Talk:Nationality

I am an Australian citizen, but not allowed to vote

In this article it is mentioned that citizenship has to do with the right to vote. In my case that doesn't seem true. I am an Australian citizen, heck I received a "Certificate of Citizenship" from the Australian state! However, since I haven't lived overseas since a couple of years, I am not allowed anymore to enrol on the electoral roll... I have carefully read this article and still don't get it, it seems there is no universal agreement of the difference between nationality and citizenship, mostly just local M Killian (talk) 12:56, 20 September 2019 (UTC)historical associations.

This isn't the place to discuss this (see WP:TPG), but the Nationality article says in part:

Nationality differs technically and legally from citizenship, which is a different legal relationship between a person and a country. The noun national can include both citizens and non-citizens. The most common distinguishing feature of citizenship is that citizens have the right to participate in the political life of the state, such as by voting or standing for election. However, in most modern countries all nationals are citizens of the state, and full citizens are always nationals of the state.

Re specifics related to individual enfranchisement in Australia, see the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 article and the text of that Act. You might also see the Australian Electoral Commission article or contact them for further information; they have a website at https://www.aec.gov.au Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 16:08, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Citizens, nationals, voting

This edit caught my eye. Subsequent to the edit, the edited paragraph reads:

In some countries the nationality differs technically and legally from citizenship, which is a different legal relationship between a person and a country. The noun national can include both citizens and non-citizens. The most common distinguishing feature of citizenship is that citizens have the right to participate in the political life of the state, such as by voting or standing for election. However, in most modern countries all nationals are citizens of the state, and full citizens are always nationals of the state.

After reading that, I re-read the paragraph a couple of times and I'm still not sure exactly what it is trying to say.

Then, I noticed that two sources sources cited in support are, Dual Nationality in the European Union: A Study on Changing Norms in Public and Private International Law and in the Municipal Laws of Four EU Member States (p. 19-20) and European Fundamental Rights and Freedoms -- Part V: Citizenship Rights in Europe (pp. 547-548, in a section titled European Citizenship Rights). As a citizen of the U.S., which distinguishes citizenship from nationality, those sources don't strike me as being particularly comprehensive.

Looking back at the lead paragraph of the article, I see that the third of the three sentences there reads: "What these rights and duties are varies from state to state.", although the first two sentences had not mentioned any rights or duties.

It looks to me as if the lead section of this article could use some attention. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 15:49, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the lead does not establish comprehensively the range of use of the term, as well as relation to citizenship. It should be clearer that the term is often too limited to understand nationality in different states, especially in states that define nationality not in english (see for example China). Nsae Comp (talk) 21:05, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah. Off the top of my head and from my own limited understanding and experience, I have the sense that nationality mostly goes to concerns involving interactions which other states might have with an individual which a particular state considers to be one of its nationals and, on the other hand, citizenship mostly goes to defining a class of persons to or upon which which a state might afford privileges or impose restrictions. That implies disagreement with the lead sentence -- that sense implies that nationality would afford protection and citizenship would afford jurisdiction. I don't know to what extent that sense I have is correct or supportable, but it is the sense I have. It may be demonstrably incorrect if, for example, the U.S. considers that individual Samoans and others who are U.S. nationals but not U.S. citizens are subject to U.S. federal law. I haven't looked into this much, but I see this, which describes citizenship as a narrower concept than nationality rather than as a somewhat different concept. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:11, 15 July 2020 (UTC)(UTC)

It is true that nominally, historically nationality always had a larger and deeper meaning, but nowadays legally it is equal with your citizenship, the country and it's "nation" you are belong to apart from ethnicity, religion or adherence to any nation (-> personal declaration) etc. Just because the U.S. has it's institution for a separate category, it is not common the rest of the world, so the U.S. example may be mentioned as something especially applied by the U.S., but not in general.(KIENGIR (talk) 13:26, 15 July 2020 (UTC))

I think that my sense that the concepts not being equivalent goes beyond the case of the U.S. I haven't spent much time on it but some quick googling turned up , , , , . I haven't more than glanced at those, but they all seem to say that the concepts are not equivalent and that the differences are not limited to the case of the U.S. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:52, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Your short googling did not tell anything new, but basically demonstrated the historical concept of the meaning, which I share as well, but in modern times almost they are treated equivalent, legally.(KIENGIR (talk) 15:44, 15 July 2020 (UTC))

I think if the article would be centered around "nationality" being a term most relevant for international law (and basically means state membership), then we could get some basic clarity. Maybe even stating the Human Rights Article 15 in the lead, as a sort of definition. From there it could be explained that many countries have no legal distinction between nationality (not in the sense of ethnicity) and citizenship, its both the state membership, hence the synonymous use in international law. But note that there are special cases.

Second important meaning of nationality is ethnicity. In my opinion that meaning should be dealt by and refered to the article of ethnicity and not confuse the article and lead with this particular case of understanding of nationality.

This two fold differentiation would be the simple basic structure I would draw.

From this fundament you can start laying out the different incarnations of nationality. Its a very, very, very loaded term, just look for example at the problems of translating "nation" in and out of Chinese. In my motherlanguage german, nationality in international law is translated as citizenship.

If the meaning of nationality as ethnicity is forwarded to the dedicated article it might also be easier to then discuss and differentiate "nationality" in the sense of state membership between ethnicity based-state membership and civic-state membership, but also culture based, citizenship based, etc.. But here it gets difficult a cases based approach is probably easiest. Because its for example not clear if French state membership can be called civic- or cultural-state membership/nationality. Or that US nationality is a civic one, but at the same time is not the same as citizenship, unlike for example in Switzerland. ...etc. ... I also have been collecting texts to find my way in the contradicting uses of the term. Here another case (UK) that establishes a first distinction, between civic- and ethnic-nationality (even if it lacks for example culture or citizenship based ones, given you dont see them as a mix of those two or just a version of civic nationality) []. The term ethnic nationality might though bring back the confusion with ethnicity, thats why I alltogether would advocate to speak of state membership alltogether.

PS: I once read somewhere that the United Nations is not called United States because of the apparent similarity to the USA. I would be interested if that was also the reason why the Human Rights Article 15 doesnt simply state "sovreign state membership" instead of "nationality". If you have sources regarding this I would be very greatful. Nsae Comp (talk) 02:20, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

PPS: Another confusing case is nationality and citizenship in the EU. EU citizenship is not a nationality in the sense of international law, despite the use of citizenship in especially western Europe synonymously with nationality (state membership). Sorry for the additional example. Nsae Comp (talk) 02:42, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

PPPS: as another example, if you want to find out the state membership of a person from the US or Isreal you would have to ask for the persons nationality and citizenship respectively. Because if you ask the person from Isreal for his nationality they would answer Jewish or Arab. If you ask the person from the US for their citizenship, they might answer Samoan. That being said, it would be correct from an international legal point to ask the person from Isreal for their nationality and get the answer Israel, and asking for their ethnicity, answered with Arab. I strongly think if the term nationality is mainly understood in an international context then much clarity can be gained and an easier distiction to ethnicity and citizenship is possible. Nsae Comp (talk) 03:16, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Added a proposal-edit to the first sentance to focus further editing. Curious what you think? Nsae Comp (talk) 12:37, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

The current structure of the article is since 2012 (here the edit introducing the current structure ). Before this the lead was a list of two points what nationality can mean (ethnicity and citizenship). Nsae Comp (talk) 15:53, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Basically your collection here is a good summarization of the concept and it's various interpretations and evolution, however the end result is quite the same I outlined. The fact in German they use Staatsanhörigkeit recently is as well the by product of the aftermath of WWII, i.e. in Hungarian naturally "nemzetiség", "nemzet" would mean "nationality", "nation", though nowadays állampolgárság is identical with citizenship that is translated in the passport as nationality, naturally assuming you share the nationality of the nation you are citizen of, of course it is historically conflating of what is today "ethnicity", that would be as well translated as nemzetiség, but with more modern words as etnikum. All in all, historically meaning nationality and ethnicity was meant and assumed the same, that nowdays we separate, the latter is discretely hidden as legally, officially all citizen as equal member of the nation, thus they hold the same nationality...(KIENGIR (talk) 01:59, 17 July 2020 (UTC))

KIENGIR, Nsae Comp, Wtmitchell, on Wikidata, there is a property proposal for nationality as a cultural identity, in contrast to citizenship and ethnicity (though they obviously overlap). Given the thoughtful discussion here, I wanted to encourage you to comment on that proposal, if you'd like. Thanks! Qono (talk) 04:32, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

This article is too narrow

Lead sentence is "Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law...." Yes, but nationality is so much more, like a person's cultural identity. When someone says "I'm Dutch" they don't usually mean "I am entitled, in international law, to certain privileges and immunities granted to me by the Kingdom of the Netherlands." They mean "I'm from the Netherlands." This article should be expanded to reflect the broader use of the term. Thoughts? mossypiglet (talk) quote or something 15:24, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

When an American says "I'm Dutch" it can mean "I have Dutch ancestors from 5 generations ago". 01:19, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

The last sentence of the lead expresses, I think, what you have in mind: "Nationality is also employed as a term for national identity". Debresser (talk) 22:19, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree there is a big problem. But I see the simplest solution as changing some article titles rather than massively expanding this article. See Talk:National identity#Requested move 12 August 2023.  —Michael Z. 21:16, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:National identity which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:49, 12 August 2023 (UTC)