Stateless Nation

8 Key excerpts on "Stateless Nation"

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  eBook - ePub

  Statelessness and Contemporary Enslavement

  • Jane Gordon(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Weil concludes that the development of states exhaust countries, “eat[ing] away at [their] moral substances … until the day comes when no more nourishment can be drawn from it” (1977, 202). Essential to our discussion is her documenting the violence involved in creating centralized modern European states and the tenacious ways in which this legacy has manifested itself in groups of people, such as Chicanos in the US Southwest, who regard themselves and are often regarded as internal colonies. They live under a state that while shoring up power that could enable it to offer them meaningful public provisions, in fact rendered them stateless.

  If one looks through the four-volume Encyclopedia of Nations without States , it is a testament to the production of stateless people as endemic to the creation of modern states. It identifies the name, flag, language, and histories of nations within, among countless others, India, Mozambique, Russia, the United States—in short, within every modern nation. Its editor, James Minahan, argues that the prevalence of these nations without states was hidden beneath the protracted conflicts of the Cold War but that its ending has precipitated a contagious third wave of twentieth- and twenty-first-century nationalism, of national groups seeking new forms of recognition, if not full independence.

  While Minahan acknowledges how difficult it is to devise a viable definition of nations and of nationhood, he documents the challenges to the adequacy of the current political and economic order and the ways they obscure the fully multinational, multiethnic, and multireligious communities combined within every current state’s frontiers. Based on extensive engagement with groups that understand themselves to have been politically dislocated, his principle of identification turns on three criteria: (1) a national claim to a geographic area, including a capital city from which members are probably displaced and that they regard as a historic or cultural center of the nation, (2) “outward trappings of national consciousness, particularly the adoption of a flag” and a unique language (1995, xvi), and (3) a specifically nationalist organization reflecting its claim to self-determination. The exception to the first index is the Rom or Roma who conceive of themselves as a nation without a clear geographic base. They are not only found in Europe and Asia but within every modern state.

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  Nations without States

  Political Communities in a Global Age

  • Montserrat Guibernau(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  At present, the main challenge to the relationship between the triad concerns the radical and rapid transformations altering the traditional nature of the state. The proliferation of supranational institutions, the increasing number of multinational corporations, and the emergence of sub-state nationalist movements contrive a novel political scenario in which the traditional role of the state is being undermined in a fundamental way. The signs of this have already become apparent; the radicalization of state nationalism, the proliferation of ethnic and national conflicts and the state’s resistance to giving up substantial aspects of its sovereignty represent but a few examples which hint at the state’s urgent need to recast its nature. At this moment in time, we are witnessing the rise of what I call ‘nations without states’ as potential new political actors able to capture and promote sentiments of loyalty, solidarity and community among individuals who seem to have developed a growing need for identity. Sound political and economic arguments may also be invoked in trying to account for the relevance that nations without states may acquire in the foreseeable future.

  Nations without states

  By ‘nations without states’ I refer to nations which, in spite of having their territories included within the boundaries of one or more states, by and large do not identify with them. The members of a nation lacking a state of their own regard the state containing them as alien, and maintain a separate sense of national identity generally based upon a common culture, history, attachment to a particular territory and the explicit wish to rule themselves. Self-determination is sometimes understood as political autonomy, in other cases it stops short of independence and often involves the right to secede. Catalonia, Quebec, Scotland, the Basque Country and Flanders represent only a few of the nations without states currently demanding further autonomy. It could be argued that some of these nations do have some kind of state of their own since a substantial number of powers have been devolved or one in the process of being devolved to their regional parliaments. But, in my view, political autonomy or even federation fall short of independence since they tend to exclude foreign and economic policy, defence and constitutional matters, and this is why it continues to make sense to refer to them as nations without states. The main qualities of the nation-state which, in one way or the other, favoured the assimilation of otherwise culturally diverse citizens were: its power to confer rights and duties upon its citizens; to provide for their basic needs – a function which since the Second World War materialized in the establishment of more or less generous welfare systems; and to maintain order in society while controlling the economy, defence, immigration and foreign policy, education and communication systems.

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  Theorising Noncitizenship

  Concepts, Debates and Challenges

  • Katherine Tonkiss, Tendayi Bloom(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Rooted displacement: the paradox of belonging among stateless people Kristy A. Belton Human Rights Center, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA ABSTRACT

  Stateless people are noncitizens everywhere. Yet, unlike many noncitizens, they are not border crossers. Despite the majority’s physical rootedness in the countries of their birth, the stateless are nonetheless forcibly displaced. Their peculiar form of noncitizenship displaces them in situ as they lack the right to choose to belong to the specific communities within which they were born and raised. Using The Bahamas and the Dominican Republic as case studies, this article illustrates how the stateless are either forcibly cast into liminality or made to take on the nationality of a country with which they do not identify when the State can no longer tolerate their noncitizen status.

  Introduction

  The interview is conducted in a hushed tone. Gillard Louis does not want the other college students to overhear our conversation. We are discussing a highly sensitive subject that has affected him directly. ‘To be stateless,’ he says, is ‘to not have a nationality that is publicly known or I can say that falls under a country’s group of identity.’1 Marie St. Cecile, a prominent figure in the Haitian-Bahamian community, concurs: ‘To be stateless means you have no identity … It feels like you’re nonexistent … You have no identity … in the community that you live.’2

  While statelessness is generally treated as an issue of whether a person formally belongs to a State or not through the legal bond of citizenship (UN 1954), these interviewees’ quotes reveal the important role that identity plays in citizenship construction and the uncertainty that surrounds belonging when one is a noncitizen everywhere. Unlike asylum seekers, refugees, migrants, and other types of noncitizens who are noncitizens in their States of residence, but who are generally recognized as citizens under the operation of some State’s laws, the majority of stateless people are ‘noncitizen insiders’ (Belton 2011). They have not migrated from elsewhere and remain, for the most part, in the countries where they were born.

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  Nationalisms

  The Nation-State and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century

  • Montserrat Guibernau(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  5

  Nations without a State

  In chapter two I referred to a nation as a ‘human group conscious of forming a community, sharing a common culture, attached to a clearly demarcated territory, having a common past and a common project for the future and claiming the right to rule itself’. A nation should be distinguished from an ethnic group whose members, in spite of sharing in some unspecified way a common origin and manifold cultural, historical and territorial ties, do not put forward specific political demands.

  One of the elements currently conjoining to change the shape of the world is the unexpected impetus gained by the appeal to ethnic ties among the members of certain communities lacking their own political institutions. We are witnessing a process by means of which collective cultural units with variable degrees of cohesion are intensifying their awareness of forming a group.

  This chapter explores the ways in which a nationalist discourse is articulated in nations without a state. It first studies the processes leading to ‘national awareness’ and the shift from cultural to political demands, offering a systematic analysis of the strategies employed by national minorities in resisting the homogenizing policies of the states containing them.

  As a preliminary to any attempt to indicate which are the common features of nationalism in nations lacking a state of their own, it is necessary to emphasize that substantially different political scenarios emerge from the specific character of the nation-states within which such nations are included. At least four different situations may be distinguished:

  1 A nation-state may acknowledge the ‘cultural differences’ of its minority or minorities, without allowing more than the cultivation and promotion of their own culture and the maintenance of some deep-rooted elements of the socio-cultural tradition. Britain’s attitude towards Scotland and Wales could be posed as an example. The predominance of the Presbyterian Church and a separate educational system in Scotland, and the recent concern about increasing the presence of the Welsh language and culture in day-to-day activities are not accompanied so far by any political measures leading to devolution. Thus, Scotland and Wales, although being equal partners with England within Britain, are forced to go down to London to solve most of their domestic problems.

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  Understanding Statelessness

  • Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss, Phillip Cole, Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss, Phillip Cole(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  A combination of the evolution of international human rights law and our broader, more progressive understanding of the definition of statelessness means that some of the criticisms of the definition of statelessness no longer hold true and, equally, that the term de facto statelessness is less relevant today than it was even five years ago. It can still be a powerful term if used sparingly, for it conveys to a state that its treatment of or indifference towards its citizens is so appalling that they may as well be stateless. But it is merely a descriptor, with emotive value, which has no rights or obligations attached to it. Therefore, using it expansively, particularly in relation to persons who may well be stateless or at risk of statelessness, can be counterproductive.

  This is not to say that the term has no place, or that we can be fully satisfied with our present understanding of the definition of statelessness or with the level of protection that international human rights law affords to stateless and similarly vulnerable people. This will be further explored below.

  Unpacking nationality

  In order to grapple meaningfully with statelessness, it is also important to look at the meaning of nationality and citizenship. In the world of justiciable human rights, which core elements of the content of nationality are not accessible by law to the stateless? A secondary question would be ‘which elements are not accessible in practice?’ But this would take us into the terrain of standard human rights violations, as both those who have a nationality and those who do not can be denied their basic human rights.

  International law does allow for a certain degree of differential treatment between nationals and non-nationals, to the disadvantage of stateless persons. For example, key political rights such as the right to vote or stand for election and to perform certain public functions may be restricted to a country’s citizens (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1976, Art. 25). Furthermore, developing countries can limit non-nationals’ enjoyment of economic rights in certain circumstances (International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1976, Art. 2). Under limited conditions, differential treatment of non-nationals in the pursuit of a legitimate aim is also acceptable, as long as it complies with the principle of proportionality (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 2006). However, any restrictions on the rights of non-nationals ‘must be construed so as to avoid undermining the basic prohibition of discrimination’ (CERD 2004, para. 30).

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  Palestinians In Kuwait

  The Family And The Politics Of Survival

  • Shafeeq N Ghabra(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  1Statelessness in Context

  The Palestinian diaspora subculture that emerged in the wake of the displacement experience can be categorized as stateless and family-oriented. Family patterns since 1948 have become more flexible as have Middle Eastern families in general. A non-family social network has also developed and become basic to Palestinian diaspora survival. How do these characteristics interrelate?

  Palestinians: A Stateless Society

  “Statelessness” in the twentieth century usually describes the political condition resulting from forced mass migration. It springs primarily from laws that allow for the revocation of the citizenship of a naturalized person.1 Statelessness becomes quite serious when such revocation is targeted against an ethnic or religious minority.2 In many cases, though, the naturalized citizen and the native-born citizen undergo similar experiences, so statelessness may be defined as any loss of citizenship and the rights associated therewith.

  Emphasis simply on the loss of citizenship ignores the problems of many people who lose citizenship as a by-product of forced mass expulsion due to the disintegration of their states during a time of crisis or war. Statelessness may result in perpetually seeking refuge, or a continuing state of dispossession with regard to the original homeland and all rights associated therewith.

  A state may organize to expel a group of indigenous citizens for many reasons. In some cases, intolerance toward nonconformist groups is enough to justify expulsion. In other cases, war between two states makes each persecute and expel those among its own population whose ethnic identity is similar to that of the “enemy” state. Systems sometimes need a scapegoat to blame policy failure on, and one-sided ideologies often force many into statelessness.

  Statelessness is one of the most serious international problems of the twentieth century. Stories of the interwar period and World War II are filled with stateless people seeking refuge. In 1939 Germany introduced laws to revoke the citizenship of its naturalized Jewish population, and even of Jewish citizens by birth.3 The Jews of Romania and Poland faced a similar fate. The Armenians are another group who were driven from their lands during this century, as were the Palestinians in 1948 and 1967. The number of stateless people is vast, particularly if we include examples drawn from Latin America, Asia, and Africa.4

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  Territorial Designs and International Politics

  Inside-out and Outside-in

  • Boaz Atzili, Burak Kadercan, Boaz Atzili, Burak Kadercan(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  1 of Stateless Nationalist movements. Doing so helps address some of the issues involved in bridging the gap Atzili and Kadercan (2017) identify between political geographers and political scientists interested in studying the role of territory in conflict. A contemporary political geographer might conceive of the Stateless Nationalist movements we study as counterhegemonic movements opposing dominating hegemonic powers (Ó Tuathail, 1996; Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992). Rather than focus on the conflict between the Stateless Nationalist movement and the state they challenge, we pay direct and explicit attention to the politics of territorial design by the Stateless Nationalist movements themselves. Doing so allows us to highlight the tradeoffs involved in various research strategies employed to ascertain the impact of those politics vis-à-vis other potential factors that could shape the resulting territorial vision of, in our case, Stateless Nationalist movements.

  It is possible to extrapolate at least six plausible explanations for how changes in the scope of the territory claimed by Stateless Nationalist movements come about from the literature on nationalism, state-building, and territorial conflict. These literatures have highlighted factors such as domestic political contestation (Goddard, 2010; Mylonas & Shelef, 2014; Shelef, 2010), the external imposition of a new border (Anderson, 1991, pp. 52–53; Carter & Goemans, 2011; Goemans, 2006; Roeder, 2007), adaptation to changes in the ethnic composition of territory following significant demographic shifts (see, e.g., Greenfeld, 1992; Kaufmann, 1998; Saideman & Ayers, 2008; Smith, 1987; Toft, 2005), concessions made to the demands of external patrons (Mylonas, 2012), changes in the relative capacity of a Stateless Nationalist movement relative to the state it is challenging, and changes in the material value of the land in response to the discovery of valuable resources (Kelle, 2016). Elsewhere we provide a detailed discussion of each of these alternatives (Mylonas & Shelef, 2014; Shelef, 2010) and the tradeoffs between them. Table 1 summarizes these alternative explanations.

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  Nationalism, Self-Determination and Political Geography

  • R. J. Johnston, David Knight, Eleonore Kofman(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Local and regional societies were supposed to lose their territorial attachments, as they began to participate in the modern world of circulation and exchange throughout a unified space that was being shaped in the nineteenth century. However, attention increasingly is being focused today on those peripheral regions of the original nation-states, wherein exist many examples of ‘separatist nationalism’ and ‘internal colonies’ (Hechter and Levi, 1979). The analysis of the diversity of society-state relationships, and the specific configurations in which nationalism emerges as a political response, has recently engendered considerable criticism from geographers. Theorising on nationalism has been insensitive to place and geographical variations, largely because nationalism often is accepted as an autonomous force (Agnew, 1984, 1987). By ‘autonomous’, Agnew means those approaches where nationalism is considered a thing-in-itself, having causal power, and simply transmitted by social agents. Yet nationalism does not have the same force at all times and places, it waxes and wanes (see also van der Wusten, chapter 12). The geography of nationalism does not just consist of the variations of certain strata, for nationalism is rather a response conditioned by different local environments. Therefore, it must be the political product of a particular set of circumstances, and hence contingent. Whilst Agnew does not deny the impact of global influences, place nevertheless mediates these general processes

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