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A common argument in the literature on loss of citizenship has been that after 1945 most if not all countries liberalised their laws on loss of citizenship until the beginning of a countermovement in 2001. This article focuses on Germany and Switzerland which do not fit this pattern and where after the early 1950s laws on loss of citizenship became less liberal, although not dramatically so. This distinctive German and Swiss pattern can be explained in part by distinctive historical starting points. Late in the nineteenth century, Switzerland started out with very broad protections against loss of citizenship, and after 1945 Germany adopted much more extensive protections against loss of citizenship than before. Subsequent legal changes represent a regression toward the mean. Loss of citizenship is also closely related to laws on dual citizenship. Although both countries today tolerate dual citizenship to varying degrees, laws on loss of citizenship are still used to contain the spread of dual citizenship although neither country engages in futile attempts to eliminate dual citizenship. Court decisions and party politics also played a role but neither can explain the overall trajectory of German or Swiss laws on loss of citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do individuals become dual citizens by acquiring kin-state citizenship? This article examines the case of Moldova as an extreme case of kin-state dual citizenship acquisition. In Moldova, a majority of residents can acquire (or reacquire) Romanian citizenship by virtue of being descended from former Romania citizens. First, the article moves beyond institutional and migration-centred perspectives on dual citizenship acquisition. Instead, the article explores kin-state citizenship as a practice of citizenship acquisition. The article uses 55 interviews with ordinary people, conducted in Moldova between 2012 and 2013, to examine why individuals choose (or not) to acquire kin-state citizenship. Second, the article argues for understanding explanations of acquisition of kin-state citizenship beyond strategic vs identity explanations. Rather, the article considers a third dimension of legitimacy. This legitimacy dimension demonstrates how the acquisition of kin-state citizenship is constructed as natural, normal and, thus, legitimate. The article finds that the legitimate dimension is used even by those who do not identify co-ethnically or with the kin-state. Ties of legitimacy can, therefore, bind individuals to the kin-state via citizenship, irrespective of whether they identify with the kin-state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Mexico's recognition of dual citizenship for its nationals in 1998, a vast and growing collective of Mexicans with dual U.S. or European Union (EU) citizenship has emerged. While the majority of dual U.S.-Mexicans are associated with low socioeconomic status of rural origins, of mixed race (mestizo) or indigenous background, dual EU-Mexicans are mostly affluent individuals of European descent seeking EU passports for enhanced mobility, travel, education and business opportunities across the World. This paper gathers empirical evidence through in-depth interviews in Mexico, the U.S. and the UK, together with an analysis of secondary data sources. It proposes a typology of Mexican dual citizens, across various geographic regions, socioeconomic groups and social practices. The expansion of Mexican dual citizenship reveals the cracks in the Mexican nation-building project, in defiance of the concept of a homogenous 'mestizo' nation that was promoted after the 1910 revolution, and remained crystallised in the national conscience for decades. Through complex transnational and multiple citizenship practices, this vast collective of Mexican dual citizens poses a number of contradictions for the future of the Mexican nation state, with important implications for citizenship policy in the Americas and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on dual citizenship has traditionally focused on immigrants in Western Europe and North America. This emphasis has led authors to overlook the context of global inequality and the way it shapes the meaning and uses of a second citizenship. This paper offers a new approach that puts the analytical focus on global inequality in the value of citizenship. First, I construct a composite index of citizenship value and use it to outline the structure of the global citizenship hierarchy. Then, I analyse an original dataset to evaluate the prevalence of dual citizenship in 13 countries. The analysis demonstrates that individuals' reactions to the possibility of obtaining a second citizenship are shaped by their position in the global citizenship hierarchy. Citizens of Western countries have no practical incentive to obtain a second citizenship and exhibit low demand for it. In Latin American and Eastern European countries, in contrast, demand for a second citizenship is high. Millions draw on their ancestry or ethnic identity to claim citizenship from Western or EU countries. The second, higher-tier nationality is not necessarily used to emigrate. Instead, it often operates as 'compensatory citizenship' that makes up for limitations in dual citizens' primary resident citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plural citizenship has become a stealth incident of globalisation. Plural citizenship makes liberal theorists uncomfortable. Accepting plural citizenship vindicates autonomy values, but it also challenges equality norms. This paper explores these equality concerns. As a sociological matter, plural citizenship is unlikely to create substantial inequalities in states whose passports enjoy premium status. Additional citizenships for citizens of the global North may result in marginal advantage but will not result in discontinuous life chances. In the South, the rise of plural citizenship may create a new axis of haves and have-nots. Those who can avail themselves fully of developed economies as citizens while remaining connected to their countries of origin will enjoy major advantages over their mono-national homeland counterparts. This objection needs to be taken seriously. However, there is no apparent corrective for the resulting inequality. Efforts to police dual citizenship will result in other inequalities, either by deterring naturalisation by emigrants in their new states of residence or depriving diaspora members of rights in their homeland polities. A better strategy to address the inequalities of dual citizenship would be to further interrogate and dilute the advantages of citizenship itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory article defines the concept of strategic citizenship which stands at the focus of the special issue. This concept refers to the rise of a strategic-instrumental approach towards access to national citizenship, which is reflected in new acquisition strategies, practical uses and understandings. The article provides a historical account of the growing acceptance of dual citizenship, which has been crucial to this shift in the meaning of citizenship. We highlight the need to explore the consequences of strategic citizenship as they manifest in the everyday lives of individuals. We present three arguments that are derived from the articles in this special issue: a) a growing number of persons in non-Western countries are strategically acquiring a second citizenship for strategic reasons; b) this trend is associated with the rise of instrumental attitudes towards nationality; c) much of the value of citizenship has to do with rights to global mobility. Finally, this introduction summarizes the contributions of the nine articles in the special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acceptance of dual citizenship allows migrants to naturalise in the country of residence (CoR) without giving up their former citizenship. For migrant sending countries the question emerges whether emigrants who acquire another citizenship are less attached to and politically active in the country of origin than those who do not. This would be the assumption of traditional perspectives on migration and citizenship. However, according to the transnational perspective neither multiple nationalities, nor participation in and identification with the CoR, preclude ongoing ties and participation back home. We test these perspectives with survey data on Swiss citizens residing in France, Germany, Italy and the US. Our results suggest that Swiss dual citizens abroad are not significantly less attached to and active in Switzerland than their mono national counterparts. Our data further supports the transnational perspective by showing not only simultaneity, but a mutually reinforcing relationship when transnational citizenship is practised. Identification with, and political participation in, the CoR positively relates to equivalent feelings and activities in the country of origin. Since dual citizenship sets the legal foundation for simultaneous involvement in two countries, it correctly assumes a central place in the study of transnational citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between global inequality and dual citizenship by analysing citizenship acquisition from abroad in the European Union (EU). Most EU countries now offer facilitated naturalisation to descendants of emigrants and co-ethnics abroad, which requires neither residence nor renunciation of former citizenship. Since the 1990s, over 3.5 million people have used this opening to obtain dual citizenship from a European country to which they often have little if any connection. I analyse this phenomenon using a data-set that I constructed from previously unanalysed administrative statistics. The data were used to test an original theory that explains patterns of demand for dual citizenship in the context of a global hierarchy of citizenship worth. The analysis demonstrated that demand was much higher in Latin America and Eastern Europe than in North America and Western Europe. Non-Western applicants were drawn to the practical benefits of EU citizenship, and their level of demand varied in response to economic conditions like unemployment. In contrast, Western applicants displayed lower demand for citizenship and were unresponsive to economic incentives. The paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating the relationship between citizenship and global stratification as well as highlighting a widespread instrumental approach to dual citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on two migrant groups in the Netherlands, one in which the majority is naturalised (Surinamese) and one in which the majority has dual nationality (Turks and Kurdish-Turks). It explores the impact of home and host states’ citizenship regimes on: (1) the citizenship choices of individual migrants; (2) their (trans)national political participation; and (3) the transnational political participation of homeland-based non-state actors such as (return) migrant organisations and political parties. I conclude that transnational political orientations are often responses to exclusionary citizenship regimes in sending countries, which deserve greater attention in studies of migrant transnationalism than they have hitherto received. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A transnational studies perspective should be able to deal with both new social formations sui generis, such as transnational social spaces, and how 'old' national, international and local institutions acquire 'new' meanings and functions in the process of cross-border transactions. There is now a voluminous literature dealing with the emergence and above all the forms of transnational activities of migrants and the attendant consequences for the social integration of immigrants. If transnational ties and formations are consequential for social change and perhaps even social transformation, we also need to find indications about changing institutions in the national, international and local realms of transnational spaces. From this perspective we need not only to look at various transnational ties and formations across the borders of national states, but also at the repercussions for national and local institutions. In order to address this problem, the paper argues that both the concept of transnationalisation-including transnational social spaces-and world approaches, such as world systems and world polity theories, could be useful lenses to describe different aspects of transnational processes and boundaries. Second, transnational studies needs to engage both world theories and a transnational optic to ask about the social mechanisms by which transnational processes affect institutional change: path-dependency on a systemic or macro level, social closure, opportunity hoarding and brokerage on a collective or meso level, and symbolic recognition on a cognitive or micro level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the levels of socio-cultural integration of naturalised and non-naturalised immigrants in the Netherlands, France and Germany. Socio-cultural integration is measured by host-country identification, proficiency and use of the host-country language, and interethnic social contacts. To increase cross-national comparability, we focus on immigrants from two rural regions in Turkey who migrated before 1975. Based on the assumption that easily accessible citizenship promotes socio-cultural integration, we test two hypotheses. First, whether naturalised immigrants display higher levels of socio-cultural integration than non-naturalised immigrants. Second, whether immigrants in countries with few preconditions for naturalisation show higher levels of socio-cultural integration. We find that naturalisation is positively associated with socio-cultural integration only in those countries—France and Germany—that have traditionally required a certain degree of cultural assimilation from their new citizens. Regarding country differences, we find that Turkish immigrants in France show higher levels of socio-cultural integration on all four indicators. For host-country identification, they share this position with Dutch Turks. The results show that limited cultural assimilation conditions tied to citizenship may be helpful in promoting socio-cultural integration, but also that the allowance of dual nationality does not have the negative effects that are sometimes ascribed to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since July 2001, Swedish citizenship law fully permits dual citizenship, whereas earlier legislation demanded that Swedish nationals, with some exceptions, should have only one citizenship. This paper analyses the arguments used in the debate preceding this new law. The opponents of dual citizenship usually defended a nation-state order, in which individuals should belong to one single nation-state and this belonging should be manifested in national citizenship. The proponents of dual citizenship, including the parliamentary majority, balanced the national perspective against, on the one hand, a global/international perspective and, on the other hand, an individual perspective. They frequently referred to globalisation, increasing international mobility, multiple national bonds and multiculturalism. They suggested that dual citizenship would facilitate the integration of immigrants in Sweden, whereas they moderated legal and political concerns, sometimes arguing that rights and obligations in today's society are increasingly dissociated from national citizenship. Finally, the national perspective was at times explicitly subordinated to an individual perspective, which emphasised the experiences and desires of migrants - immigrants as well as expatriate Swedes. This perspective framed dual citizenship as a matter of individual choice, and often regarded citizenship as a personal attribute to be used for the construction of self-identity and meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]