Strategic Dual Citizenship: Global Dynamics of Supply and Demand

The growing toleration of dual citizenship changes the basic rules governing citizenship attribution. It creates new possibilities for legal connections between states and individuals, including overlapping memberships and belonging from a distance. In this chapter, I argue that the legitimisation of dual citizenship leads to the adoption of strategic policies on the part of states (the “supply” side) as well as on the part of eligible individuals (the “demand” side). Numerous states use dual citizenship policies to select new citizens that do not live on their territory and do not intend to relocate or give up their original citizenship. These include the descendants of emigrants (e.g. Italian descendants in South America who are now offered Italian citizenship), cross-border co-ethnics (such as ethnic Hungarians in the countries surrounding Hungary), as well as millionaires from developing countries who can now – for a hefty sum – acquire citizenship from a country where they have never set foot. From the perspective of eligible individuals, such schemes offer opportunities to strategically expand their scope of rights and opportunities by acquiring a second citizenship that is ranked higher in the global hierarchy of citizenship value. The expected benefits may include global travel freedom, an insurance policy and broader economic opportunities. These developments, which impact both states and individuals, weaken the traditional association between citizenship and national identity.