Multiple citizenship, nation and democracy: from anomaly to appraisal and beyond

Abstract

The article focuses on multiple citizenship from the theoretical perspective in an attempt to seize the conceptual implications of this expanding phenomenon in relation to the nation and to democracy. We argue that the proliferation of multiple citizenship is likely to wear out democracy and the sovereign state, as multiple citizenship goes against the very logic of citizenship. There are however symptoms in Europe of this very problematic conceptual dimension of multiple citizenship which illustrate the social dissolution and the security dilemma brought up by this phenomenon, despite being regarded as the ultimate embodiment of democratic citizenship. Thus the study combines the conceptual analysis of multiple citizenship with the empirical evidence brought in support of the argument that multiple citizenship has a perverse effect on democracy, representing the dissolution of the bond between state and individual. We argue that the gradual expansion and acceptance of multiple citizenship in international law and in national law should be at least regarded with suspicion from the standpoint of political theory because of its undermining effect of western democracies which evolved as bounded political communities based on bounded citizenries in order to further democracy. In support of the argument the article mobilizes the literature on postnationalism, boundary ethics, liberal nationalism and democratic theory and attempts to bridge the legal dimension of citizenship (that is emphasized in the studies of multiple citizenship) and with the political dimension.