States competing for people – David Owen on civil geopolitics

On the fourth date of the lecture series “At the Crossroads – The Crisis of Democracy”, David Owen from the University of Southampton presented and explained his concept of civil geopolitics. According to him, “civil geopolitics” is the competition between states for people, which works by creating, advertising and promoting connections within the citizenry as well as rejecting and refusing other connections.

Civil geopolitics is the conceptualization of a well-known phenomenon of global geopolitics. This was evident in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the immigration of workers was promoted or restricted by states. However, it was not until the second half of the 20th century that this type of policy became an important branch of state geopolitics, whereas previously the competition for territory had played a more dominant role. Meanwhile, the governance of citizenship and civic belonging has become an integral part of state policy. Individuals and groups have thus become a geopolitical project, according to Owen.

He explained various transformations that have made these developments possible: the rise of state institutions in contact with diaspora communities, the increasing tolerance of dual citizenship and the expansion of extraterritorial voting rights. Added to this are new communication technologies and travel opportunities, which give states new possibilities in their relations with those who leave their territory.

These transformations result in new state geopolitical strategies. For example, denationalization, i.e. the withdrawal of citizenship, is increasingly being discussed, even though this is rarely applied in reality. Increased opportunities to acquire citizenship with so-called “golden passports”, the politically influenced granting of citizenship and extraterritorial voting rights as well as the granting of citizenship as reparation to compensate for historical injustices can also be observed.

At the end of the lecture, the politics professor presented four ideal types of citizenship that arise from the previous considerations: classical citizenship based on national affiliation, affiliation on a territorial basis (for example in New Zealand), as well as cosmopolitan forms of transactional and transnational citizenship. Today, there is a mixture of several of these ideal types. According to Owen, the question of what citizenship means today can no longer be answered unambiguously.