Thinking citizenship and its constitutive subject: interrogating the 2004 Irish citizenship referendum debate

Abstract

This article considers a referendum which was held in the Republic of Ireland in 2004 involving a proposal to qualify the existing universal constitutional entitlement to birthright citizenship. Existing analysis of this referendum reflects dominant trends in citizenship scholarship. It does so by framing the issue in terms of two opposing perspectives – one particularistic (exclusive) and one universalistic (inclusive) – and positing the question of the ‘politics’ of citizenship as a trade-off between these diverging models. This article argues, however, that Rob (R.B.J.) Walker's notion of the constituent subject of (sovereign) politics challenges this dualistic framework as the necessary starting point for discussions about citizenship. It does so by problematizing the premise upon which it is based which is the taken-for-granted autonomous existence of persons (individuals) who are understood to be connected to, but ultimately separate from, ‘the state.’ This article concludes with reflections on what an alternative framework for exploring citizenship (based specifically on a historicization of subjectivity in relation to sovereignty) might look like. It suggests that this provides us with a different starting point to the prevalent form of a timeless dialectic of inclusion and exclusion, particularism and universalism, polis and cosmopolis currently determined by the boundaries of the Irish state.

Keywords:

• subjectivity
• sovereignty
• autonomy
• difference
• Republic of Ireland

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented in June 2009 at the Aberystwyth–Lancaster Graduate Colloquium (ALGC). The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) and the suggestions on earlier drafts by Ronaldo Munck and Kenneth McDonagh. Thanks are due finally to the editor and two anonymous reviewers who also provided valuable comments.

Notes

 1. Article 2 was the result of a compromise made in 1998 under a peace negotiation (the Good Friday Agreement) between the Irish and the British governments, where it was agreed that the existing territorial claim by the Republic to the whole of the island of Ireland (Article 2 inserted in 1937) would be replaced with a constitutional entitlement of all those living on the island to become Irish citizens, but only should they wish to do so (Article 2 inserted in 1998). This agreement is also known as the Belfast Agreement and the Stormont Agreement. Prior to 1998, universal entitlement to birthright citizenship on the island of Ireland had been provided initially in the Freestate Constitution (1922–1937) and subsequently in statute (from 1937 onwards).

 2. A ‘non-national’ is defined under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 2001, Section 2(c) as ‘a person who is not an Irish citizen.’ In 2001, the term non-national replaced the existing references to ‘alien’ which had been in an Irish legislation up until that point since the Aliens Act 1935 (see Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 2001). Use of the term non-national is highly problematic, not least because it implies that some people living in Ireland have no nationality. This is why, in an attempt to avoid further confusion and/or misrepresentation, I use it here in conjunction with a legal definition as well as the working definition which was used in the 2004 citizenship referendum proposal. Recently, the term ‘foreign national’ has been introduced into draft Irish legislation (see Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill (IRPB) 2008). This term refers specifically to those who are neither Irish citizen nor entitled to enter and be present in the State under the European Communities (Free Movement of Persons) (No. 2) Regulations 2006 (S.I. No. 656 of 2006), the European Communities 5 (Aliens) Regulations 1977 (S.I. No. 393 of 1977) or the European Communities (Right of Residence for Non-economically Active Persons) Regulations 1997 (S.I. No. 57 of 1997). The IRPB 2008 was withdrawn by the Government in May 2010 however and therefore the term ‘foreign national’ has yet to be enshrined in law through this new Bill.

 3. The turnout at this referendum was just under 60%.

 4. In the Republic of Ireland, this understanding of the nature of citizenship has arguably been promoted via the concept of ‘active citizenship.’ In the Government's White Paper on Supporting Voluntary Activity, it explains that active citizenship ‘extends the concept of formal citizenship and democratic society from one of basic civil, political and social and economic rights to one of direct democratic participation and responsibility’ (Government of Ireland 2000, p. 14).

 5. An additional clause to be inserted at the same time into Bunreacht na hÉireann stipulated that this amendment was not to be implemented retrospectively.

 6. Fianna Gael which was the largest party in opposition at the time agreed with the Government parties that Article 2 of the Constitution did create the potential for abuse of citizenship but expressed dissatisfaction with the timing of the referendum and the lack of All-Party Committee on the matter. Although it, therefore, supported a Yes vote, it did not campaign actively for one.

 7. Between 1999 and 2003, there was an increase in the allocation of work permits within the Republic of Ireland of just over 40,000 (Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment 2003). Although, as Piaras MacÉinrí (2007a) points out, it was never possible to say how many people remained living in the country beyond several months, the 2002 Census confirmed an increase in recorded places of birth outside of Ireland for those living in Ireland, in comparison to the previous decade.

 8. This included the Green Party, the Labour Party, Sinn Féin, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the Children's Rights Alliance, Integrating Ireland, the Irish Human Rights Commission, and the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism.

 9. For an illustration of this opposition, see chapters written as a debate between ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘bounded’ citizenship by Miller and Linklater (1999).

10. For notable exceptions among citizenship scholarship where the emphasis is not primarily on the state and thereby on defining citizenship in terms of an understanding of power which is centralized and thus imposed upon subjects, but rather where citizenship is presented as a process of subject formation, see, for example Ong (1999), Bigo and Guild (2005) and Hindess (2002, 2005).

11. The point here is not to draw too many parallels between Foucault's and Walker's work beyond highlighting that both seek to emphasize that sovereignty needs to be understood, in the words of Michael Dillon, as ‘idiomatic’ (Dillon 2004, p. 42).

12. It should be noted that while a gendered exploration of the 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum has been undertaken and this has resulted in a renewed focus on this relationship in terms of citizen(ship) and ‘Woman’ (rather than ‘Man’), the dualism itself between particularism and universalism which Walker associates with modern subjectivity has been retained; see, for example Lentin and Luibhéid (2004).

13. In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that Miriam Fajujonu (an Irish citizen child born to non-national parents who themselves were undocumented) was permitted to stay in Ireland with the ‘care and company of her parents’. This finding was based on the judge's ruling that ‘any order made in pursuance of the Aliens Act 1935 prohibiting either or both of her parents from continuing to remain in the State is, in my opinion, in breach of her constitutional rights’ (Fajujonu vs. Minister for Justice 1990). As a result of this ruling, it was generally accepted that a precedent was set which allowed Irish citizen children born to non-national parents to apply to remain in Ireland on these same terms. This right was never absolute however, and in 2003, in another Supreme Court case, it was ruled that the right of a child born to non-national parents (who did not have residency rights themselves) to stay in Ireland could be superseded by the importance of the integrity of the asylum process and the state's right to control entry into and residence within, the island (Lobe and Osayande vs. The Minister for Justice 2003). Exact figures for the total number of people who applied to remain in Ireland between the beginning of 1999 and the end of 2003 on the basis of what became known as an ‘Irish born child’ are estimated at approximately 10,000 (Oireachtas Debates 5 May 2004, p. 801.)

14. Butler argues that this type of approach is in opposition to the approach taken by ‘those who believe that we have a certain responsibility to write [and presumably think] not only in an accessible way, but within the terms of already accepted grammar.’ She goes on to explain, ‘It's not that I'm in favour of difficulty for difficulty's sake; it's that I think there is a lot in ordinary language and in received grammar that constrains our thinking – indeed, about what a person is, what a subject is, what gender is, what sexuality is, what politics can be […]’ (Butler 2004, pp. 327–328).

15. On this concept of the ‘new Irish’ see Fanning (2009), chapter entitled the ‘New Irish’; Feldman (2007–2008); Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (2007).