Citizenship as a weapon

Abstract

The focus of this article is on citizenship in its juridical sense. Other theorists, especially communitarians and civic republicans, have attempted to expand the idea of citizenship to include a social/political sense; they advocate expanding citizenship beyond its juridical confines to include civic participation as one of the hallmarks of citizenship. A new stage of expansion has begun; it is represented by those who want to make citizenship more multiple and flexible, to see citizenship in a more ethical/normative sense. These expansionist approaches do not jettison the juridical sense of citizenship. In fact, they build upon it. Therefore, these conceptions of citizenship become problematic to the extent that the juridical building block becomes problematic. Thus, the first task is to problematize this juridical sense of citizenship. This article explores a different critical path than the ones typically taken. It pushes the envelope by thinking about citizenship as a weapon. While more exposés of administrative and political abuses involving citizenship claims and issues are needed, this analysis unearths deeper, more fundamental problems with the concept of citizenship. Minimally, it pushes the debate beyond how inclusive or expansive citizenship should be made. It calls for a radical reappraisal of citizenship by recognizing citizenship as a weapon.

Keywords::

• citizenship
• legal status
• noncitizen
• categorization
• claims making
• claims limiting

Notes

^1. The author would like to thank a reviewer of this article for this and many other insightful comments.

^2. UNESCO, EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2004–2005.

^3. Gallie (1955) distinguished a class of essentially contested concepts whose meaning is always part of debate about their application.

^4. ‘It is clear that legal citizenship is merely one form of human protection’ (Ong 2006, p. 23).

^5. China recently made foreigners eligible for retirement and other benefits.

^6. Organic Law Governing Political Organizations and Politicians in Rwanda, Article 2, Law No. 19 (2007).

^7. Armenia, Bulgaria, Belgium, China, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Poland, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Serbia, Slovakia, South Korea, and Spain. International treaties obligated Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria to extend jus sanguinis rights.

^8. Williams (2007) classifies these ‘citizenship as identity’ theorists as follows: liberal nationalists like Miller (1995) and Tamir (1995); constitutional patriots like Habermas (1995); and political liberals like Rawls (1993) and Macedo (2000).

^9. For a recent defense of a strong tie between citizenship and identity, see Spiro (2008).

^10.Immigration and Nationality Act, Sec. 101(a)(21) (27 June 1952), 8 U.S.C. 1101.

^11.Immigration and Nationality Act, Sec. 301(a)(22) (27 June 1952), 8 U.S.C. 1401.

^12. In some cases, US Citizenship and Immigration Services allows the oath to be taken without the clauses: ‘that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by law…’The US Oath comes from the UK Oath of Supremacy of 1559, first imposed on members of Parliament and universities: ‘I do utterly testify and declare in my conscience that the Queen's Highness is the only supreme governor of this realm, and of all other her Highness's dominions and countries, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal, and that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence or authority ecclesiastical or spiritual within this realm; and therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all foreign jurisdictions, powers, superiorities and authorities, and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear faith and true allegiance to the Queen's Highness, her heirs and lawful successors, and to my power shall assist and defend all jurisdictions, pre-eminences, privileges and authorities granted or belonging to the Queen's Highness, her heirs or successors, or united or annexed to the imperial crown of this realm. So help me God, and by the contents of this Book’.

^13. ‘By defining insiders, the concept of citizenship necessarily defines outsiders…’ Aleinkoff (2010, pp. 1689, 1694).

^14. Canada's Chinese exclusion laws ran from 1923 to 1947.

^15. Much of the discussion that follows is taken from Pogonyi et al. (2010).

^16. For example, Walsh and Klease (2004) argue that that citizenship is the best way to promote social rights of the homeless in Australia.

^17. As Baines and Sharma (2002) argue: ‘Citizenship should be abandoned as a rallying cry for increasing social justice’.

^18. My summary here is largely a distillation of the survey provided by Alcántar (2009).

^19.United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898); In re Reid, 6 F. Supp. 800 (D. Ct. Or. 1934); Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939).

^20.Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943), 107.

^21.Doss Reis ex rel. Camara v. Nicolls, 68 F. Supp. 773 (Mass. Dist. Ct. 1946); Miranda v. Clark, 180 F 2d 257 (9th Cir. 1950).

^22.Tomooya Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717 (1952).

^23.Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163 (1964); Afroyin v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967).

^24.Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815 (1971).

^25.Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U.S. 252 (1980).

^26.United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898).

^27. Jefferson and Madison proposed an Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution that would ‘ban monopolies in commerce’, making it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, banning them from giving money to politicians or trying to influence elections in any way, restricting corporations to a single business purpose, limiting the lifetime of a corporation to something roughly similar to that of productive humans (20–40 years back then), and requiring that the first purpose for which all corporations were created be ‘to serve the public good’.

^28. US Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote, ‘Of the cases in this court in which the Fourteenth Amendment was applied during its first fifty years after its adoption, less than one-half of one percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than fifty percent asked that its benefits be extended to corporations’. Hugo Black, dissenting, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company v. Johnson (303 U.S. 77, 1938).

^29.Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010).

^30. Fletcher (2004) argues that the Supreme Court should have seen that habeous rights apply to persons and not to citizens.

^31. My thanks to a reviewer of this article for these poignant words.