With The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality, Ayelet Shachar is the first major scholar to put the rich theory of property law theory to work in the realm of citizenship. Assessed on its own criteria, the book delivers on its promise to shake up our thinking on this question. Nevertheless, I argue in this paper that her account is not ultimately persuasive. First, Shachar takes for granted that citizenship is a valuable resource. I suggest that today legal residency is (...) more highly valued that citizenship. Also her defense of the state and the social advantages of having stable citizenship regimes does nothing to confront its decline as the central organizing principle of political life. Last but not least, the modalities of a birthright citizenship levy calls into question the underlying analysis. For instance, the current proposal looks undistinguishable from foreign aid and it would demand much more robust institutional organs of global governance that now exist. The second prong of her argument works at the domestic level as it tackles the problem of under- and over-inclusiveness of birthright citizenship. Here too I have reservations highlighted by modes of implementation. (shrink)

With The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality, Ayelet Shachar is the first major scholar to put the rich theory of property law theory to work in the realm of citizenship. Assessed on its own criteria, the book delivers on its promise to shake up our thinking on this question. Nevertheless, I argue in this paper that her account is not ultimately persuasive. First, Shachar takes for granted that citizenship is a valuable resource. I suggest that today legal residency is (...) more highly valued that citizenship. Also her defense of the state and the social advantages of having stable citizenship regimes does nothing to confront its decline as the central organizing principle of political life. Last but not least, the modalities of a birthright citizenship levy calls into question the underlying analysis. For instance, the current proposal looks undistinguishable from foreign aid and it would demand much more robust institutional organs of global governance that now exist. The second prong of her argument works at the domestic level as it tackles the problem of under- and over-inclusiveness of birthright citizenship. Here too I have reservations highlighted by modes of implementation.Avec The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality, Ayelet Shachar est la première chercheuse de pointe qui utilise la riche théorie du droit de propriété dans le domaine de la citoyenneté. Jugé à l’aune de ses principes, le livre réussit à secouer nos idées reçues sur cette question. Dans cet article, je soutiens néanmoins que son explication n’est pas aussi convaincante qu’elle en a l’air. D’abord parce qu’elle tend à surévaluer la citoyenneté. La résidence permanente est aujourd’hui plus en demande et a pour cette raison plus de valeur que la citoyenneté. Ensuite, parce que la défense de l’État et des avantages sociaux des régimes de citoyenneté stables ne fait rien pour remédier au déclin de l’État en tant que principe organisateur de la vie politique. Enfin, parce que les modalités d’une taxe sur la transmission de la citoyenneté par droit de naissance ne permettent pas de la distinguer la taxe sur la citoyenneté de l’aide étrangère et que sa mise en oeuvre impliquerait des institutions de gouvernance globale plus robustes que celles qui existent actuellement. Le volet domestique de la proposition de Shachar, qui vise à corriger les problèmes de sous-inclusion et de sur-inclusion à l’aide du jus nexi, pose également quelques difficultés. J’émets des réserves qui portent sur la mise en oeuvre de cette proposition. (shrink)

Right-wing populist parties often resort to a xenophobic rhetoric which both exploits and fuels existing illiberal anti-immigrant sentiments. Since populist anti-immigrant sentiments are at odds with fundamental liberal values and challenge the implementation of any liberal ethics of migration, this essay argues that states should adopt civic education policies to counter such sentiments and persuade citizens to develop liberal attitudes towards immigrants. Empirical evidence suggests that sentiments may be malleable, and there are already examples of local governments devising or supporting (...) initiatives aimed at dispelling prejudices and promoting positive interactions. It might be objected that a government’s involvement in shaping sentiments and opinions conflicts with liberal democratic states’ commitment to individual autonomy and electoral fairness. However, I argue that civic education policies are not necessarily incompatible with such values and I provide five criteria to identify policies that liberal democratic governments may legitimately adopt to counteract anti-immigrant sentiments. (shrink)

The article argues that in European public debates the Muslim Question is performed by and linked to the issues of Muslims' integration and recognition as political subjects. I suggest that, in order to defuse the performative negative effects of the Muslim Question on Muslims' democratic agency, we should address it without rendering them invisible in the public sphere and in enhancing their political agency. Drawing from an analysis of the Swiss case I show that integration because adjustment entails a depoliticization (...) and a normalization of Muslims' political agency. In this way, integration as a process acts as an alternative and as a way to empower Muslim political subjectivity and therefore the fairest way to tackle the undemocratic impact of the Muslim Question. (shrink)

This paper has a twofold aim in determining who should be granted electoral rights at the state level, one negative and another positive. The negative part deconstructs the link between state-level political membership and citizenship and contests naturalization procedures. This approach argues that naturalization procedures, when coercively used as a necessary condition for accessing electoral rights at the state level, are both inconsistent with liberal democratic ideals and an inexcusable practice in liberal democratic states. The positive part of the paper (...) seeks to establish what – if not the acquisition of citizenship –could determine state-level political membership for non-citizens. In other words, it attempts to explain how and in what conditions non-citizens may become political members of a state without naturalizing. This approach considers the most prominent arguments that base state-level political membership on residency, i.e. residency as a legal status granted by the previous members of the community and residency as physical presence within a defined jurisdiction. It argues that, in a world of increasing human mobility across borders, while the former way of understanding residency might be too restrictive, the latter might be too banal to forge membership ties that form a political community. Domicile is the proposed alternative, introduced as a type of residency that is self-given and remains stable despite numerous changes of residency. Domicile is a legal term that indicates where a person officially registers her permanent home even when residing abroad. In sum, this is an argument against naturalization as the access door for electoral rights at the state level and in favor of defining membership in the political community based on domicile. (shrink)