Cohen Elizabeth F. - Citizenship

• Charles Jones and Richard Vernon, Patriotism
• Roger Griffin, Fascism
• Peter J. Steinberger, Political Judgment
• Fabian Wendt, Authority
• Eric Mack, Libertarianism
• Elizabeth F. Cohen and Cyril Ghosh, Citizenship

Elizabeth F. Cohen

Cyril Ghosh

polity

Copyright Elizabeth F. Cohen and Cyril Ghosh 2019

The right of Elizabeth F. Cohen and Cyril Ghosh to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2019 by Polity Press

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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2225-5

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2226-2 (pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cohen, Elizabeth F., 1973- author. | Ghosh, Cyril, author.

Title: Citizenship / Elizabeth Cohen, Cyril Ghosh.

Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018056354 (print) | LCCN 2018061325 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509522293 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509522255 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509522262 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Citizenship. | Citizenship--Philosophy.

Classification: LCC JF801 (ebook) | LCC JF801 .C588 2019 (print) | DDC 323.6--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018056354

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Most of us generally know what we mean when we use the term citizenship. We know, for example, that having citizenship of a country entitles a person to a set of rights, such as the right to a passport issued by that country. A passport, in turn, authorizes a person to reenter their country from outside its borders without any additional documentation, such as a visa. We also know that adult citizens of a country usually have the right to vote in the local, regional, and federal/general elections of that country.

But, if you look carefully, you will find that some countries also allow long-term legal permanent residents, who are not citizens, to vote at least in some elections. Conversely, there are some citizens and nationals who are not allowed to vote in the country in which they reside. Equally, having citizenship in any given country also means that one has a set of obligations to that political community, such as the duty to serve on a jury to decide the fate of ones peers, the duty to pay taxes on income, and so on. These duties vary from country to country: some have no jury trial while others make it mandatory for everyone to vote or serve in the military at a predetermined age.

Citizenship is therefore not an easy term to define. The rights and duties associated with citizenship are not uniformly distributed among citizens around the world. Nor are noncitizens uniformly denied all the rights that citizens have in any given context. In other words, the rights and duties associated with citizenship appear in different combinations, depending on time, place, and context.

Consider, as a hypothetical example, the Robinson family living in Louisville, KY, United States, on July 1, 2014:

Tiffany Robinson was born in Louisville in 1971. Being an adult citizen who has birthright citizenship, Tiffany is entitled to the full range of rights associated with citizenship in the United States. George, Tiffanys husband, was also born in Louisville in 1971. He has a prior conviction (2009) for armed robbery. So, even though he is an adult citizen just like Tiffany, and even though he has birthright citizenship just as Tiffany does, he can nonetheless not vote in elections because the state of Kentucky denies all convicted felons the right to vote. Their daughter, Diana Robinson, was born in Louisville in 1990. She self-identifies as lesbian and is in a long-term relationship with Victoria, whom she would like to marry. Like her parents, Diana is an adult citizen with birthright citizenship. But she cannot get married to Victoria in the state of Kentucky because, at this time (2014), even though the federal government would recognize her marriage as valid in the eyes of the law, the state of Kentucky would not. Dianas younger brother, Bobby Robinson, was born in 1995. He is currently serving in the military. Bobby is an adult citizen with birthright citizenship, just like Tiffany and George and Diana, but he too will be denied at least in some cases (such as those involving the Uniform Code of Military Justice) at least one right: the right to a civil trial because he is a member of the armed forces of the United States.

Now consider the Kowalski family also living in Louisville, KY, United States, on July 1, 2014:

Lew Kowalski was born in Warsaw in 1976. He came to the United States in 2006 on a work permit. His wife Gabriela and their son Alexander came to the United States in August 2007 on dependent visas. Gabriela was born in Warsaw in 1975 and Alexander was born in Warsaw in 2000. Shortly after Gabriela moved to the US, she and Lew had a daughter, Kamila, who was born in Louisville in 2008. Unfortunately, however, that same year, very soon after Kamila was born, Lew died of a sudden heart attack. When he was alive, Lew was a nonresident alien and temporary worker and, as a result of this, he enjoyed many rights in the United States. But, because he was never a citizen, he could not vote in US elections. After his death, Gabriela and Alexander became unauthorized migrants because their stay in the United States was dependent on their ties to Lew (who was now deceased). As a result of this, both of them now live in the United States with a highly curtailed set of rights. Alexander could have qualified as a DACA recipient had he arrived in the United States before June 15, 2007, but he came here about six weeks after that. On the other hand, Kamila, who has birthright citizenship in the United States, will be entitled to the full set of rights associated with citizenship as soon as she becomes eighteen. As on July 1, 2014, however, she has many rights but she cannot yet vote in US elections because she is not yet eighteen.

What these examples indicate is that, while some people have full citizenship rights in any given political community at any given time, there are others who either have semi-citizenship or are without any citizenship rights at all. This can be described more formally, as: Even though citizenship is commonly misunderstood as a categorical and binary concept (one either is or is not a citizen), in reality, one experiences citizenship as a gradient or slope. Thus, depending on the context, one might be said to have more or less of it.