The State and the Legalization of Dual Citizenship/Dual Nationality: A Case Study of Mexico and the Philippines

The purpose of this paper is to address the question of how does the inclusion or exclusion of political participation with dual citizenship or dual nationality impact the Philippines\u27 and Mexico\u27s efforts to achieve the economic and political benefits of dual citizenship from their citizens? The hypothesis of the paper states that that if a sending state offers legal dual citizenship/nationality with political participation, then it will be successful at increasing the economic and political benefits provided by its emigrants; but if a sending state only offers legal dual citizenship/nationality without political participation than it will not be successful at increasing the economic and political benefits provided by its emigrants. In order to explore this hypothesis an exploratory case study of Mexico and the Philippines is done to examine the implementation of those states\u27 legalization of dual citizenship/dual nationality. The case study of each state explains the dual citizenship/dual nationality laws of the state and examines data to determine if the state has been successful at increasing the economic and political benefits provided by its emigrants. In the end, these case studies show no difference between the implementation of dual citizenship/nationality with political participation and without political participation and therefore do not support this hypothesis. Furthermore, the case studies do not show any significant improvement in either country in its relations with its emigrants after the passage of the legislation legalizing dual citizenship/dual nationality