What (Exactly) is Wrong with Weaponising Citizenship? Yet when we extend this line of argument to other kinds of negative effects, it becomes less persuasive. I agree with Bauböck that ‘when assessing weaponised policies, we should not only consider their direct legal consequences, but also how they aim to force other states to react in a way that will escalate a conflict at the expense of vulnerable groups’.309 For example, he suggests extending the negative effects to include destabilising the target country’s internal recognition and accommodation of ethnic minorities (e.g. in the case of Hungary and Slovakia). However, even if as a matter of prudent politics these policies should not be pursued, on the normative level the worry over backlash seems to wrongly locate the culprits. Even prima facie extra-territorial citizenship regimes – tracing the genuine link of emigrants and their direct descendants – can and do trigger perceptions of disloyalty. Such effects could exist without the intention of the naturalising state. Moreover, often the formal act of naturalization is not even required for the negative effects to take place. As Ilan Zvi Baron argues, the mere existence of the state of Israel provides an excuse to accuse Jewish citizens of dual loyalty.310 Further scepticism arises regarding other potential negative effects suggested by the contributors. Džankić presents the interesting case of Bulgaria and North Macedonia, where extending Bulgarian citizenship had the effect of limiting North Macedonia’s ability to enact external sovereignty.311 Bauböck offers the example of cases where conferring citizenship undermines domestic equality, when only some subset of the population has access to the advantages of a second nationality (as is the case of European Jews in Israel).312 But pursuing this line of argument to its logical conclusion creates new problems. Again, these kind of effects will likely be generated even by prima facie legitimate citizenship laws. Restricting them on these grounds seems at best unjustified, or worse resulting in unnecessary harm to individual rights (as persuasively argued by Manby and Jacobs-Owens on Western Sahara and the Chagos Islands, respectively).313 And there is a broader point here: given the complexity and interconnectedness of international politics, any number of the state’s supposedly domestic laws – from its tax policies to its religious establishment – could have negative effects on other states. Why Clarity is Important Hopefully the above analysis does not strike readers as the pedantic over-indulgence of the philosopher. As I wrote at the beginning of the response, I share the view of most contributors to this forum that the instrumental and cynical use of citizenship laws at the hand of aggressive states – not least in the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine – is a danger deserving our scholarly and political attention. Real politics requires difficult decisions under conditions of urgency and uncertainty, so the kind of rigor in identifying the precise source of wrongness I advocate here might not always be called for. But even conceding this point, I still wish to argue that our responses to the threat should maintain clarity as to (a) the agents and actions responsible for the wrong and (b) the implications of the response. Failing that, the response will not address the underlying causes of injustice and might even prove to generate new wrongs. 309 Bauböck 2023. 310 Baron, I. (2009), ‘The Problem of Dual Loyalty’, Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue Canadienne De Science Politique, 42(4), 1025-1044. 311 Džankić 2022. 312 Harpaz Y. (2019), Citizenship 2.0: Dual Nationality as a Global Asset, Princeton University Press; Bauböck 2023. 313 Manby 2023; Jacob-Owens 2023. European University Institute 50