A comparative, critical and historical study of nationality and the genuine link theory

Throughout history, citizenship, has been a term that's been defined in many different ways: Kinship, autochthony, indigenousness… Many different reasons could be cited for this terminological diversity such as wars, immigration movements and the evolution of our ethical, legal, and moral norms as a species. A simpler way to categorize these changes is to look at them as movements between two distinct axiomatic sides; one side being dictated by inclusivity and the other, exclusivity. The definitions of citizenship that rely on the sharing of certain ascriptive criteria such as sharing the same city as a birthplace can often be categorized as ways of describing citizenship in exclusive terms. While relying on much wider, albeit still ascriptive, criteria like the sharing of a common religion or a country can be described as casting a more inclusive net while trying to encompass all there is to the term that is citizenship. But especially since the 19th century, as a result of the changes and frankly evolutions that occurred in the collective imagination of the humankind, the observation of this paper is, that the term for the first time since its conception has metamorphosised into something entirely new. The term citizenship, in the current age, is or should be conceptualized as a completely technical legal term, that is refined of any sociological, cultural, religious, or otherwise subjective connotations. The first chapter of this study that is dedicated to the investigation of the historical and linguistic aspects of citizenship, is tasked with the examination of the above-mentioned hypothesis. To give an analogy, if citizenship were to be construed as a river, then the first chapter's task is to examine the bed of that said river. The second chapter is charged with the exploration of the genuine link theory, which is hypothesized by this paper to be the main reason why citizenship can be defined in much more technical terms in the current age. With the completion of the second chapter of this study, the examination of this genuine link theory and the Nottebohm Case, which is partly responsible of its widespread acceptance, will be concluded and with that, the two main concepts of this study; nationality and the genuine link theory, will have been elucidated. The third, and the final chapter are devoted to researching the modern-day implications and applications of the genuine link theory and citizenship, not just in terms of what is but also in terms of what ought to be. The main objective of this study is to assert that citizenship is not a term like what the sociological theory makes it out be. And that in most cases, it's just a dry and technical legal term. Citizenship, in most cases, is not a term that always entails a genuine link of connection within itself, and neither should it be construed as such. The functionality of citizenship is not to reflect actual and genuine connections, these functions should be conceptualized to be the tasks of more contemporary concepts such as habitual residence or genuine nationality. With the proving of this main hypothesis, with the limited available tools that there are in social sciences, this study will have fulfilled its main objective.