Practising transnational citizenship: dual nationality and simultaneous political involvement among emigrants

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Dual citizenship
• external citizenship
• transnationalism
• simultaneity
• political participation
• identity

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr Michael Buess for his invaluable help with the online questionnaire. We would also like to thank Eva Granwehr for dedicated research assistance, and the Swiss Foreign Ministry for aiding in data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Studies from the US have suggested that dual citizens are less likely to participate in US politics and self-identify as Americans (Cain and Doherty 2006; Staton, Jackson, and Canache 2007). In contrast, studies by Wong in Canada (2007/2008), Mügge (2012) in the Netherlands and Schlenker (2015) in Switzerland show that dual citizens differ very little, if at all, from mono citizens in their participation and identification patterns in the CoR.

2. Switzerland accepts dual citizenship since 1992 for emigrants and immigrants alike. France and Italy have also accepted dual citizenship for an extended period. Germany, however, only does so for citizens of other EU member states and Switzerland since the signing of bilateral agreements in 2002. Only very recently, in 2015, a new law was passed that allows dual citizenship also for third country nationals under specific conditions. Although officially not allowed, the US de facto tolerates dual citizenship (see country profiles at EUDO 2013–2015).

3. In respect to immigrants, Cain and Doherty (2006, 89) have indeed found that those who have a second citizenship participate less in US politics than those who are US nationals only.

4. Results are referring to all contacts, minus those who indicated having moved to another country and those who were unreachable. The response rate varies from country to country: in France it was 18.7%, in Germany 28.4%, in Italy 19.3% and in the US 25%.

5. A previous survey of dual citizens in Switzerland served as the basis of the survey amongst the Swiss abroad, making the current findings comparable to the previous (Schlenker 2015). In addition, the wordings of the questions, for the most part, were oriented along major international surveys such as the European Value Surveys in order to build upon established expertise and to further enhance comparability.

6. For question wording see Appendix.

7. As a robustness check, we ran all regressions without income as a control variable. Since income is always a sensitive issue to ascertain, including this variable reduced the N by around 200 respondents. But also the models with a larger N without income revealed the same results. For the final models, we opted for the inclusion of the control variable ‘income’. There is a significant, but only small correlation between education and income in our sample (r = .159**); education can therefore not be considered as a substitute.

8. Those who live closer seem to be more critical of identification with the country of origin, although these neighboring countries all share the same language with one or several Swiss cantons.

9. The correlation between political interest in and attachment to the home country amounts to r = .360***; there are also positive and significant correlations between attachment and voting, vote intention, participation in referenda and non-electoral participation (for all correlations see Table A2 in the Appendix).

Additional information

Funding

This research was possible thanks to the generous financial support by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the SCIEX Exchange Programme.