In Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship, scholars from a wide range of disciplines reflect on the transformation of the world away from the absolute sovereignty of independent nation-states and on the proliferation of varieties of plural citizenship. The emergence of possible new forms of allegiance and their effect on citizens and on political processes underlie the essays in this volume. The essays reflect widespread acceptance that we cannot grasp either the empirical realities or the important normative issues today by focusing only on sovereign states and their actions, interests, and aspirations. All the contributors accept that we need to take into account a great variety of globalizing forces, but they draw very different conclusions about those realities. For some, the challenges to the sovereignty of nation-states are on the whole to be regretted and resisted. These transformations are seen as endangering both state capacity and state willingness to promote stability and security internationally. Moreover, they worry that declining senses of national solidarity may lead to cutbacks in the social support systems many states provide to all those who reside legally within their national borders. Others view the system of sovereign nation-states as the aspiration of a particular historical epoch that always involved substantial problems and that is now appropriately giving way to new, more globally beneficial forms of political association. Some contributors to this volume display little sympathy for the claims on behalf of sovereign states, though they are just as wary of emerging forms of cosmopolitanism, which may perpetuate older practices of economic exploitation, displacement of indigenous communities, and military technologies of domination. Collectively, the contributors to this volume require us to rethink deeply entrenched assumptions about what varieties of sovereignty and citizenship are politically possible and desirable today, and they provide illuminating insights into the alternative directions we might choose to pursue.

DIVA successor to FLEXIBLE CITIZENSHIP, focusing on the meanings of citizenship to different classes of immigrants and transnational subjects./div

In a set of cases decided at the end of the nineteenth century, the Supreme Court declared that Congress had "plenary power" to regulate immigration, Indian tribes, and newly acquired territories. Not coincidentally, the groups subject to Congress' plenary power were primarily nonwhite and generally perceived as "uncivilized." The Court left Congress free to craft policies of assimilation, exclusion, paternalism, and domination. Despite dramatic shifts in constitutional law in the twentieth century, the plenary power case decisions remain largely the controlling law. The Warren Court, widely recognized for its dedication to individual rights, focused on ensuring "full and equal citizenship"--an agenda that utterly neglected immigrants, tribes, and residents of the territories. The Rehnquist Court has appropriated the Warren Court's rhetoric of citizenship, but has used it to strike down policies that support diversity and the sovereignty of Indian tribes. Attuned to the demands of a new century, the author argues for abandonment of the plenary power cases, and for more flexible conceptions of sovereignty and citizenship. The federal government ought to negotiate compacts with Indian tribes and the territories that affirm more durable forms of self-government. Citizenship should be "decentered," understood as a commitment to an intergenerational national project, not a basis for denying rights to immigrants.

Present-day Americans feel secure in their citizenship: they are free to speak up for any cause, oppose their government, marry a person of any background, and live where they choose—at home or abroad. Denaturalization and denationalization are more often associated with twentieth-century authoritarian regimes. But there was a time when American-born and naturalized foreign-born individuals in the United States could be deprived of their citizenship and its associated rights. Patrick Weil examines the twentieth-century legal procedures, causes, and enforcement of denaturalization to illuminate an important but neglected dimension of Americans' understanding of sovereignty and federal authority: a citizen is defined, in part, by the parameters that could be used to revoke that same citizenship. The Sovereign Citizen begins with the Naturalization Act of 1906, which was intended to prevent realization of citizenship through fraudulent or illegal means. Denaturalization—a process provided for by one clause of the act—became the main instrument for the transfer of naturalization authority from states and local courts to the federal government. Alongside the federalization of naturalization, a conditionality of citizenship emerged: for the first half of the twentieth century, naturalized individuals could be stripped of their citizenship not only for fraud but also for affiliations with activities or organizations that were perceived as un-American. (Emma Goldman's case was the first and perhaps best-known denaturalization on political grounds, in 1909.) By midcentury the Supreme Court was fiercely debating cases and challenged the constitutionality of denaturalization and denationalization. This internal battle lasted almost thirty years. The Warren Court's eventual decision to uphold the sovereignty of the citizen—not the state—secures our national order to this day. Weil's account of this transformation, and the political battles fought by its advocates and critics, reshapes our understanding of American citizenship.

Excerpt from Citizenship, Sovereignty The first volume of the work or compilation, of which this publication is a compend, to be entitled Our F deral Union: State Rights And Wrongs, will be published about 15th March. The volumes will contain 500 to 550 pages each, similar to this in type and arrangement. One is to be published each six or eight weeks, and sold in muslin binding at $3. Five volumes will probably suffice for the compilation, which is designed to furnish an epitome of governmental principles, historical facts, documents (each of which will be given entire), the substance of important debates, and of influential opinions in private and published letters, tracts, and other publications, and also a short examination of other Governments, to discover the right of our Revolution, and the superior excellences, and confused but not complicated systems, of our State and Federal Governments. Every family in the land needs this information, which is now scattered through hundreds of volumes, many expensive and inaccessible, in order to enable each Citizen, and the young lad who is soon to be a Citizen, to understand his individual rights, exalted privileges, responsible duties; and also the rights and wrongs of these Sovereign States. The wonder is not that we are in civil war, but that, with our ignorance of principles, and mistakes in theory, our practice has been so nearly correct. To the statesman and politician, the compilation, if at all a success, will be particularly valuable; bringing together for the first time documents, opinions, and principles, to which everyone needs to refer more or less often. The marginal notes, with the thorough index which shall be supplied, will make reference quite convenient; and until superseded by something better, it will be the American statesman's manual. In such a work some would like room to record notes and comments; and should the demand justify, an edition will be printed on superior paper, with wide margin for writing, and in strong binding. Subscribers will please intimate their wish, and should an extra edition be printed, the volumes of this edition will be received in exchange, if uninjured, the party paying the difference in price. The terms are already low, considering the present high cost of materials and the amount of reading supplied, but it is proposed to still further reduce them. The kind patrons in New York and those in Chicago, who have thus far advanced the funds for publication, will not permit delay for the lack of means. But not to encroach unnecessarily on their liberality, it is proposed to supply the five volumes for $13 paid in advance. Remittances can be made to the subscriber, either at Chicago, or directed to Station D, New York City, where most of his time must necessarily be spent until the publication is finished. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."