Beiner on citizenship

Here's more from Beiner's book:

Citizenship, in the pluralistic world of nation-states, can never be universalistic. But it can be based on accidental territorial coexistence rather than ethnic homogeneity or ascriptive community. The jus soli is a liberal principle of state-formation, which allocates citizenship according to birthplace, and it stands in sharp contrast to the jus sanguinis, which identifies co-nationals by bloodline and 'constitutive attachments' rather than by historically accidental coexistence on the same (arbitrarily demarcated) piece of land (p. 110).

I agree with Beiner here except to note that jus soli is not so much a liberal principle as the foundation for a differentiated state community, i.e., for a state which is understood to be a political community rather than some other community. In a world made up of such states everyone has a political home of some sort. If you have a birth certificate showing that you were born in, say, Liverpool, then you are a British citizen and must be recognized as such.

Pity the unfortunate person born in, say, Trapezounta or Sinope, of Greek Orthodox parents before 1923. He can never go home. He is not a citizen of the Turkish republic, despite his having been born within its territory. The same can be said of our friend in the old city of Jerusalem. He was born in Lod, but that is not enough to make him a citizen of Israel. Where citizenship is defined by a nonpolitical factor, e.g., adherence to a particular faith, mother tongue, skin colour, &c., the possibility of some -- and perhaps many millions -- of people being without citizenship is magnified.