Dual Citizenship: Advantages and Disadvantages for (Swiss) Democracy?

in a nutshell #13
Joachim Blatter and Martina Sochin D’Elia
June 2019

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Messages for Decision-Makers

With its recognition of dual citizenship in 1992, Switzerland was the forerunner of what is now a worldwide trend.

One in every four Swiss citizens residing in Switzerland or abroad is now a dual citizen.

There are two main advantages to these trends:
· it makes it easier for immigrants to become naturalized, and therefore to have a voice in political decisionmaking, which strengthens Swiss democracy.
· it makes it more difficult to adopt a simplistic view of “us” (Swiss) versus “them” (foreigners).

Any efforts to restrict dual citizenship should therefore be rejected.