Nationality and Equal Political Rights: A Necessary Link?

Abstract

Main justifications for regarding common nationality as a necessary condition for holding equal political rights – Critique of collective self-determination, equal stakes, nature of political activity, and stability justifications – Rejection of the incommensurability of legitimacy and justice – Socioeconomic interdependence and liberal democratic values as the normative grounds for equal stakes – Risk of entrenchment of hostility among national groups as a consequence of a competitive conception of political activity – Instrumental value of stability – Stability through democratic inclusion – Possibility of sustainable pluralism through deliberative democracy – Modified version of the equal stakes argument – Equal political rights on the basis of long-term residence – Association of citizenship with nationality in contemporary European states – Redefinition of citizenship as top-down redefinition of nationality – Need to reconceptualise equal political rights independently of citizenship – Legal argument for interpreting references to popular sovereignty in national constitutions in accordance with long-term residence, rather than nationality – Available legal remedies