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Gender discrimination in nationality law of Pakistan not only undermines women's equality in citizenship but also violates their right and results in hardships for their families. State's Nationality law that discriminate women to have equal rights of citizenship undermines them to access healthcare, education, employment, family unity, inheritance, mobility and property rights. The current research highlights the problems faced by the women married to Afghan refugees through thematic and discourse analysis of the interviewees using CAQDA, i.e., MAXQDA-2022 software. The study is qualitative in nature and the analysis is based on a coding model. The sample is taken through snowball sampling of the population under study. The research shows how unequal nationality laws violate women right to get citizenship and obstruct their equality in the family. The Pakistani law of citizenship also impacts the enjoyment of women right by them as well as their children and spouses. Gender equality in nationality laws is not only fundamental to equal citizenship of women but it also support families' wellbeing, children rights to identity and sustainable development. Thereby, it will benefit the society as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the discrepancy between Aristotle’s representation of the Athenian politeia and the information contained in external sources. First we examine his statement that the demagogues manipulate the size and structure of the citizen body by admitting persons of doubtful background in order to broaden their power base. The external sources show no such practice in Athens in the 5th nor in the 4th century: they prove that the three mass citizenship grants in Athenian history were not due to demagogic manipulation but to situations of need, and that on top citizenship criteria became increasingly strict. Next his picture of the 4th century Areopagus as an institution stripped of political and constitutional powers is critically assessed against external sources which show that Aristotle’s description does not match the facts. The article finally tries to clarify why Aristotle chose to never mention the Athenian nomothesia in his writings. It concludes that not only the way in which he presents information about the Athenian state, but also, and more importantly, his decision to exclude information from his narrative are influenced by his conservative views and seem to be guided by his wish to paint a dark picture of the contemporary Athenian politeia.

Conventionally, three 'laws' are said to govern the recognition of citizenship. These are the laws of descent, birthplace and marriage. I question whether these are laws at all, and suggest that they are more like mutable principles underlying state practices that have evolved considerably in the last few decades. In addition to these three changing principles, I suggest that there are four other principles governing citizenship and social belonging. These are the principles of empire, price, transnationalism and co-presence. All are explained and situated, with a focus on a number of contemporary examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of citizenship laws on economic development. We first document the evolution of citizenship laws around the world, highlighting the main features of jus soli, jus sanguinis as well as mixed regimes, and shedding light on the channels through which they could have differentiated impact on economic development. We then compile a data set of citizenship laws around the world. Using cross-country regressions, panel-data techniques, as well as the synthetic control method and subjecting the results to a battery of tests, we find robust evidence that jus soli laws—being more inclusive—lead to higher income levels than alternative citizenship rules in developing countries, though to a less extent in countries with stronger institutional environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The partition of the Indian subcontinent forced millions of people to flee to the other side of the borders, freshly demarcated by the British colonial rulers just on the eve of their departure from South Asia. Almost a decade-long migration of people could not, however, settle the boundaries and lives of the people once and for all. The postcolonial rulers retained many of the draconian laws of the late colonial period, like the Foreigners' Act in India, and laced them with new laws and regulations, thus leading to greater dispossession of people of homes, generating widespread situations of un-freedom, and creating countless refugees and stateless persons, mostly forced to survive in sites of precarious life, without any right to have rights. The concern of this contribution is this politics of dispossession in postcolonial South Asia and its relation with citizenship laws of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principal way in which formal citizenship status is acquired is on the basis of birth, whether by descent (ius sanguinis) or territory of birth (ius soli), and most people retain their citizenship of birth for life. Yet birthright citizenship laws have received less attention than naturalisation procedures. Drawing on GLOBALCIT data on citizenship laws in 177 countries in 2016, and indicators of birthright citizenship laws constructed from these, we analyse how global provisions for birthright citizenship vary across the world. We examine the extent to which provision is automatic and unconditional or subject to conditions or restrictions, and the implications for inclusion, in particular of immigrants. Almost all states provide for ius sanguinis citizenship, although with varying restrictions, especially for those born to citizens abroad. Ius soli is unconditional in a small minority of countries, but in half the countries studied it is limited to foundlings and children who would otherwise be stateless, and it is entirely absent in some. Different levels of conditionality of ius soli citizenship exclude the children of immigrants from citizenship of the country in which they live, and can also produce statelessness. Notwithstanding international laws and conventions, some birthright provisions also explicitly exclude on the basis of the marital status of parents, and on gender, racial, ethnic, religious or cultural grounds—all with potentially significant impact on immigrants. Finally, birthright citizenship laws display clearly differentiated geographical patterns, and ius soli is by no means always strongly provided in countries with the largest immigrant populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

America's recent attempt to impose democracy in Middle Eastern countries has created an unexpected reaction, including a turn to more conservative religious modes and a tighter grip on women. Ancient societies also reacted to democratic changes, making the boundaries between the private and public world more rigid, and dividing deeper the male and female worlds. In democratic Athens, women were endowed with the right to confer citizenship to their offspring, but at the same time experienced a sudden loss of status and intensified oppression in their life. This paradoxical situation was part of the social reaction toward the political egalitarianism introduced by democracy as well as the result of laws defining citizenship. The problem ancient democratic societies faced was how to justify the exclusion of women in a political system that upheld the equality of all freeborn citizens. To solve the conundrum Athenians decided to prove women's inferior status intellectually, emotionally, and biologically. Classical authors, like Aristotle, in every epistemological field upheld this position and, due to their great success in everything but women, exerted enormous influence on Western thought. Their absurd pronouncements on women were never (until recently) questioned and, so, their ideological bias prevailed for over two millennia. The same dilemma faced by the ancients in giving women citizen rights is faced today by the Middle-Eastern world, which has reacted in a very conservative way toward women. These countries do not have the luxury of going through a transitional period of adjustment, with a modified type of democracy, where men would have the chance to become accustomed to the new social and political roles for themselves before dealing with the feminine issue, that is, voting rights and equality for women in all fields. Instead, these traditionally patriarchal societies are forced to accept modern democracy without remediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a patriarchal society, government policies, societal norms and government regulations in Singapore mirror that normative ideal. Citizenship status and rights along gender lines, manifested in the legal recognition of children of international marriages, reflected this reality for much of Singapore's independence. However, the onslaught of globalization, the rise in international marriages, disconcerting declining birth rates, and an acceptance of 'foreign talent' have given the economic imperative and demographic impulse to grant citizenship (by descent) to a person born outside Singapore whose father or mother is a citizen of Singapore, by birth, registration or descent. Previously, such a person would be granted citizenship only if his/her father was a Singapore citizen by birth. This paper examines the background and contextual realities leading to the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (Amendment) Act 2004. It argues that the landmark constitutional amendment was motivated by pragmatic considerations of demography, economics, and political governance. The paper contends that state sovereignty, while seemingly challenged by international marriages, is still preserved rather than negated. It suggests that the state's ideological apparatus vis-à-vis the family is adaptable, enabling the continued institutional influence, if not control, over the family as the basic building block of Singapore society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]