Dual Citizenship as a Strategy of Global Upward Mobility

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-38
Author(s):  
Yossi Harpaz

This chapter presents an approach that posits that global inequality in citizenship value is the main factor that shapes the acquisition and use of dual citizenship. The world's citizenships are not equal. Some citizenships provide access to a secure and prosperous territory; guarantee extensive social and political rights; and come with a prestigious, high-mobility passport. On the other end of the spectrum, some citizenships are practically worthless in terms of economic access, social welfare, and political rights—and, moreover, mark their bearer as an automatic suspect when trying to cross international borders. The chapter then describes a model of the global citizenship hierarchy. Within this hierarchy, citizenship from Western or EU countries provides the highest level of rights, opportunities, and travel freedom. Once dual citizenship became available, millions of individuals from middle-tier nations in Latin America and Eastern Europe drew on their ancestry or ethnicity to obtain EU citizenship. For those individuals, compensatory citizenship is a deliberate strategy of upward mobility in the global hierarchy.

Author(s):  
Yossi Harpaz

This book focuses on an important yet overlooked dimension of globalization: the steady rise in the legitimacy and prevalence of dual citizenship. Demand for dual citizenship is particularly high in Latin America and Eastern Europe, where more than three million people have obtained a second citizenship from EU countries or the United States. Most citizenship seekers acquire EU citizenship by drawing on their ancestry or ethnic origin; others secure U.S. citizenship for their children by strategically planning their place of birth. Their aim is to gain a second, compensatory citizenship that would provide superior travel freedom, broader opportunities, an insurance policy, and even a status symbol. The book analyzes three cases: Israelis who acquire citizenship from European-origin countries such as Germany or Poland; Hungarian-speaking citizens of Serbia who obtain a second citizenship from Hungary (and, through it, EU citizenship); and Mexicans who give birth in the United States to secure American citizenship for their children. The book reveals the growth of instrumental attitudes toward citizenship: individuals worldwide increasingly view nationality as rank within a global hierarchy rather than as a sanctified symbol of a unique national identity.


Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta

The most important conclusions of this summarizing chapter are the following: The religious landscape of Eastern Europe is more diverse than that of Western Europe. The cases of Poland and the GDR confirm the hypothesis that there is a link between the diffusion of functions and the growth in the importance of religion. The strong processes of biographical individualization that occurred in the post-communist states did not necessarily intensify individual religiosity. The economic market model cannot be confirmed for Eastern Europe. There is in Eastern and Central Europe a demonstrable link between economic prosperity and the loosening of religious and church ties. What can act as a bulwark against the eroding effects of modernization is church activity on the one hand, and the everyday proximity, visibility, and concreteness of religious practices and rituals, symbols, images, and objects on the other.


Author(s):  
Paul D. Kenny

This chapter sets out the puzzle at the center of the book: what explains the success of populist campaigners in India, Asia, and beyond? It summarizes the existing literature on populist success both in Latin America and Western Europe and argues that these explanations do a poor job of explaining Indian and Asian cases in particular. Populists win elections when the institutionalized ties between non-populist parties and voters decay. However, because different kinds of party systems experience distinct stresses and strains, we need different models of populist success based on the prevailing party­–voter linkage system in place in any given country. The chapter then sets out the rationale for concentrating on explaining populist success in patronage-based party systems, which are common not only to Asia, but also to Latin America and Eastern Europe.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Inés Pardo Martínez ◽  
William Alfonso Piña ◽  
Angelo Facchini ◽  
Alexander Cotte Poveda

Abstract Background Currently, most of the world’s population lives in cities, and the rapid urbanization of the population is driving increases in the demand for products, goods and services. To effectively design policies for urban sustainability, it is important to understand the trends of flows in energy and materials as they enter and leave a city. This knowledge is essential for determining the key elements characterizing future urban growth and addressing future supply challenges. Methods This paper presents an analysis of the energy and material flows in the city of Bogotá over the time span from 2001 to 2017. Urban flows are also characterized in terms of their temporal evolution with respect to population growth to compare and identify the changes in the main input flows, wealth production, emissions and waste in the city. Results The results of the analysis are then compared with those for other selected large urban agglomerations in Latin America and worldwide to highlight similarities and make inferences. The results show that in Bogotá, there was a decrease in some of the material flows, such as the consumption of water and the generation of discharge, in recent years, while there was an increase in the consumption of energy and cement and in the production of CO2 emissions and construction materials. Solid waste production remained relatively stable. With respect to the other large cities considered, we observe that the 10-year growth rates of the flows with respect to population growth are lower in Bogotá, particularly when compared with the other urban agglomerations in Latin America. Conclusions The findings of this study are important for advancing characterizations of the trends of material and energy flows in cities, and they contribute to the establishment of a benchmark that allows for the definition and evaluation of the different impacts of public policy while promoting the sustainability of Bogotá in the coming decades.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (60) ◽  
pp. 253-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Olstein

Abstract World history can be arranged into three major regional divergences: the 'Greatest Divergence' starting at the end of the last Ice Age (ca. 15,000 years ago) and isolating the Old and the New Worlds from one another till 1500; the 'Great Divergence' bifurcating the paths of Europe and Afro-Asia since 1500; and the 'American Divergence' which divided the fortunes of New World societies from 1500 onwards. Accordingly, all world regions have confronted two divergences: one disassociating the fates of the Old and New Worlds, and the other within either the Old or the New World. Latin America is in the uneasy position that in both divergences it ended up on the 'losing side.' As a result, a contentious historiography of Latin America evolved from the very moment that it was incorporated into the wider world. Three basic attitudes toward the place of Latin America in global history have since emerged and developed: admiration for the major impact that the emergence on Latin America on the world scene imprinted on global history; hostility and disdain over Latin America since it entered the world scene; direct rejection of and head on confrontation in reaction the former. This paper examines each of these three attitudes in five periods: the 'long sixteenth century' (1492-1650); the 'age of crisis' (1650-1780); 'the long nineteenth century' (1780-1914); 'the short twentieth century' (1914-1991); and 'contemporary globalization' (1991 onwards).


2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 599-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
GUILLERMO O'DONNELL

The occasion of honouring the memory of John Brooks, a great friend of Latin America, has helped me vanquish my initial reluctance to tackle a topic that is as broad, varied and still open-ended as the present situation of democracy in South America. As a first measure of my limitations, with the exception of some references to Costa Rica and Mexico, I will not discuss Central America and the Caribbean, not because I feel these regions are unimportant but because, simply, I do not know enough about them. However, when I feel that I am on sufficiently solid ground so as to refer to Latin America as a whole, I will do so.I begin by noting that in contemporary South America some countries satisfy the definition of political democracy. Those countries share two main characteristics. One is that they hold elections under universal adult franchise that, at least at the national level, are reasonably fair and competitive. These are standard criteria in the political science literature. However, having in mind the experience of Latin America and elsewhere in the third world, I believe that we should add that such elections must be institutionalised. By this I mean that all relevant actors expect that elections of this kind will continue being held in the indefinite future so, whether they like or not, it is rational for them to play democracy, not coup-making or insurrection. We should also stipulate that these elections are decisive, in the sense that those who are elected do occupy the respective offices and end their terms in the constitutionally prescribed way; they are not, as it has happened too often in Latin America, prevented from occupying office or thrown out of it because some supra-constitutional power feels that they are the ‘wrong people’.The second characteristic is the enjoyment of certain political rights, especially of opinion, expression, association, movement and access to a reasonably free and pluralist media. Of course, these and other rights are important per se; in addition, they are instrumental – necessary conditions – for the effectuation of the kind of elections I have just specified.


Polar Record ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-241
Author(s):  
Janice Cavell ◽  
Jeff Noakes

ABSTRACTConfusion has long existed on the subject of Vilhjalmur Stefansson's citizenship. A Canadian (that is, a British subject) by birth, Stefansson was brought up and educated in the United States. When his father became an American citizen in 1887, according to the laws of the time Stefansson too became an American. Dual citizenship was not then permitted by either the British or the American laws. Therefore, Stefansson was no longer a British subject. After he took command of the government sponsored Canadian Arctic Expedition in 1913, Stefansson was careful to give the impression that his status had never changed. Although Stefansson swore an oath of allegiance to King George V in May 1913, he did not take the other steps that would have been required to restore him to being Canadian. But, by an American act passed in 1907, this oath meant the loss of Stefansson's American citizenship. In the 1930s American officials informed Stefansson that he must apply for naturalisation in order to regain it. From 1913 until he received his American citizenship papers in 1937, Stefansson was a man without a country.


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