The Politics of Citizenship Policy in New States

Citizenship between the ‘image of the nation’ and ‘the image of politics’: the case of Montenegro

“…As such, it helped the DPS to establish its political identity as anti-Milošević and subsequently as pro-independence. Since Montenegro became independent, the 'image of the nation' has been reflected in 2008 Montenegrin Citizenship Act, which due to the conflictual nature of national identity has become 'civic' by default (Shevel 2009). In addition to this, the conflictual nature of Montenegrin national identity is also reflected in the restrictive dual citizenship policy, which is seen by the ruling elite as a barrier to Serb influence in Montenegro.…”

“…By contrast, in the former Yugoslavia, numerous rights, including franchise, were regulated through republican citizenship. Consequently, when examining the image of politics in the citizenship legislation in the post-Soviet context, Shevel (2009) was able to examine the 'practical' elements in the amended citizenship legislation and not in the first citizenship laws. In this respect, the case of Montenegro served as an important addendum to the growing literature on citizenship.…”

“…As a result of the DPS's dominance in the process of adopting citizenship legislation, the 'image of politics' vested in Montenegro's citizenship laws also displays an image of interest. As opposed to the countries in CEE (Shevel 2009), Montenegro has had a previous experience of managing its citizenship policy under communism, which made the legislators aware of its effect on other policy areas. In the former Yugoslavia, the republican citizenship was closely related to voting rights, as only republic-level registers of citizens existed until 1991.…”

“…The experience of CEE states has shown that international norms, and particular the European ones, shape the citizenship regimes of emerging democracies (Shevel 2009;Shaw and Štiks 2010). Although the norms of the Council of Europe (CoE) and the EU have indisputably had an effect on Montenegro's citizenship policy (see Džankić 2010b), their impact has been limited because the policy-makers sought to preserve the 'image of the nation' already enshrined in the 2008 Citizenship Act.…”

“…Contra Brubaker (1992), Shevel (2006) argued that citizenship laws adopted in the new states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) not only reflected the politics of identity, but also the politics of interest. Given the complete lack of institutional and legal mechanisms that regulate citizenship, the adoption of the underlying legislation emerged from a bargaining among political actors, who had no a priori experience of the effect of citizenship laws on other policy areas (Shevel 2009). Hence, citizenship laws also reflect an 'image of politics' at the time of their adoption.…”