Wikipedia talk:Citizenship and nationality

message: Please offer your assessment of this proposal.  If most people find it acceptable, I will add a ‘Citizenship’ field to the template, and a link in the documentation to this guideline (note that the proposal is written as though this is already the case).  Discussions that lead to this proposal can be found here and here. I look forward to your comments! –  SJL 05:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Opening remarks

message: Regardless of the eventual outcome of this proposal, the advice in it is off-kilter.  The shortest way to explain the problem is to give what the  says, and what it should say:
*This page in a nutshell: The terms "citizenship" and "nationality" are sometimes used interchangeably, but differ in important ways. In most circumstances, citizenship is easier to determine than nationality, and should be given priority. Nationality should be listed only in addition to citizenship, and only in cases where it both differs from citizenship and is relevant to the article.
versus:
*This page in a nutshell: The terms "citizenship" and "nationality" are sometimes used interchangeably, but differ in important ways. In most circumstances, citizenship is easier to determine than nationality, and should be given priority. Nationality should be listed only in cases where it both differs from citizenship and is relevant to the article, and in most cases both fields should not be used together.
Rationale: The fact of James Joyce's nominal British citizenship during most or all of his lifetime, because of British occupation of Ireland, is of virtually no importance or interest at all, and he not only thought of himself as Irish, the entire world thought of and still thinks of him as Irish.  Including a British citizenship field in the infobox will not only be confusing to most readers, but will spark dispute and editwarring. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 23:30, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As I explained in an earlier discussion, I don’t find this argument persuasive. –  SJL 20:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Advice dispute

message: I am opening this WP-wide RfC because a discussion between a grand total so far of three editors is insufficient to establish consensus one way or the other on a guideline proposal.  Disclaimer: I oppose the creation of new guideline on this issue, for reasons explained above. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 22:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RfC: Should bio infoboxes distinguish between nationality and citizenship? 

message: Renunciation of citizenship where required (e.g., sometimes required in order to obtain citizenship by naturalization in a country other than the country or countries of current citizenship) isn't as absolute an issue as is presented in the project page. Generally, the country requiring the renunciation is happy for a renunciation pledge to be made in front of their own officials. A country whose citizenship is being renounced may or may not recognize a renunciation pledge made in such a manner. I've heard such renunciations termed "pro-forma renunciations", and the result may be (commonly is, I think) that the person involved is able to exercise citizenship rights in both countries and is considered to have the duties of citizenship to the governments of both countries. "Citizenship" and "Nationality" may be interchangeable in the foregoing, and may be interchangeable to a greater or lesser extent depending on the particular countries involved.
In the case of the Philippines for example (see Philippine nationality law), prior to the passage of Republic Act No. 9225 (RA9225) the RP probably would not have considered a renunciation of RP citizenship pronounced to satisfy U.S. authorities to be valid, but this quickly became a moot point as RP citizenship was lost once a foreign citizenship was acquired by naturalization.  Subsequent to the passage of RA9225 the RP probably does  not consider a renunciation of RP citizenship pronounced to satisfy U.S. authorities valid (does not in fact, in cases of which I am aware), and RP citizenship is no longer lost upon acquisition of a foreign citizenship by naturalization.
It has been my observation that Filipinos (my illustrating example, because I have some close experience with this), even when they had lost their RP citizenship by obtaining US naturalization, still considered themselves "Filipino" at least as much as they considered themselves "American", without regard to fine distinctions between "Citizenship", "Nationality", and "Ethnicity". I know of a number of cases where Filipinos who acquired naturalized US citizenship prior to RA9225 (and would thereby have lost their RP citizenship) neglected to inform RP authorities that they had acquired a foreign citizenship by naturalization, retained their RP passports, and continued to represent themselves as RP Citizens & Nationals to RP authorities. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is true that the proposal does not go into the complexities of renouncing one’s citizenship, but I don’t think that there is any need for it to do so.  In this case, the purpose of referring to that process is only to demonstrate that the loss of citizenship does not entail the loss of nationality as I have described it, which, from your comments, I think you would agree with him –  SJL 20:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renunciation of citizenship oversimplified 

message: As defined above, citizenship, nationality, and ethnicity are very different.  For most people, nationality will suffice, and citizenship/ethnicity can be left blank.  But in many cases, differences among the three exist and are an important part of the person's history.  For those cases we should have the flexibility that SJL's proposal offers.
Anyone who disagrees should edit the Albert Einstein article, or explain to me why only scientists deserve the clarifying fields. --JaGa (talk) 08:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is a necessary improvement 

message: The idea of "citizen" is a western legal concept that emerged in Athens to describe subjects qualified to participate in democracy. It's a legal concept. Both Herodotus and Thucidides describe the qualifications and the obligations of citizens with respect to Athens. The concept has morphed into essentially a legal contract between sovereign democratic states and their subjects. (Non-democratic states tend not to have citizens, but rather, subjects.)
"Nation" is a western political concept used to describe an organizing myth used to provide identity to an otherwise heterogenous group of people. The term can be used to describe groups sharing common familial ties (e.g. the Ibo in Nigeria); common religious beliefs (e.g. Islam), common perceived history, (e.g. Serbs), or people who just happen to live in a specific geographic region but don't necessarily share family ties, values, heritage or religion (United States). "National" identity is a relatively recent historical concept, first emerging in political literature during the Renaissance and Reformation. Previous political organizing concepts were "peoples" and "subjects."
The idea of a "nation-state" (a legal entity to which "citizens" could belong, and citizenship enforced in international law) is most commonly traced to the Peace of Augsberg (1555, which estabished the idea of "cujus regio, ejus religio", i.e. whoever controls the land, controls the religion) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648) which ended wars that separated various pricipalities formerly controlled by the Holy Roman Empire into separate, sovereign states, (each proclaiming their own "nation").
I don't think think that the original citation is particularly controversial, given the historical record, (my brief summary is no doubt, bereft of critical nuance, but I believe it accurately depicts the broad outline of the historical record that has led to current conceptions of "citizenship" and "nation"). 
What this discussion reveals is how far popular political discourse has managed to muddy quite simple and clear definitions of what a citizen is, what a nation is, and what a state is, and they are quite clearly and distictly different concepts arising out of different historical events.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Captbobalou (talk • contribs) 16:45, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree the debate simply highlights how divided people are on an issue that should be fairly simple if kept to a basic level but the idea of states within states and nationalities / "peoples" has really confused things. I think the biggest problem facing wiki on this issue is to do with the United Kingdom. There is no agreed pattern of how people are identified. Be as Scottish, Welsh, Irish, English, British or of mixed parentage. Its just a complete mess, and governments actions on such issues have simply made people even more confused.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.1.88.73 (talk) 00:45, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hmmm....this discussion is notably missing historical context. 

message: Question: is it, as it seems to be, policy to apply nationally retrospectively for the sake of simplicity? For example Sandro Botticelli is listed as having Italian nationality. Problem is he died in 1510 but Florence was only conquered by Piedmont around 1860 with several decades still to go before any Italian nation began to be shaped by the new Italian Kingdom. So essentially, he wasn't Italian. I can understand it is simpler to apply that label in retrospect, I just want to know if that is policy or laziness by editors.- J.Logan`t: 16:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical 

message: I'm no expert, but my understanding is that nationality is more often conferred as a legal status than this proposed guideline implies, and is, at least in some cases, more important as a legal status than the proposed guideline suggests. For info on one particular example, see U.S. nationality law#Nationals who are not citizens. 
As I read it, this proposed guideline seeks to present one definition of Nationality as more important and/or more correct than other definitions, and the definition chosen to be emphasized seems not to be the one usually chosen as the first definition to be presented in dictionaries of the English language (I checked that here and here). Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:28, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nationality as a legal status 

message: Current status of this project page is horrendous. The definition of nationality here states "Nationality, on the other hand, denotes to the country where an individual has been born. Nationality is got through inheritance from his/her parents or it be called a natural phenomenon." Disregarding the bad English, these two items contradict each other and neither is a proper definition of nationality.
Iago212 09:56, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoops, didn't realise I was flogging a dead horse here. You ain't seen me! Iago212 10:21, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wow, major clarification needed 

message: So, does this mean that "non-citizens" are possible? For example: I have a nationality (and thus, a passport), but I do not live in that country. I do not have voting rights in that country, because I do not live there. I do not have voting rights in the new country where I do live (because I am a foreign national). That means, by the definitions proposed here, that I have nationality, but not citizenship. Really???!!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.39.47.158 (talk) 14:40, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, there are non-citizens.  Non-citizenship was the most common situation in ancient times.  It is unusual now, but it does happen.   You can read Statelessness for more information.  See also this news report about the Dominican Republic.  Apparently, a few years ago, they decided that if your great-grandparents immigrated to the Dominican Republic without doing the right paperwork a century ago, then anyone in your family that was born after 1929 – including your grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, first cousins, and siblings – weren't citizens any longer.  Tens of thousands of people who had previously been considered citizens were suddenly stateless. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:00, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-citizens? 

message: This failed proposal fails to acknowledge that both nationality and citizenship are legal concepts. Nationality is a legal status between a natural person and a state in which each owes duties to the other. Citizenship is a legal status in which one has political rights in a state (such as the right to vote and stand for election). Nowadays, 99% of the time, the two go hand-in-hand, one always comes with the other, and hence the terms are often treated as synonyms in practice. However, there are rare exceptions when one has nationality without citizenship – a good example is the current status of American Samoans, who are US nationals but not US citizens. Another example is the concepts of "British overseas citizens", "British subjects without citizenship" and "British protected persons", all of whom possess some degree of UK nationality but lack full rights of UK citizenship. These distinctions are largely based in history and are slowly dying out. The idea of second-class nationals lacking full citizenship is increasingly viewed as an offensive colonialist anachronism. Anyway, this proposal is completely misinformed in that it thinks that nationality is a non-legal concept and citizenship a legal one, when in actual fact *both* are (distinct but closely related) legal concepts. It is arguing for some other non-legal sense of "nationality" distinct from the legal one, but it doesn't present any evidence from reliable sources to support such a non-legal concept. Mr248 (talk) 10:24, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: @Mr248, I agree that there are some errors in this page, but I think it's probably worth mentioning that this subject is usually comes up when someone from the UK wants to say that his "nationality" is English but his "citizenship" is British.  The general framework you outline, although the dominant scholarly and legal model, is not the only possible definition of the terms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  "English" is identified as an ethnicity on the British census. Is your hypothetical user just using "nationality" to mean "ethnicity"? In which case why not use the word "ethnicity" since it will not create any confusion with the legal concept of "nationality". Legally speaking, most people in England are both British nationals and British citizens. (British nationals without citizenship is a complex and obscure topic I won't go into, but very few of those people would actually live in the UK.) Legally there can be no "English nationality" because England is not an independent sovereign state–maybe some day the UK will break up and then "English nationality" will become a legal reality. It is confusing to use a word with a legal meaning when one doesn't intend the legal meaning and isn't making that intention clear. And I think almost everyone committing that confusion is ignorant of the fact the legal meaning exists. Mr248 (talk) 01:47, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I mean that UK-based editors say that when they fill out various forms, they are asked what their "nationality" is, and the acceptable answers are English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish.  That maps pretty well to my understanding of ethnicity (and yours, @Mr248?), but that's apparently not what it says on the forms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Which forms are they talking about? I would love to be see an example of such a form, because I'm sceptical about it. Mr248 (talk) 22:38, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know; in previous conversations, it seems to be a general thing.  It is not a universal thing, because the voter registration process uses (used?) "British" as nationality, causing people to complain that it doesn't reflect "all the nations that make up the UK". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems to be a proposal to change the form, not an indication the form has actually been changed. And it is a bit of a misguided proposal because they are asking one's nationality/citizenship to determine one's right to vote in UK elections, so it asks you to put down "British" not "Welsh" because the former is relevant to determining whether one has the right to vote, the later isn't. Anyway, this doesn't seem to be any evidence that official government forms in the UK treat "Welsh" or "Scottish" as nationalities, only that some people believe that they ought to. I suspect many of the people advocating that likely have pro-independence sentiment. And I think the answer is that if one thinks that legal Scottish or Welsh nationality ought to exist, it makes sense to campaign for Scottish/Welsh independence, but it makes no sense to suggest the nationality exists in a legal sense prior to independence being achieved–and if one is talking about a non-legal sense it is unclear what exactly that sense is. Mr248 (talk) 02:59, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Since they are called "the Home Nations" rather than the "home non-independent subnational entities", I think we could understand why the people from the Home Nations believe that they are, in fact, nations.  You should probably read Wikipedia:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom.   If you want to get into it in detail, then there are many discussions in the archives of the various village pumps, and it might  be helpful to talk to someone who knows more about this subject.  Phil Bridger or Iridescent might be able to suggest someone.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:26, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I can only add that my experience does not accord with Mr248's. When the word "citizenship" is used it is nearly always a reference to the legal concept, but "nationality" can be, but is often not, such a reference. I would prefer not to take any further part in this discussion apart from making the (to me) obvious point that anything should go in the infobox only if reliable sources agree on it. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:28, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

text: @Mr248, I know this isn't your focus right now, but I think, that overall, I'd rather that the information in your sandbox came with citations to unimpeachable, international-focused sources, and that it was in the mainspace.   WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nationality and citizenship are legal concepts