Republican Requirements for Access to Citizenship

Abstract

What are legitimate conditions for naturalization from a republican perspective? I argue that if citizenship is understood as membership in a self-governing community, some boundaries are justified, but the conditions for membership need not be as stringent as those currently becoming the norm in many Western states. Republican citizenship is quite demanding: it requires a capacity to communicate, an awareness of interdependence among citizens, a sense of responsibility to the wider society and an inclination to engage deliberatively with others in public debate. Thus, on a republican view, the state may promote these through civic education for all citizens. Nonetheless, on this conception, citizenship may be acquired almost automatically by dint of long-term residence. The state may require participation in language classes and in certain practical political exercises for applicants for citizenship. But it does not follow that applicants should be required to achieve particular fixed standards in tests of knowledge, skills or values. Few conditions not required of native-born citizens should be required of those naturalizing, and these should be more a matter of participation than of skills or identity.