Legal Identity for All?

Project Information

CitizenGap

Grant agreement ID: 949795

DOI

10.3030/949795

EC signature date 23 February 2021

Start date 1 September 2021

End date 31 August 2028

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 499 996,00

EU contribution

€ 1 499 996,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - CitizenGap (Legal Identity for All?)

Reporting period: 2024-09-01 to 2026-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Although we often think of undocumented persons as migrants or non-citizens, about one in seven people across the globe lack documents such as birth certificates, ID cards or passports to prove their legal identity, and thus their status as citizens in their own country. This gap between citizens with and without state-recognized documents is just as consequential as the distinction between citizens and non-citizens.

Existing approaches portray the citizenship gap – the difference between legal status and the ability of citizens to document their claim to this status – as the apolitical by-product of deficiencies in governance. This project aims to change how scholars and policy-makers think about achieving one of the key targets of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals “By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration” by developing a novel political understanding.

The project establishes the citizenship gap as a field of social scientific research, and pursues two main questions: (1) How and why do states invest in civil registration? (2) How and why do citizens decide to obtain documents? To understand why millions of citizens are undocumented, it is crucial to remember that citizenship is not only a legal status, but first and foremost a political relationship between states and the populations they govern. CitizenGap advances a strategic theory that seriously considers the incentives of states and citizens in the politics of civil registration. Empirically, the project contributes a comprehensive, cross-national measure that captures the number and characteristics of undocumented citizens, including those at risk of having their citizenship status questioned. The project analyzes the origins and nature of the citizenship gap in India and Mexico with a mixed methods design, combining demographic and spatial (GIS) datasets with fieldwork, archival sources, interviews and focus groups

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project’s start in September 2021 was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted opportunities for international travel. In March 2022, the project received ethics approval from the Ethics Review Board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UvA. The PI wrote and circulated the call for the two PhD researchers in January 2022. Interviews and recruitment took place during the spring and two PhD researchers started their contract in September 2022. Between September 2022 and August 2023 the PhD researchers 1) established their supervision committees, 2) participated in specialized methods and ethics training offered by the AISSR, and 3) wrote and defended their “8-months-paper”, a mandatory component of PhD training at the AISSR. In January 2023 the project team organized a two-day workshop with practitioners and academic experts to discuss the state-of-the-art in the field and to receive input on the project’s plans. The PI and PhD researchers presented their research plans at this workshop. The project team has also organized multiple smaller scale seminars and expert meetings to discuss particular aspects relevant to the project. Early findings from the project have been published in journals such as Citizenship Studies, International Migration Review and Electoral Studies. Multiple working papers drawing on new data collected by the project team are in progress.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project speaks to foundational issues in academic debates about citizenship, state-building and state-society relations. It aims to change how scholars and policy-makers think about achieving one of the key targets of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals: “By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration” (SDG Target 16.9). The project advances the state-of-the-art in several ways. First, the project establishes the citizenship gap as a field of social scientific research, one that has direct and burning relevance to hundreds of millions of people around the world. The project team regularly interacts with outside experts and practitioners to share knowledge and to network. Second, the project advances a new strategic theory of the citizenship gap that conceptualizes citizenship as a political relationship between states and the populations they seek to govern. This political understanding of the challenges underlying “legal identity for all” is crucial for conceptualizing the incentives for states and citizens in the politics of civil registration. Third, the project develops innovative measures that go beyond the idea of citizens being registered or not. Instead, the project’s novel approach maps the strength of societal groups’ claims to legal identity and citizenship. The team draws on innovative methods to analyze not only the number of undocumented citizens, but the characteristics of those whose legal identities and citizenship status are in jeopardy. Empirically, the team collects novel data on the origins and nature of the citizenship gap in India and Mexico, the two primary cases. The team also draws on cross-national data to develop a more comprehensive picture of patterns of legal identity coverage. The results of the team’s research will be published in scientific journals as well as in blog posts and other outlets aimed at general audiences and practitioners.

Visual of Citizenship Gap