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Abstract
This article addresses two central topics in normative debates on transnational citizenship: the inclusion of resident non-citizens and of non-resident citizens within the demos. Through a critical review of the social membership (Carens, Rubio-Marin) and stakeholder (Baubock) principles, it identifies two problems within these debates. The first is the antinomy of incorporation, namely, the point that there are compelling arguments both for the mandatory naturalization of permanent residents and for making naturalization a voluntary process. The second is the arbitrary demos problem and concerns who determines whether expatriate voting rights are granted (and on what terms). The argument developed provides a way of dissolving the first problem (and defending the proposed solution against possible objections) and resolving the second problem. In doing so it provides a defensible normative basis for the political theory of transnational citizenship.
Notes
1. For recent overviews of these changes and the reasons for them, see Baubock (Citation2005, Citation2007), Joppke (Citation2010), and Stoker et al. (Citation2011), ch. 6 (of which I was lead author).
2. The classic account of realistic and idealistic approaches is Carens (Citation1996). For the purposes of this argument, the contrast is between attention to possible worlds (idealistic approaches) and to plausible worlds (realistic approaches).
3. The term ‘transnational citizenship’ is also used in the wider political theory literature to pick out forms of civil liberty and civic activity that are tied to transnational fora and/or cosmopolitan politics (e.g. Benhabib Citation2004, Citation2006, Cohen and Sabel Citation2006, Forst Citation2011, Fraser Citation2008). Reconciling these uses requires addressing the limitations of the ‘narrow’ use drawn from Baubock and adopted in this article. The relevant limitations are specified in note 4 below.
4. The two primary limitations are, first, that the focus on voting occludes consideration of rights of political participation more generally and, second, that the restrictive understanding of membership invoked in this discussion fails adequately to address the issues raised by the standing of non-resident non-citizens whose morally significant interests are adversely affected by the decision of states (or, more generally, polities and regimes of governance).
5. For a supportive argument against a necessary relationship between political authority and coercion, see Sangiovanni’s (Citation2007) critique of Blake. On the idea of sanctionability as distinct from coercion, we may note that breaches of customary norms (e.g. norms of etiquette) are sanctionable in the sense that they attract, for example, forms of ostracism but they are not coercively enforced.
6. For an overview that emphasizes this point, see Nasstrom (Citation2010).
7. I provide a considerably fuller critique of Goodin’s argument in Owen (n.d.).
8. Although Dahl talks of the principle of all-affected interests, I agree with Lopez-Guerra (Citation2005, pp. 222–225) that since it is being governed that is the normatively relevant issue for Dahl, the relevant principle is that of being subjected to rule rather than affected by rule.
9. Walzer links this claim to one in which the polity has the right to determine its own entry criteria as an element of its right to self-determination; for an excellent analysis of the difficulties that this conjunction generates, see Bosniak (Citation2006).
10. This case against Lopez-Guerra’s argument is spelled out more fully in Owen (Citation2010) and Stoker et al. (Citation2011), ch. 6. For a discussion of the contrast between Lopez-Guerra’s position and my own earlier position in Owen (Citation2010), see Baubock (Citation2009a), pp. 480–481.
11. A residence-sensitive rule is one that while not conceptually tied to residence is practically related to residence in terms of its application. Thus, for example, in the 19th century the inability of expatriates to stay up to date with the politics of their home states and participate at a distance in its public political discussions would have reasonably grounded the claim that voting rights should be tied to residence, even though it is not conceptually tied to residence. I am grateful to Rainer Baubock for pressing this point on me.
12. For a defence of citizenship tests, see Miller (Citation2008); and for critiques, see Carens (Citation2005), pp. 38–39, and Seglow (Citation2008).
13. I am grateful to Rainer Baubock for raising these objections and I draw on his formulations of them in presenting them here.
14. Notice that this objection can entertain the thought that rights to return and diplomatic protection should not be an exclusive privilege of national citizenship but could be included in denizenship and thus acquired automatically instead of having to be chosen through naturalization. (On Baubock’s view, such external denizenship rights would, however, not be for life, so that national citizens would still enjoy a specific recognition as permanent stakeholders.) The objection is also compatible with resisting the claim that national voting rights ought to be granted only to born or voluntarily naturalized citizens, since if the defense of optional naturalization as a choice to be made by first-generation migrants is successful, then the question of which rights remain attached to full citizenship can be answered in different ways.