The dialectic of citizenship, multiple loyalties, and nation-building The Iraqi case is a model

Abstract

The aim of the research is to explain the reasons for the multiplicity of loyalties in Iraqi society and their impact on the citizenship project which was not upright in all stages of the modern Iraqi state. Those loyalties that dissolved the homeland in the narrow path of the religious, ethnic and spatial actor that were glorified at the expense of the homeland which was dwarfed. The concept of citizenship is affected by all developments, whether political or societal, and the multiplicity of the status of sub-identities. Because of its direct connection with the individual’s relationship with the state as a social and legal bond between individuals and their political community, hence citizenship is based on the unity and stability of the nation and what it reflects in equality and freedom, provided that its equation in the relationship is straightened between the individual who prioritizes his national loyalty over subsidiary loyalties - without denying them - and the state protecting him according to specific legal controls to maintain this relationship. In order to show the impact of the multiplicity of loyalties and their arguments for building a citizenship project in Iraq, the research was divided into two sections In the first, we tried to show the implications of the concept of citizenship, its developments and its impact on building the state, and in the second topic, the analysis focused on the multiplicity of loyalties in Iraqi society and its impact on the citizenship project, and the effective ways to build a citizenship project in the light of a free and democratic Iraq