Soft Law and Citizenship Regimes

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore the intersections between soft law and citizenship regimes, with a focus on soft norms and institutions ‘beyond the state’. The chapter is structured around three core dimensions of soft law: as a counter-paradigm to ‘hard law’ (the law-making or normative dimension); as a tool of governance, especially in the context of multi-level governance (the governance dimension); and as a gateway to a range of new comparative approaches to citizenship studies (the methodological dimension). The analysis of these three dimensions centres on three illustrative ‘sites’ of convergence between soft law and citizenship regimes, namely the right to a nationality, the modes of citizenship acquisition, and multicultural citizenship. Our analysis suggests that soft law is already a significant factor in relation to the progressive evolution of citizenship regimes, especially with respect to norms and institutions ‘beyond the state’, and may come to play an even more substantial role in future.

Keywords: Citizenship, Nationality, Soft law, Governance, Methodology