The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization and the Origins of the American Republic

By Patrick Weil, University of Pennsylvania Press, Phildelphia, 2013.

Present-day Americans feel secure in their citizenship: they are free to speak up for any cause, oppose their government, marry a person of any background, and live where they choose—at home or abroad. Denaturalization and denationalization are more often associated with twentieth-century authoritarian regimes. But there was a time when American-born and naturalized foreign-born individuals in the United States could be deprived of their citizenship and its associated rights. Patrick Weil examines the twentieth-century legal procedures, causes, and enforcement of denaturalization to illuminate an important but neglected dimension of Americans' understanding of sovereignty and federal authority: a citizen is defined, in part, by the parameters that could be used to revoke that same citizenship.

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Doppelte Staatsbürgerschaft bei Naturalisierung – Eine europäische Situationsanalyse unter spezieller Berücksichtigung Liechtensteins

By Martina Sochin d'Elia (collaborator Michael Kieber), Arbeitspapiere Liechtenstein-Institut Nr. 37, October 2012.

This paper deals with dual citizenship by naturalisartion. It analyses the current situation in Europe with a specific focus on Lichtenstein. Download the paper.

L'Option de Loi et les Binationaux: Peut-On Dépasser le Conflit de Nationalités?

By Patrick Wautelet, Revue Générale de Droit Civil Belge/Tijdschrift voor Belgisch Burgerlijk Recht, Vol.26, p.414-430, 2012                                                                                                                                                                 Choice of Law in Family Relationships and Multiple Nationalities - A Case for a New Approach?

In this paper I analyse the scope of the choice of law offered to parties in various family relationships (such as divorce, matrimonial contracts or alimony). In several jurisdictions and under rules of European private international law, parties may select which law will apply to their relationship. In most cases a choice may be made for the law of the nationality of the persons concerned. The question arises how such choice should be handled when the person concerned possesses several nationalities. After reviewing several possible readings, I suggest that the classical rules dealing with multiples nationalities should not be applied when the conflict of laws rules allow a party to select the applicable law.

Download the article in French on the Social Science Research Network

The Social, Political and Historical Contours of Deportation

By Anderson, Bridget; Gibney, Matthew J.; Paoletti, Emanuela (Eds), Series: Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, New York: Springer, 2013

In recent years states across the world have boosted their legal and institutional capacity to deport noncitizens residing on their territory, including failed asylum seekers, “illegal” migrants, and convicted criminals. Scholars have analyzed this development primarily through the lens of immigration control. Deportation has been viewed as one amongst a range of measures designed to control entrance, distinguished primarily by the fact that it is exercised inside the territory of the state. But deportation also has broader social and political effects. It provides a powerful way through which the state reminds noncitizens that their presence in the polity is contingent upon acceptable behavior. Furthermore, in liberal democratic states immunity from deportation is one of the key privileges that citizens enjoy that distinguishes them from permanent residents. This book examines the historical, institutional and social dimensions of the relationship between deportation and citizenship in liberal democracies. Contributions also include analysis of the formal and informal functions of administrative immigration detention, and the role of the European Parliament in the area of irregular immigration and borders. The book also develops an analytical framework that identifies and critically appraises grassroots and sub national responses to migration policy in liberal democratic societies, and considers how groups form after deportation and the employment of citizenship in this particular context, making it of interest to scholars and international policy makers alike.

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Doppelte Staatsbürgerschaften als Konfliktpotential. Nationale Divergenzen unter europäischer Flagge

By Sabine Riedel, SWP-Studien 2012/S 24, October 2012.

  Access the full text in German on the SWP website.