This summary contains notes from all lectures the University of Amsterdam gave for the Law and Politics course (FY).
The description for this course is: This project lets political scientists experience the interaction between law and politics through ‘doing law’: fulfilling assignments in ...
● Law is an instrument of societal transformation
● We experienced its power in the pandemic years
● Our lives need legal certainty
● Are the rules clear enough? Consistently enforced?
● Will they be the same next month, next year?
What is law?
● (Clearly) defined rules governing duties, rights, competencies and definitions
● (Mostly) created by legislation or court judgement
● (Mostly) enforced by state organs
● Generating legal certainty about content, enforcement, consistent application
What this course will teach you
● Understanding how legal rules emerge and evolve
● Important legal principles underlying specific rules
● Ability to find out where rules relevant to a political issue can be found
● (Basic) ability to apply the rules to a case as a lawyer would: legal reasoning.
● Don’t be intimidated by laws and lawyers
● There is politics at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the law
Relation between laws and politics:
● Oversimplification 1 (naïve):
○ Law informs the thinking and regulates the behaviour of political actors
● Oversimplification 2 (cynical):
○ Law is made, changed, broken according to the needs of political actors
,
,Politics at the Beginning of Law
● Restricting/prohibiting abortion became a vote mobiliser for Republicans from
Reagen (1980) onwards
● But Reagen, Bush Sr., Bush Jr. all appointed judges reluctant to overturn precedent
● In 2016, 1 in 5 voters indicate Supreme Court appointment was their main
determinant on who to vote for - with 59% of those voting for Trump
The majority opinion in the U.S.A.:
● The amendment protects rights named in the Constitution and rights not explicit but
“deeply rooted in the Nation's history and tradition” and “essential to the Nation’s
scheme of ordered liberty”
● Right to abortion as part of liberty “not deeply rooted”: abortion was prohibited by law
in most states before Roe
● Nation’s “historical understanding of ordered liberty” does not prevent the people’s
elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated
Who belongs?
● 1) legal: citizenship rights
○ Housing for the people
■ But on terms of the state
● 2) political participation: voting exclusion
○ Citizens with mental health/intellectual disability issues are prohibited from
voting in 15 EU member states
○ (Ex-)prisoners convicted of a felony crime (estimated 6.1 mlj. citizens) are
excluded from voting in most U.S. states
○ Citizens under 18 are unable to vote almost everywhere
● Identity: soil or blood
○ How does identity translate into citizenship law
○ Historically:
■ Ius Soli - birthplace (UK)
■ Ius Sanguinis - parental nationality (Germany)
Legal: citizen rights vs. human rights
● Declaration of human rights:
○ Article 1. All humans beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
○ Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this
declaration … no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political,
jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a
person belongs…
○ Art. 24.3 Every child has the right to acquire a nationality
, But how
● Increasing convergence (from ius soli and ius sanguinis):
○ Born on territory, one parent with permanent residence = citizenship
○ More than one generation abroad = no automatic citizenship
● Naturalisation
On what basis can you legally be in The Netherlands?
● Dutch citizens
● Eu citizens
● Dutch/EU spouse or parent
● (Waiting for) refugee status
● Temporary protection (Ukrainians)
● Permanent residence
● Work permit or student visa
● Tourist visa
The ultimate exclusion: ‘being illegal’
● Being on a territory without a legal status
● Your very existence is unrecognised
Political participation, who gets to vote from where?
● Mostly inclusive: on external voting rights: allowed by law in more than 100 countries
(exception South America)
● Mostly exclusive: on alien voting rights: few states allow resident aliens to vote
(exceptions New Zealand, Chili, Malawi, and EU residents in local elections)
Identity: sense of belonging or test of loyalty?
● Citizenship tests for naturalisation
○ Language ability and ‘civic knowledge’
○ Only 8 out of 33 Council of Europe member states have research-based tests
○ Only half use standardised language tests
○ In Netherlands and Germany around 40% fail language tests; naturalisations
decreased after the introduction
○ Elderly, women, less educated, and traumatised most likely to be excluded
● Reasons for revoking nationality:
○ Getting another citizenship (sometimes)
○ Permanent residence abroad (rare)
○ Fraud in the naturalisation process (nearly always)
○ Serving in a foreign military
● Most states will avoid making people stateless
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