Redrawing the boundaries between “us” and “them”. Does citizenship enhance integration or increase exclusion?

Since the beginning of the 21st century, revocation of citizenship policies against undesirable citizens have returned to the political agenda of many Western countries with surprising rapidity. For these reasons, the analysis moved not merely from the criteria for the acquisition of citizenship, but from the ways in which citizenship is involuntary lost. Indeed, it seemed interesting to analyze the functioning of a revocation measure, its impact, and its potential (un)justification in liberal societies, keeping in mind that a “punitive” sanction of this magnitude ultimately ends up eroding the essential core of the individual’s “right to have rights”. Through a comparative study of the citizenship legislation and jurisprudence on the topic developed in the United Kingdom and Italy, the aim is to answer a traditional question that is becoming increasingly pressing: up to what extent it is possible to guarantee the protection of individual’s fundamental rights in a context that considers security needs to be preponderant? Lastly, the possible intersections between the models of citizenship acquisition and the modalities of its revocation within the analyzed state legal systems are observed.