Debating the Dual Citizenship--Integration Nexus in Turkey/Turkiye'de Cifte Vatandaslik-Entegrasyon Iliskisini Tartismak.

• Author: Korfali, Deniz Karci

Introduction

After decades of sending citizens abroad, Turkey has recently become a significant migrant-receiving country, which comes in the wake of waves of mass immigration from a range of countries and for diverse reasons (1). Data from the two relevant agencies in Turkey--the Directorate of General Migration Management (DGMM) and the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK)--indicates that the major sending countries are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Macedonia, Russia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan (2). Despite this diversity, it has been mass Syrian migration that has dominated the public debate on migrant integration in the recent past. Proposals to grant Turkish citizenship to Syrian nationals have prompted a fierce public discussion over the question of how new migrants are to be integrated into Turkish society, and these proposals have been met with equally fierce resistance by the public in social and mass media. The large and growing immigrant population in Turkey thus prompts a series of questions regarding citizenship in general, and dual citizenship in particular. As a large group of migrants living in Turkey become potentially eligible--officially and unofficially--to add Turkish citizenship to their existing citizenship status, the question of dual citizenship is thrown into sharp relief. Yet, the question of the relationship between access to this option and migrant integration remains largely unanswered: is granting citizenship a catalyst for integration or is full integration necessary before such a status can even be considered?

This paper takes up the question of the nexus between dual citizenship and the social integration of migrants in the Turkish case. To do so, we draw on Kymlicka and Norman's (3) dimensions of citizenship framework, with its tripartite focus on formal status, activity and identity. The present study concentrates on the second of these--citizenship activity--which Carens (4) notes involves active participation as a crucial dimension of responsible citizenship. This dimension can be further elaborated as what the migrant, in Kostakopoulou's thinking, 'owes' to the host community (5). Here, citizenship is understood as a mindset--not merely a legal status--that connotes active participation in the political, social, and economic life of the community (6).

Before proceeding, a brief outline of Turkey's citizenship regime is in order. Dual citizenship was first recognized in Turkish legislation in 1981, largely as a response to the consequences of labor emigration to Europe after the 1960s, whereby a generation of children of Turkish-born parents in European countries had claims to citizenship in two places (7). Interestingly, without necessitating the renouncement of previous citizenship, dual citizenship was already permitted for aliens at a time when Turkish citizens were not allowed to acquire dual citizenship without informing the authorities (8). Turkey's 2009 Citizenship Law, however, made dual citizenship more difficult for immigrants, setting up the possibility that citizens of several countries (not explicitly mentioned in the legislation) applying for Turkish citizenship would be compelled to potentially renounce their original citizenship. For this reason, the current practice in Turkey remains vague and unclear about precisely who among the alien residents of Turkey can and cannot acquire dual citizenship.

This study approaches this topic in a triadic structure by examining the three groups of actors involved in international migration: the host state (Turkey), the sending states (of which we examine 11), and the migrants themselves. Within this framework, sending states can be classified according to the legal regime in place that deals with dual citizenship. Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Ukraine all ban dual citizenship (i.e., to gain Turkish citizenship, these nationals must renounce their original status). Turkmenistan, Germany, Georgia and Syria all allow dual citizenship in some circumstances. Bulgaria and Iraq place no restrictions on their nationals acquiring a second nationality. It should be noted that the empirical findings from our in-depth interviews reveal that sending state officials frequently turn a blind eye toward the existence of dual citizens in cases where dual citizenship is prohibited under their national legal systems. Only two countries among the major sending countries to Turkey--Russia and Turkmenistan--actively treat dual citizenship as a legal problem and require the renunciation of the original citizenship upon the acquisition of foreign citizenship. Thus, in practice--given the large numbers of nationals from states that officially prohibit dual citizenship that are residing in Turkey--it is generally accepted as a fait accompli by the representatives of those countries.

Method

As mentioned, this study adopts an approach that incorporates the analysis of the migrants themselves in addition to analysis of the legal regimes governing dual citizenship in the host and sending countries. This is because our focus is on integration of migrants, and thus, on the activity dimension of citizenship. Despite several attempts, we were unable to obtain data on the number of citizenship applications in Turkey. As an alternative, we sought data on the countries of origin of foreign nationals holding residence permits. This information was retrieved from the official website of the DGMM. (9) Since non-citizens are not the sole focus of this research and migrants who have already received Turkish citizenship are also included, data from the TUIK (10) on the origin countries was also sought. Statistics on foreign-born residents in Turkey (regardless of their residence status) were merged with the data obtained from the DGMM. From the combined data, the following list (in alphabetical order) of countries with the highest number of nationals living in Turkey was derived: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Macedonia, Russia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The researchers were not able, however, to locate any permanent migrants of Afghan, Libyan or Macedonian origin residing in Istanbul and so these three countries were excluded from the study. The term of migrants is used inclusively, so that refugees are considered migrants as well. Nevertheless, while the issue of mass migration of Syrian refugees has certainly captured the public debate, it should be noted that the research covers participants who have settled in Turkey for a variety of reasons, not merely those seeking international protection.

We conducted a total of 88 interviews: seven were with bureaucrats (from Turkey whose official posts have them involved in different phases of the citizenship acquisition process), nine with consular representatives, and 72 with migrants (22 male and 50 female). Of those 72 migrants, the breakdown of country of origin is as follows: Azerbaijan (six migrants), Bulgaria (seven), Georgia (five), Germany (four), Iran (nine), Iraq (seven), Russia (seven), Syria (12), Turkmenistan (six), Ukraine (four) and Uzbekistan (five). Most of the migrants settled in Turkey after the 2000s for reasons of employment, education, marriage and protection.

Labor migrants comprise the largest group among the participants we interviewed for the study, made up mostly of migrants from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Russia, Turkmenistan and Ukraine. The second largest category--migrants who have sought protection or have fled conflict, violence or insecurity--hail from Syria and Iraq. The next main group are those who have come to Turkey for education, mostly ethnically Turkish migrants from Bulgaria and some Iranian nationals. Finally, there is a small group of foreign nationals who have settled in Turkey to marry Turkish citizens--this group mostly comprises nationals of Russia, Germany and Azerbaijan. Of the 72 migrants we interviewed for the study, 22 are currently dual citizens (i.e., naturalized Turkish citizens who retain the nationality of their country-of-origin).

Of the 50 participants without Turkish citizenship, over half (26 migrants) have regular residence permits. Among the remaining 24 non-citizens, 12 hold temporary identity cards provided to Syrian nationals, five have student visas, four are in Turkey on tourist visas and three migrants possess work permits. Within the group of 50 non-citizens, 10 were at the time of the research at various stages of applying for Turkish citizenship. Out of the 40 participants without citizenship and not actively applying for it, over half (22) indicated a keen interest in acquiring Turkish citizenship. Among the 18 migrants who expressed to us that they would not seek Turkish citizenship, nine said that this was because of the dual citizenship laws of their origin country.

The research was limited by several challenges. The first was reaching relevant state officials--both in Turkey and among the various sending countries. Some officers--within both the Turkish state administration and in those of sending countries--were reluctant to participate, possibly because their institutions were unwilling to provide the necessary information. The limited number of interviews with state representatives that resulted means the findings among these participants do not generalize as well as we would have liked. Concerning interviews with migrants, the skew in the sample toward women and certain nationalities presents another limitation in the ability to generalize the findings. In this case as well, the distribution in the sample was conditioned by the availability of willing participants.

The article proceeds as follows. The first part revisits the literature on the activity dimension of citizenship and integration, the subsequent three sections present the empirical findings on economic, political and...