The Developmental Value of Dual Citizenship

1
The Developmental Value of Dual Citizenship

• Anna Ohanyan, Ph. D.
• Political Science Department
• Stonehill College
• Easton, Massachusetts, United States
• aohanyan_at_stonehill.edu

2
Key Arguments

• State-society relations are at the core of
  citizenship debates
• The DC arrangements affect the Armenian
  state-society relationships
• DC arrangements contain the tools and
  institutions which are bound to change the
  institutional development of Armenian statehood
  and its relationship to the society
• The visions of Armenian state should be driving
  discussions on dual citizenship
• Dual citizenship is not given the design,
  management and administration of DC law will
  harness its developmental value

3
The Communist and the Consumer

• Citizenship as a bundle of rights and
  responsibilities
• The variance of citizenship models and types of
  statehood
• Where is Armenia headed in terms of its
  statehood?
• The variance in state-society relationships
  (Marshalls model)
• Civil rights legal status and the protection of
  the citizens before the law
• The citizen will not act unless the civic
  liberties are threatened
• Political rights political participation and
  suffrage
• The citizen proactive and expectant of political
  participation
• Social rights the guarantee of standards of
  living, including the right of employment and
  health care
• The citizen shielded against the market
  fluctuations proactive welfare state

4
Citizenship and state-society relationships
5
Citizenry Citizenry Citizenry
Dominant Spheres of State Passive Active
Dominant Spheres of State Private Conservative Citizenship Passive citizenry Uninvolved state Transitional Citizenship Active citizenry Uninvolved state
Dominant Spheres of State Public Paternalistic Passive citizenry Involved state Liberalized citizenship Active citizenry Involved state
6
Dual citizenship and the nation-state

• DC breaks/alters the social contract between
  the state and the society
• DC can potentially
• Generate new claimants on the already limited
  resources for public goods and social policies
  (challenge to the state)
• Increase the financial flows to support the very
  social policy of the post-Communist Armenia
  (assist the society and the state)
• Heighten the public pressure on the state
• If unmatched by the institutional growth of the
  state may translate into a backlash (challenge
  the state)
• Increased expectations from the public of the
  state (challenge the state)
• The gap of rising expectations and stagnant state
  capacities may be problematic (challenge the
  state)

7
Dual Citizenship Debates

• The Critics and the doom and gloom arguments
• Challenge to the national sovereignty
• Weaken the public loyalty to the state
• Dual citizens can shop for better economic and
  legal environments
• The proponents
• The state sovereignty has already been diminished
  by the globalization forces
• Transnational companies already rival the states
  for the public loyalty
• Employment generation by transnational companies
  has already shifted the locus of power from the
  state to the private sector
• National citizens have been transformed to
  corporate subjects
• National citizenship has been diluted by
  neo-liberal policies

8
Ironically, dual citizenship is a function of
global forces, but can also be made irrelevant by
the same forces.
9
International Considerations

• DC as a source of investments
• DC as a vehicle of political representation
  abroad
• DC as a vehicle to strengthen the nation-state in
  global economics and politics
• DC can facilitate the rise of the
  trans-nation-state
• Administratively more agile
• Flexible
• Entrepreneurial
• Highly global
• DC, the global economy and the market
  citizenship
• States competing for citizens with other states
  as well as corporations and other non-state
  actors
• Diminishing depth of state citizenship ?
  increasing breadth of transnational citizenship

10
Domestic Considerations

• DC and the retrenchment of the welfare state
• Weakening social dimension of Armenian statehood
• Social rights expand the boundaries of
  citizenship from those who own property to those
  who pay taxes from their earnings (Antonin
  Wagner, 2004)
• Weakening of the welfare state and the greater
  involvement of non-state actors in social
  provision within the industrialized world
• The rise of public-private partnerships within
  industrialized world
• DC would enable a mobilization of social
  contributions through governmental and
  non-governmental means
• Diaspora organizations as major contributors for
  social development in Armenia

11
Policy Recommendations The Developmental Value
of Duality (DVD)

• The enhancement of Armenia-Diaspora Relationships
• Strengthening of the Armenian state
  institutionally, administratively and financially
  
• Efficient design and careful management of the
  appropriate institutions is a prerequisite for
  the DVD to be realized
• The efficient management of Dual Citizenship will
  fail to escape the civil society route

12
Policy Recommendations The Developmental Value
of Duality (DVD)

• The liberalization of Armenia citizenship rights
  will entail a transition from conservative
  (passive/private) to liberalized (active/public)
  dual citizenship policies.
• It will address the following three dimensions
• Civil society within Armenia
• Civil society within Diaspora
• Armenian public sector
• Liberalization of citizenship will activate the
  dormant civil society
• Liberalization of citizenship will generate more
  demands for an institutional and administrative
  evolution of Armenian state
• Will strengthen the global dimension of Armenian
  statehood
• Armenia as a trans-nation-state

13
The Institutional Mechanisms for Liberalizing and
Realizing the DVD (incentive structures)

• Network development
• Horizontally, within the civil society
• Vertically, between the civil society and the
  Armenian public sector
• Create incentives for foreign residents to invest
  in local development in Armenia, particularly
  within the rural areas
• Public-private partnerships
• Create incentive structures for the public sector
  to work with the private sector and civil society
  organizations
• DC law may enable the state to partner in some of
  the ongoing social development projects of
  Diaspora communities
• State inclusion in these partnerships will
  enhance the overall impact of such partnerships
  in social development
• Provide tax breaks and allow the acquisition of
  commercial property for foreign residents in
  rural areas where the reach of the state has been
  limited

14
The Institutional Mechanisms for Liberalizing and
Realizing the DVD

• Public administration reform and decentralization
• Create arrangements for the local levels of
  government to collect taxes from foreign
  investments
• Give all the residents the right to vote in local
  elections
• Associational democracy
• DC arrangements can facilitate the creation of
  associations of Diaspora-based individuals which
  could give them access to the policy-making
  processes at the local levels of government
• Provide the institutional structure to realize
  the developmental value of dual citizenship
  arrangements

15
(No Transcript)