s place in sanctuary policies and practices in two ways: (i) it locates sanctuary through a national scale, thus moving beyond the city/state dichotomy that has dominated explanations of sanctuary, and (ii) it shows the importance of decoupling the nation-state compound while simultaneously integrating the nation(al) into discussions on sanctuary without being bound to the state or xenophobic populism. In showing how “nations against the state” can participate in sanctuary measures, we expand the current understanding of where sanctuary can be found, and capture the various forms of national belonging and identities that exist within plurinational states, including alternative, progressive forms of civic belonging. This is particularly significant in light of the tightening of state immigration policies, greater regulation of immigrant entry at state borders, and continuation of restrictive citizenship policies witnessed in recent years, which have ignited sanctuary measures aimed at creating safe spaces beyond the reach of state measures.

Neoliberal nationalism and immigration policy

ABSTRACT Contemporary nationalism in the West tends to be understood in ethnic terms and associated with a bottom-up reaction to disliked effects of globalization, in particular migration. But there is also a top-down nationalism that is inherent in states` boundary-policing and – constituting membership policies. This paper draws the contours of a state-level neoliberal nationalism. Its imprint can be found in social policy, citizenship policy, and – the focus of this paper – immigration policy, in particular for the highly-skilled. Neoliberal nationalism combines diversity and meritocracy, and thus a modicum of cultural and economic liberalism. The prefix ‘neo’ flags the refashioning of political community from solidarity-based to contract-based, conditional on individual contribution and strict reciprocity.

Dual citizenship policy in sub-saharan Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Nigeria and Angola

In recent decades, recognition of dual citizenship has been one of the ways countries have sought to maintain ties with emigrants and immigrants. Sub-Saharan African countries, which are mainly countries of emigration, have been a part of this trend, however not all of them. This research paper investigates the cases of Nigeria and Angola, two dissimilar countries in the region that have both recognized dual citizenship, to discover reasons that fueled the policy. It finds out that the political dynamic of a democratic transition is an underlying factor that led to the acceptance of dual citizenship in both countries.

Citizenship policies and precarity of stateless Vietnamese from Cambodia migrating to Vietnam

ABSTRACT Most Vietnamese living and fishing in Cambodia are stateless and face a difficult life due to discriminatory treatment by some Cambodian officials and citizens. Therefore, many stateless ethnic Vietnamese have moved back to Vietnam in recent years. This study examines the citizenship policies of Cambodia and Vietnam, which crucially affect Vietnamese migrants’ legal status and ability to find work. The study uses primary data from household and community observations, and in-depth interviews with migrants, local authorities, and representatives of religious-based organisations. All interviews were conducted in Tan Chau district, Tay Ninh province, Vietnam, considered a new residence for many Vietnamese migrants who relocated from Cambodia. The results reveal that restrictions on their legal status have led to a cascade of repercussions that have hampered access to formal jobs and directly impacted their quality of life.

Galicia and Portugal. A fruitful courtship. New strategies for a Euroregion and Eurocity identity

The implementation of European policies at the regional level is realized through the creation of intervention mechanisms, specific organizations, and funding within Euroregions and Eurocities. The GaliciaNorthern Portugal Euroregion, due to its historical and cultural characteristics, has been benefiting from these policies. In this paper, we aim to start from a shared political and cultural history between Galicia and Portugal, particularly at the border delimited by the Minho River, to see how this border experience serves, or not, as an affirmation of European citizenship. Around the concepts of Frontier/border and Euroregion, we analyze two case studies: the Agenda 2030 of the Cerveira-Tomiño Eurocity and the creation of the Galician-Portuguese Intangible Cultural Heritage Center. The goal is to explore the potential of a policy of proximity and participatory citizenship for a stronger assertion of European citizenship.

Citizens, Subjects, Enemies: The First World War and Citizenship Policies in the Italian Colonies

There are few research fields in European history that have received as much scholarly attention over the last few years as citizenship and the First World War. While this is also true for the Italian case, there is still a striking absence of research on citizenship laws in the colonial territories under Italian sovereignty. The present article addresses this gap and challenges the long-established assumption – due to an all too narrow focus on the historical military framework – that the First World War did not really affect the colonies of the Kingdom of Italy. An investigation of how the legal status of the colonial population – especially in Eritrea, on the one hand, and in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, on the other – was regulated, but also contested, claimed and negotiated, both during the conflict and in its immediate aftermath, reveals that a global event like the First World War actually had a significant impact on the Italian territories in the Horn of Africa and in North Africa. To illustrate this point, the article adopts an approach based on local players in the colonies rather than on legislators or policymakers in the metropole. Contemporary sources collected from several different archives are used to retrace personal stories and administrative processes which reveal important aspects in the story not only of Italian colonialism but of the Italian state in general. Citizenship in the Italian territories in Africa, as much as in other European colonies, was marked by the prejudicial concept of the backwardness of Africans, who were thus excluded from metropolitan citizenship. Beyond that, the article highlights utilitarianism as a concept that can help us to understand how Italy dealt with the inhabitants of its colonies during the First World War.

Armenians in 1920s Greece: Turkey’s Unwanted Minority, the League of Nations’ Burden, Greece’s “Other” Refugees

Abstract This article sheds light upon the history of an underresearched group of refugees who settled in Greece in the 1920s. It focuses on Armenians from Anatolia who fled to Greece in 1921–22, during and after the Greek-Turkish War of 1919–22. The article examines how the Greek government and international humanitarian organizations (Near East Relief, American Red Cross, etc.) approached the Armenian refugees, including orphans. The study further highlights practices such as transfers of Armenians within Greece, repatriation programs supported by Greece to send the Armenian refugees to Soviet Armenia, and citizenship policies regarding them.

Study on the Implementation Dilemma and Improvement Path Faced by Local Governments in the Context of the Policy of Citizenship of the Agricultural Transfer Population

In recent years, in order to meet the development needs of new urbanisation, the State has required all departments to make it a priority to vigorously promote the citizenship of the agricultural transfer population. However, studies have shown that local governments are still facing a number of urgent problems in the implementation of the policy. As some local governments are lagging behind in development, it is difficult for them to continue to afford the benefits arising from the inflow of the agricultural transfer population to the cities under the existing financial pressure, which has led to difficulties in the implementation of the policy and impeded the advancement of the citizenship of the agricultural transfer population. Based on the fact that there are few studies on local governments as the main body, the research adopts the literature analysis method and interdisciplinary analysis method, finds that the difficulties of local governments are mainly concentrated in the economic field, summarises the difficulties of local government departments as the main body of the implementation of relevant central government policies, and discusses how to help local government departments to break through their difficulties from the perspective of policies to promote the citizenship of the agricultural transferring population. The discussion is about how to help local government departments break through their difficulties from the policy perspective to promote the citizenship of agricultural transfer. Policy recommendations are also given to promote the improvement of policy implementation.

Dividing the People: The Authoritarian Bargain, Development, and Authoritarian Citizenship

Autocrats must redistribute to survive, but redistribution is limited and selective. Who is entitled to redistribution underlying the authoritarian bargain? I argue redistribution is a question of citizenship. Autocrats use citizenship institutions, especially particularistic membership, to strategically limit and extend socio-economic rights to ensure both security and economic development. I apply this framework to China, where control over particularistic membership decentralized in conjunction with development strategies. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, government policies, and a database of local citizenship policies in China, I trace how local citizenship creates closure while economic development incentivizes strategic inclusion. By evaluating how authoritarian citizenship functions, this framework increases our understanding of individual-staterelations in autocratic contexts.

The Toy Brick as a Communicative Device for Amplifying Children’s Voices in Research

The Toy Brick as a Communicative Device for Amplifying Children’s Voices in Research

Migration Policies and Immigrants’ Language Acquisition in EU‐15: Evidence from Twitter

AbstractIn response to the increasingly complex and heterogeneous immigrant communities settling in Europe, European countries have adopted various civic integration measures. Measures aiming to facilitate language acquisition are considered crucial for integration and cooperation between immigrants and natives. Simultaneously, the rapid expansion of social media usage is believed to change the factors affecting immigrants’ language acquisition. However, only a few previous studies have analyzed whether this is the case. This article uses a novel longitudinal data source derived from Twitter to (1) analyze differences in the pace of immigrants’ language acquisition depending on the migration policies of destination countries and (2) study how the relative sizes of the migrant groups in destination countries, and the linguistic and geographical distances between origin and destination countries, are associated with language acquisition. Results show that immigrants who live in countries with strict language acquisition requirements for immigrants and conservative citizenship policies have the highest median times until language acquisition. Based on Twitter data, we also find that language acquisition is associated with classic explanatory variables, such as the size of the immigrant group in the destination country and the linguistic and geographical distance between origin and destination country similar to the previous studies.