Post-Imperial Citizenship: Russia, France, and Great Britain Compared

Collapse of the USSR left some 25 million ethnic Russians and some 33 million Russian-speakers outside of the borders of the Russian Federation. From the time citizenship issue first rose to the political agenda in Russia in 1991, a key issue has been what group(s) of former Soviet citizens are to be eligible for Russian citizenship under simplified rules outside of standard naturalization procedure. In other words, who in the former Soviet space ought to be recognized as “us” rather than “other” by the Russian state.  The definition of Russia’s “us” evolved since the early 1990s - from the inclusion of all former Soviet citizens in the category of “us” in the 1990s, to a much narrower definition linked to the origin from the Russian state territory in the early 2000s, to the most recent designation of vaguely defined “compatriots” as Russia’s “us.”  The paper investigates reasons behind these shifts of Russian citizenship policy and compares this politics of citizenship in post-Soviet Russia to the politics of citizenship in post-colonial France and Britain. Like Russia, France and Britain also faced the question whether to allow populations of the former colonies access to citizenship under simplified rules, and policies towards this category of people have changed over time. The paper will investigate political, ideational, economic and other considerations shaping post-imperial citizenship rules in these three states, paying particular attention to the question whether and why drivers of the post-imperial citizenship policy making in post-Soviet Russia and in western democracies may vary.