Refusing State Injustice: The Politics of Intentional Noncitizenship

Abstract

This dissertation is about those who resist – who refuse – state injustice through citizenship, and who exclude themselves from the state and embrace associated risks of harm including statelessness. It explores the conditions that inform intentional exit and the conceptual and practical implications that follow. Recognising that liberal practices and discourses of citizenship are problematic, this project asks what are the grounds used by intentional noncitizens to justify their choices to exit the state? What does it mean to be an intentional noncitizen? Are there practical governance proposals that can respond to the normative claims made by those who intentionally exit? Despite what most residents of liberal states would claim – that intentional noncitizenship should be impermissible – the leading claim of this dissertation is that leaving the state can be justified. This conclusion is informed by the exploration of three instances of intentional noncitizenship. The Freedom Babies movement refuses colonialism by not registering the births of their children, leaving their children at risk of statelessness. Anti-statists refuse imposed citizenship and arbitrary allegiance through renouncing their citizenship. The anti-authority movement refuses the globalised administrative state through disengagement from expectations of citizenship such as law and the legal system, public processes and symbols, and identification practices. To explore tensions between traditional preconceptions of the state and emergent plural conceptions of the good this project utilises analytical political theory as a methodology, specifically the reflective equilibrium approach. Accordingly, to engage with seemingly disparate groups of intentional noncitizens, this project relies on a conceptual typology of refusal – a form of politics distinct from resistance, conscientious objection, and civil disobedience – that embodies the key features of action, future, and relationality. This project finds that those who refuse citizenship are aligned in their critiques of normative justifications for sovereign statehood and the goods it is said to provide, specifically security, freedom, and citizenship itself. Citizenship is a tool of refusal used specifically to exit the state: this refusal is neither absolute nor consistent but dynamic in that it responds to and negotiates its political circumstances. These findings establish a foundation from which a theory of intentional noncitizenship emerges. Intentional noncitizenship can be considered an instrumental good as it embodies the distinct features of autonomy, political action, and obligation to others, and is a viable alternative to citizenship as it does not cause ontological harm, and if sufficiently governed through legal residency status may not cause material harm. As intentional noncitizens must inevitably live within some state, this project proposes a governance mechanism in the form of an individual right to self-determination which would facilitate intentional noncitizen rights and responsibilities. By pushing the boundaries of what statelessness means and for whom this project destabilises the narrative that statelessness is an absolute harm.