Beyond the ‘West’: Understanding citizenship revocation in a global context citizenship away from their own nationals. Still, it is possible to identify three common patterns that emerge from the cases investigated in this symposium: (1) Citizenship revocation is presented and politically legitimised as a security measure. (2) Public justifications for citizenship revocation draw on ‘thick’ conceptions of national membership. (3) Measures of citizenship revocation threaten fundamental rights, particularly in contexts where procedural safeguards against arbitrary practices of public authorities are weak. I shall comment on these three common patterns in turn and show that they further extend beyond the countries investigated in this symposium – including the Western countries on which comparative research on citizenship revocation has so far predominantly focused. The emphasis that I place on the commonalities across contexts does not overlook a number of divergences that emerge between cases, most notably when it comes to conceptions of national membership and levels of protection of fundamental rights. However, as I will explain, these divergences are better understood as the particular expressions of similar processes linked to the revival of citizenship revocation across different national settings (reaffirmation of ‘thick’ visions of national membership, weakening of procedural safeguards) than as manifestations of mechanisms limited to specific cases. Most importantly, such divergences do not allow us to draw a sharp divide between Western and non-Western contexts. The legitimation of citizenship revocation as a security measure Commenting on the case studies in this symposium, Laura van Waas interestingly points out that ‘citizenship revocation is enabled and achieved through a trinity of law, bureaucracy and rhetoric’. One of the commonalities among the case studies relates to the ‘rhetoric’ dimension of citizenship revocation, more specifically to the justification that is most often given by public authorities. They present and legitimise citizenship revocation as a mechanism that serves to protect the state against an alleged threat to ‘national security’ or ‘national unity’. In Syria, Mohamad Alh shows that the governmental justifications for the 1962 census, which resulted in the citizenship revocation of thousands of Kurds, were based on the necessity to identify ‘alien infiltrators’ and eliminate threats to Arab national unity. Similarly, in contemporary India, Mohsin Alam Bhat and Aashish Yadav explain that one of the ministers of the Modi government defended the recent introduction of both the ‘National Register of Indian Citizens’ (NRIC) and ‘Citizenship Amendment Act’ (CAA) as measures aiming to deport ‘infiltrators’, officially compared to ‘termites’. In Nigeria, as MaryAnne Iwara shows, when returning to their communities, women who have been abducted by Boko Haram are considered by family and community members as co-responsible for the secessionist and terrorist threats that the sect embodies. On that basis, they are being refused certificates of indigeneity and consequently denied the rights normally associated with Nigerian citizenship. The invocation of a threat against national security or national unity and the defence of citizenship revocation as an appropriate means to combat this threat go well beyond the countries covered in this symposium. In Bahrain, it is in the name of national security that the government justifies citizenship stripping against political dissidents.7 Comparably, in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt that took place in 2017 in Turkey, a decree was published allowing the government to deprive of citizenship individuals who pose a threat to national security if they do not return to face trial.8 Furthermore, in the 7 Ibrahim, A. (2020), ‘Activists condemn Bahrain’s use of citizenship revocation’, Al Jazeera, available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/12/bahrain-activists-condemn-citizenship-revocation-against-dissent (accessed on 22/11/2020). 8 De Chickera, A. (2017), ‘Turkish despair: The stripping of Turkish citizenship by the state’, European Network on Statelessness, available at: https://www.statelessness.eu/updates/blog/turkish-despair-stripping-turkish-citizenship-state (accessed on 22/11/2020). European University Institute 45