Abolishing Ius Sanguinis Citizenship: A Proposal Too Restrained and Too Radical Kristin Collins Costica Dumbrava maintains that ius sanguinis citizenship is a historically tainted, outmoded, and unnecessary means of designating political membership. He argues that it is time to abandon it. His proposal is bold, and it has significant implications for an array of policies and practices. The parent-­ child relationship not only serves as a basis for citizenship transmission; it also entitles individuals to immigration preferences, and – in some countries – it facilitates automatic or ‘derivative’ naturalisation of the children of naturalised parents. In many countries that recognise ius soli citizenship, the parent-child relationship serves as an added requirement: one must be born in the sovereign territory and be the child of a citizen or a long-term legal resident. Dumbrava limits his challenge to ius sanguinis citizenship per se, and even suggests that family-based migration rights could be used to minimise the disruptive effect of abolishing citizenship-by-descent. But his core complaints about ius sanguinis citizenship – the mismatch of biological parentage and political affinity, the difficulties of determining legal parentage – can be, and have been, levied against these various family-based preferences and statuses, which are likely found in every nation’s nationality laws. It is therefore important to consider his proposal in light of the role that the parent-­child relationship plays in the regulation of migration, naturalisation, and citizenship more generally. With this broader context in mind, I concur with Rainer Bauböck and Jannis Panagiotidis that Dumbrava’s proposal rests on an under-informed assessment of the historical record. I also argue that that, as a remedy for the problems that he has identified, Dumbrava’s proposal is at once too restrained and too radical. The complex history of ius sanguinis citizenship Dumbrava first argues that ius sanguinis citizenship should be abolished because, historically, it has been associated with ethno-nationalist conceptions of citizenship. I appreciate Panagiotidis’ insistence that ‘the problem is not with ius sanguinis itself, but with the respective contexts in which it is embedded’. Panagiotidis also reminds us that ius sanguinis citizenship has © The Author(s) 2018 R. Bauböck (ed.), Debating Transformations of National Citizenship, IMISCOE Research Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92719-0_20 103