38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX38.2 (7) TEMPROSA.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 272 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 1/16/2021 12:59 PM [Vol. 38:2 Explaining the Ideograph: State Privilege and State Gaze In a world that privileges State discretion, States have an opportunity to constructively engage in an ideational imposition of interests and identities in relation to the individual. In communication studies, concepts are the State's agents of social control. States are able to control societies through ideographs, or abstractions with highly contingent meanings open to interpretation and negotiation. 198 This is so with statelessness. Statelessness has no definite meaning but is given the impression of a clear meaning for political positions. The definition allows what I call State gaze. State gaze is the State's vicarious view of the individual's situation. Through State gaze, the State gazes and passes a vicarious judgment on a person's status through its own perception of another State or group of States' polities. Under international law's definition, the presence or absence of statelessness is disappointingly contingent on whether the State considers one as a citizen or not. To decide whether a person should be a citizen in a constructivist activity, the State uses a value and interest system. This system entertains factors that in turn have normative and instrumental dimensions that construct "realities." 199 Part II.C describes some of these factors. Belief takes center stage in State gaze because international law's definition of statelessness relates to whether a State "consider[s]" a person (the referent in discourse) as its national under the operation of its laws. 200 The State's perceptions of other States' actions or inactions, and at limited times, the actions or inactions of the person claiming statelessness, become conclusive. The determining https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4979cae12.pdf (last visited May 6, 2019) ("'[S]tateless person' shall mean a person who is not recognized as a citizen by any country under his/her national law") [hereinafter "Hungary's Act II of 2007"]. In Latvia, a person is stateless if "some other [S]tate" does not recognize them as a citizen. See Latvia's Law of 2004 on Stateless Persons, sec. 2(1), https://www.refworld.org/docid/41387c6c4.html (last visited May 6, 2019) ("A person may be recognised as a stateless person in the Republic of Latvia if some other state has not recognised the person as a citizen thereof in accordance with the laws of such state.") 198. See McGee, supra note 157, at 5. See also Inniss, supra note 21, at 665–68. 199. See John Gerard Ruggie, What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge, 52 INT'L ORG. 855, 878–79 (1998). For an example of a work on the social constructivism of statelessness, see Jocelyn Kane, The Social Construction of Statelessness in Canada: A Study of National Media 1930-2011 (2013) (Master's Thesis, Ryerson University). 200. It is not even clear from the international definition of statelessness which States have a stake in the status of a person: the State where they applied for stateless status, a collection of States, or any other third-party state. For an opinion on which States should have a stake in status determinations, see Sentenza n. 4262/2015, Italy: Italian Supreme Court (Corte Suprema di Cassazione) (Nov. 4, 2014), https://www.refworld.org/cases,ITA_CC,556da6cf4.html (last visited May 2, 2019). Italy's practice is to look into the country of origin of the person and any countries where they have "relevant links." Id. In the UK, Justice McLaughlin opined that "countries who are potential candidates for granting" a person citizenship are relevant to statelessness determinations. Fedorovski, Re Judicial Review, (2007) N.I.Q.B. 119, United Kingdom: High Court (Northern Ireland), ¶ 13 (Nov. 23), https://www.refworld.org/cases,GBR_HC_NI,492accba2.html (last visited May 2, 2019); but see ROBINSON, supra note 48 (seemingly advocating for a more exhaustive search into the different States of the world).