NATIONAL IDENTITIES 531 often targets of discrimination and persecution were offered citizenship and repatriation to Germany. While this so-called Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz is often called an ‘ethnic’ policy, in practice, eligibility was dependent on German ancestry evidenced by ancestors with German citizenship, or the commitment to German culture and the knowledge of conversational German. While this law explicitly speaks of helping ethnic Germans abroad, ethnicity is again defined either through descent from former citizens and the knowledge of the national language – neither of which is an indicator of ‘ethnicity’ in the thick sense of the term. As the above German example shows, the right to ‘restore’ citizenship status is seen as a restitutive measure designed to undo historical injustice. Such compensatory measures are commonly used by states in democratic transition and countries that were affected by the redrawing of international borders (Pogonyi, 2014). In some cases, restoration of citizenship is available for very distant descendants of nationals who were nonvoluntarily deprived of their membership status. One of the most recent (and probably also the most peculiar) example is the Spanish government’s decision to open up fast-track naturalization for descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492 (Gladstone, 2014). Extra-territorial aspects of citizenship acquisition are present in every country. Both from a normative and a practical point of view, the strict and exclusive application of the territorial jus soli principle would lead to absurd exclusionary practices and normatively undesirable complications. Without some jus sanguinis options, citizens born abroad would lose their right to become citizens in the homeland of their ancestors. It must, nonetheless, be acknowledged that preferential naturalization of descendants of former citizens who speak the national language creates opportunities for nationalist politicians who offer non-resident citizenship for external ‘kin’ populations. Such policies can be used for all kinds of normatively problematic political maneuvering. Non-resident citizenship may serve expansionist geopolitical calculations, irredentism or the alteration of electoral balances (Pogonyi, 2021). Quite often, right-wing politicians offer citizenship for non-resident ‘kin’ as part of ethno-nationalist strategies. In these cases, the inclusion of non-resident ‘co-ethnics’ is claimed to strengthen the overlap of demos and the dominant ethnocultural group. These claims, however, often fail to reflect sociological realities. As the above examples illustrate, non-resident, putatively ‘ethnic kin’ populations targeted by nationalist politicians are identified through their ancestors with citizenship, and/or the (some, often rather limited) knowledge of the national language. In extreme cases, ethnic kin belonging is evidenced primarily by declaration, as in the case of Bulgaria and Croatia. These cases are seen as the most blatant examples of ethnically selective kin citizenship policies. Both in the Croatian and the Bulgarian case, facilitated naturalization is available for any individuals who have some documented ancestry related to the respective countries, and declare themselves as members of the titular national group. In the case of Bulgaria, applicants of Bulgarian ethnic origin are eligible for fast-track naturalization if they can provide evidence – through birth certificates or membership in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church – of their ethnic ancestry (Jileva & Smilov, 2013, p. 13.). In Croatia, non-resident ethnic Croatians (until 2011, even descendants of migrants who left the country in the nineteenth century) are offered citizenship by declare that they ‘accept the Croatian legal system, customs and culture’.