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.