CITSEE Story

Bosnia’s third citizens: a story of Brčko’s exception

Dejan Stjepanović

The citizenship regime in Brčko and BiH today is a product of a complex peace settlement. BiH has a two-tiered system of citizenship, in some ways similar to the former Yugoslav or even European citizenship regime. Citizens of BiH are by rule citizens of either of the entities, the Federation of BiH or Republika Srpska. However, the Brčko District, a de facto third entity with matching competencies of the entities, lacks its own citizenship.

“Orciny’s the third city. It’s between the other two. It’s in the dissensi, disputed zones, places that Besźel thinks are Ul Qoma’s and Ul Qoma Besźel’s. When the old commune split, it did not split into two, it split into three.”

Updated on: 14 February 2012

Can money buy citizenship?

Jelena Džankić

A number of countries facilitate the naturalisation of wealthy individuals who invest in their economy. This practice is called ‘investor citizenship’, ‘citizenship by investment’, or ‘economic citizenship’. Investor citizenship can be obtained either at the authorities’ discretion, or through specific programs which lay out in detail the amount of the investment and other criteria for naturalisation.

Just the other day I was watching the hit musical ‘Mamma Mia’, and I was reminded of the lines of one of the leading songs: ‘Money, money, money… always sunny, in the rich men’s world’. The song refers to the lavish lifestyle that money can provide one with. Yet money can literally take a rich man to a sunnier place.

Updated on: 6 February 2012

Crossing Borders: The Art of the Passport

Harry Weeks

It is perhaps the ability of art to translate the singular into the plural that provides the greatest potential for art to affect change outwith its own borders. Each individual action mentioned in this text, taken out of their contexts and as isolated incidents, are simply acts of singular citizens having their passport stamped, receiving a counterfeit passport or dubiously obtaining an EU passport. Once viewed in their artistic contexts, however, they become plural, one passport being cancelled (in the case of Jarrar) becoming a symbol of the denial of citizenship in Palestine, one marriage (in the case of Ostojić) standing as an emblem highlighting the plights of innumerable citizens in a comparable position to the artist.

In our contemporary globalised world in which a complex network of multinational corporations and nations maintains hegemony, a new type of ‘Empire’ as Hardt and Negri would say, it may perhaps seem an anachronism that the 19^th century construct of the nation state retains near exclusive and universal control over the flow of humans across the planet

Updated on: 10 December 2011

Towards Post-Territorial Citizenship?

Francesco Ragazzi

Today citizenship is largely distributed amongst the ‘diaspora’, ministries and governmental agencies are dedicated to relations with co-ethnics abroad (who are often their citizens) and citizens abroad are increasingly included in votes for parliamentary and presidential elections. But this has not always been the case.

“The [June] elections were historical because Macedonians living abroad were given a chance to vote for a candidate to represent them, and also because they were conducted without one incident,” said Pavle Sazdov, who was elected in June and appointed as MP to represent Macedonia’s diaspora,

Updated on: 9 November 2011

On Citizenship and Donkeys in Cyprus

Nikos Skoutaris

The turbulent history of the Cyprus issue has influenced the understanding of the concept of Cypriot citizenship(s). In that sense, the fate of this concept is tied with the fate of the current bi-communal negotiations, at the end of which we should know whether the two communities agree on the answer to the question of who is a Cypriot, apart from the donkeys…

One of the most famous aphorisms attributed to Rauf Denktash, the historical leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, is that ‘the only real Cypriots residing on the island are the donkeys’. Despite its provocative manner, such a statement reveals how controversial it might be in the context of the Cyprus conflict to attempt to define ‘who is a Cypriot’.

Updated on: 23 November 2011

Srebrenica’s citizens: home and abroad

Lara J. Nettelfield

Sarah Wagner

We often think of citizenship in terms of passports and polling stations, but the rights and responsibilities inherent in belonging to a nation-state often take on more mundane, at times unexpected, forms. This is especially true in post-conflict nations, where citizens shoulder much of the burden of rebuilding society in the context of their everyday lives. The aftermath of the Srebrenica genocide provides a compelling example of this work. Citizens, both at home and abroad, have struggled to reconstitute their families, homes, and communities.

We often think of citizenship in terms of passports and polling stations, but the rights and responsibilities inherent in belonging to a nation-state often take on more mundane, at times unexpected, forms. This is especially true in post-conflict nations, where citizens shoulder much of the burden of rebuilding society in the context of their everyday lives.

Updated on: 25 July 2011

What it did not say: Secession after the ICJ's opinion on Kosovo

Gëzim Krasniqi

A summary of the legal and political debates on the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Kosovo

The much-anticipated opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of Kosovo’s declaration of independence (DoI) caught many by surprise for its clear answer, yet it failed to declare itself on essential issues such as Kosovo’s right to statehood as well as the right of its peo

Updated on: 10 May 2011

From the inside out. Understanding citizenship through fiction

Andrew Wachtel

Can literature deepen our appreciation of citizenship? Insofar as literary works touch on the question of how individuals imagine their relationship to a community, be it strictly speaking political/legal, or more generally, they can allow us to understand attitudes toward citizenship.

This is an extended summary of a longer paper that was originally published in the CITSEE Working Paper Series and is available for download here.<

Updated on: 6 July 2011

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