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The right of blood : ‘ethnically’ selective citizenship policies in Europe
Title / Series / Name
Publication Volume
Publication Issue
Pages
Authors
Editors
Keywords
Ethnic nationalism
citizenship
civic nationalism
kin-states
non-resident citizenship
History
General Environmental Science
General Earth and Planetary Sciences
citizenship
civic nationalism
kin-states
non-resident citizenship
History
General Environmental Science
General Earth and Planetary Sciences
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/27629
Abstract
This paper explores citizenship policies in Europe with the aim of testing the salience of the ethnic–civic binary distinction. The paper starts with an overview of the existing typologies of citizenship regimes, with a special emphasis on the civic–ethnic dichotomy. After a brief assessment of different types of selective acquisition policies in the EU, the paper discusses the emerging normative legal framework of citizenship attribution in Europe. The paper shows that the Europeanization of citizenship acquisition norms legitimizes, if not encourages, selectivity in the case of non-resident ethnic kin populations. It is also argued that due to the ambiguous international legal coding, preferential naturalization allows ethnonationalist governments to strengthen the symbolic claims of the titular national groups over the state. But quite paradoxically, these ethnically framed policies in practice often open up the possibility of the facilitated naturalization for individuals who can hardly be considered ‘co-ethnics’ in the thick sociocultural sense of the word. Therefore, ethnonationalist political projects that emphasize the importance the ‘right of blood’ may lead to the naturalization of individuals who have very weak cultural or linguistic ties to their putative ‘homelands’. Thus, ethnically framed citizenship policies may water down ethnic homogeneity rather than strengthening it.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2022
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1080/14608944.2021.2013185