Book Review: Citizenship
education, culture, or sports; military service; and substantial financial
investment. 20
Spiro highlights how these faster forms of naturalisation, along with civics tests
and language requirements, can challenge liberal values. He cites Ayelet Shachar,
who argues that investor citizenship undermines ‘the basic egalitarian and
participatory thrust of political membership as we currently know it’. 21 A question
arises as to whether other, or even all, preferential approaches to naturalisation
have a similar effect, to the extent they could be construed as unequal and
arbitrary. Spiro refers to a naturalisation application in a German state that asks
applicants for their opinions on a woman’s right to be alone in public or to dress
as a German woman as ‘anti-Muslim’ and ‘discriminatory’. 22 However, that
characterisation is in tension with the questions’ apparent intent to affirm liberal
values of gender equality and freedom of expression. In this way, naturalisation
practices illuminate the contestability of acceptable and unacceptable conditions
for inclusion and exclusion.
The third chapter addresses rights and obligations of citizenship. 23 While it is
substantially concerned with US law, the chapter raises a number of issues of
general interest, such as the rights of noncitizens and the relevance or not of
territorial presence on the rights and obligations of citizens abroad. Somewhat
oddly, Spiro does not directly ask or answer what the unique rights of citizenship
are. Rather, nearly half the questions concern the rights of noncitizens, with
citizens’ rights clarified secondarily. The text suggests that the extent of rights
available exclusively to citizens varies so much over time and geography that there
are almost no universalised citizenship rights. For instance, while voting is
commonly understood as the right of citizens only, noncitizens in the US who had
started naturalisation processes were able to vote in every presidential election
until 1924. 24 European Union member states allow residents from other member
states to vote in local elections, and New Zealand and Chile allow permanent
residents to vote in national and local elections. 25
The discussion of the ‘distinctive obligations of citizenship’ is only two
sentences long, with Spiro noting ironically that ‘[f]or all the talk of the
“obligations of citizenship”’, the only obligation of US citizenship is the duty to
serve on juries when called. 26 Other jurisdictions or social and political norms
around citizenship beyond legal rules are not mentioned, though other core
obligations are noted with respect to noncitizens. For instance, Spiro clarifies that
while obligations of military service and taxes were traditionally seen as hallmarks
of citizenship, they are no longer. Some states have abandoned military service
requirements, while some extend them to permanent residents and ‘most taxes are
imposed on a territorial basis regardless of citizenship status’. 27
Chapter Three leaves the reader with the impression that, at a general level,
rights and obligations of citizenship increasingly lack distinctiveness from rights
and obligations of noncitizens. International human rights apply — at least
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ibid 48.
ibid 46.
ibid 55.
ibid 61.
ibid 73.
ibid 74.
ibid 72.
ibid 71–72.
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