In what concerns the normative justification of ‘external quasi-citizenship,’ we have to understand that, unlike in the case of dual citizenship, we do not have here the possible alternative of ‘dormant
citizenship.’ The latter refers strictly to emigrants – and, in more generous regimes, to their children (the first generation born abroad) – whose citizenship rights in the non-residence country are ‘dormant’ and can be activated only if and when these individuals take up residence there.178
178 There are, of course, extremely generous regimes which do not limit the transmission of citizenship over generations:
according to one author, ‘seventeen EU countries allow for endless transmission of their citizenship to persons born abroad to a citizen parent’ (Bauböck 2010a: 1). However I will not take them into account since I agree that such a stance is normatively indefensible – see for example Bauböck (2007b and 2009a).
in the previous chapter that dual citizenship status should be rejected not only for the disadvantages it creates for all actors involved, but also with the goal of matching as far as possible the categories of ‘citizens’ and ‘residents.’ However, even if we would accept full dual citizenship only for the first generation of immigrants, it seems fairly reasonable to suppose that second, third and possibly
subsequent generations would also learn the language and would like to keep cultural connections with the origin country even if they wouldn’t seek to actually move there. ‘External quasi-citizenship’ can potentially meet these interests by offering second and later generation individuals ‘favourable treatment.’
I would go even further and argue that this favourable treatment should also be offered to emigrants and their children, instead of dual citizenship. There are two main objections against this proposal. According to the first objection, only citizens have the right to return. It is an accepted fact that, over the years, plans change and migrants or their children may decide for various reasons to return to the origin country. If dual citizenship is not accepted and the right to return is a right strictly connected with citizenship, then these individuals would have serious difficulties to return. However, as we have already seen in the four ‘external quasi-citizenship’ regimes treated above, the right to return is one of the first rights attached to each of these regimes. So the first objection fails since it is based on a false premise: that the right to return is reserved only for citizens.
But at this point one may enquire about the difference between ‘external quasi-citizenship’ and a ‘dormant’ citizenship as long as both categories offer the right to return but neither of them the right to vote.179
179 I would like to thank Joseph Carens for drawing me attention on this problem (Joseph Carens, personal communication
on file with the author, November 2013).
I believe there are serious differences that may prove the ‘external quasi-citizenship’ to be the best alternative. I have discussed these reasons above in section 5.3.5., so here I only want to summarize them. Firstly, a ‘dormant’ citizenship (just like dual citizenship) may still generate international conflicts based on diplomatic protection and may also offer states a way to strip their members of this status, as long as they do not remain statelessness. Secondly, suspending political rights by making them dependent on residency raises an equality problem: since equality is a principle situated at the core of citizenship status, suspending political rights of some (in this case, non-resident) citizens while still accepting them as members of the polity would be equal to creating second-class citizens (Spiro 2003: 143-144). Finally, if as we have seen in chapter one citizenship exclusively means today having full political rights in a polity (because human, civic and social rights have been
rights of an emigrant but still considering her a citizen amounts to simply building a meaningless status. If political rights are ‘suspended’ for ‘external’ citizens – just as many other rights dependent on residence are suspended – and if the right to return is not exclusively attached to citizenship status anymore, then it is difficult to understand what this ‘dormant citizenship’ is supposed to mean.
The second objection shows that theories on migration and citizenship generally support the fact that at least first generation migrants should retain full citizenship – including voting rights – in the origin country (Bauböck 2005a: 10-11).180 However, even their authors underline that for first
generation migrants external franchise is at most permissible: ‘(e)ven for permanent first-generation expatriates, the external franchise should not be seen as a fundamental individual right but as
permissible’(Bauböck and Perchinig 2009: 487). In order to explain why I disagree, take the following example of a Romanian citizen that moved to United States twenty years ago and has double
citizenship: Romanian and American. He comes to Romania once in a while, say every four or five years, just to visit his friends and family. I claim that such a person should not have full Romanian citizenship: more precisely, he should not have political rights in Romania. As I have already explained in the last chapter, in my view citizenship should be strictly linked with residence. Since the person lives in the US, he should have US citizenship but not Romanian citizenship. Of course, this person has various links with Romania: his parents and some of his friends live there, he may have properties there and many other types of interests we can think of. This is why I believe ‘external quasi-citizenship’ status is important. I think the person should have some rights in Romania – but not all the rights a Romanian citizen enjoys.181
There is an obvious critique here. As we have seen in the previous chapter, if first-generation immigrants lack voting rights in the origin country, then they do not have any power to influence political decisions that may seriously affect them – for example, a possible suspension of property rights and the nationalisation of their properties by the state.182
180 For an opposite view, see Lopez-Guerra (2005).
181 This is also true for ‘external’ citizens: presently they normally do not have all rights, but only very selected ones – e.g.
they do not have rights to social assistance for long-term unemployment, coverage of health costs in a national health service, etc. Most of their civil rights are in no way guaranteed by their state of origin, since this would violate territorial jurisdiction of the state of residence.
182 Rainer Bauböck, personal communication on file with the author, April 2013.
The rejoinder here proceeds along two different lines. First, it is difficult to understand how such a decision could be implemented in a liberal democratic state. Second, it is difficult to imagine that a democratic state doing such a thing would not seriously breach not only a number of international conventions that it had already signed, but also its
own laws – for example, laws which design the status of ‘external quasi-citizenship’ and protect individuals from such interventions.
While I accept that such a concern may be seriously raised in connection to authoritarian and dictatorial states, I can see no possible ground for it within the liberal-democratic world. This may probably seem a highly idealised and naïve image of liberal democracies that no real-world state can meet. It is true that there have been quite a number of disputes over properties of foreigners between liberal democracies, and such cases have required diplomatic intervention. More generally, since liberal democracies are likely to privilege the interests of their citizens over those of foreigners, and since international law is not self-enforcing, the protection of human rights under international law needs very often the backing of states that intervene on behalf of their citizens abroad.183
Besides political and economic problems like international disputes over individual property rights, we must also recognise that the whole concept of an ‘external quasi-citizenship’ regime is to
extend, rather than limit, the rights
However, we must not forget that under a residence-based theory of citizenship individuals are citizens of the country they are living in as long-term residents – even though they may be temporarily outside the territory being in that state’s service. If such citizens are also ‘external quasi-citizens’ of another country and, if in an exceptional case, such a country nationalises their property – which would be difficult to imagine, since in our days home states try to improve the links with their diasporas by offering ‘external quasi-
citizenship’ regimes – then they can access diplomatic protection of their country of residence/citizenship and the dispute could be solved in international courts.
184