Prof. Zachery Elkins - Citizenship Laws and Ethnic Group Incorporation, 11. Juni 2014, 18:15 Uhr
Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Historische Sternwarte, Roter Saal
Professor Elkins' research focuses on issues of democracy, institutional reform, research methods, and national identity, with an emphasis on cases in Latin America. He is currently completing a book manuscript, Designed by Diffusion: Constitutional Reform in Developing Democracies, which examines the design and diffusion of democratic institutions, and recently completed The Endurance of National Constitutions, which explores the factors that lead to the survival of national constitutions. With Tom Ginsburg (University of Chicago), Professor Elkins co-directs both the Comparative Constitutions Project, a NSF-funded initiative to understand the causes and consequences of constitutional choices, and the website constituteproject.org, which provides resources and analysis for constitutional drafters in new democracies. Elkins earned his B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.The lecture analyses how we can build unity within ethnically heterogeneous states. A great deal of literature has debated, and debated inconclusively, the effects of consociational political institutions, such as federalism and proportional electoral systems. The paper focuses on a different realm of policy:citizenship laws.
The question is whether countries with more inclusive citizenship laws are better able to garner the loyalty of immigrants and other indigenous minorities. The paper combines data about citizenship laws in national constitutions with attitudinal data from cross-national surveys, leveraging both cross-sectional and over-time variation. Cross-sectional analysis suggests that minority respondents - and especially more recent immigrant Groups - in countries with jus soli citizenship are more likely to express national pride than are minority respondents in countries with more restrictive citizenship laws. A case study of the Baltic States also suggests the impact of citizenship laws.