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.