The modern world is constantly changing. Alliances are created and disintegrated, the geographical borders of countries are changing, political regimes are being rebuilt, whole countries are disintegrating. There are global integration processes at different levels: economic, political, territorial. However, in the end, there remain people who somehow interact with this world. There are frequent cases when people are forced to go through the process of reintegration after some events that occurred with their former country. Therefore, let's understand what reintegration is.
The interpretation of the concept under consideration is already embedded in the word itself. Reintegration is a renewable action, indicating some kind of repeated action, that is, the reunion of parts of the whole. These parts were once one whole, then for some reason they ceased to be part of the whole and after certain events they are restored again as parts of exactly one whole.
Territory reintegration - what is it?
On a global scale, the reintegration of the territory is the return of the territory to the borders of a state that, for some reason, had previously left this state (during the war, occupation, global and regional integration processes, etc.). Such a return is characterized not only by a new name on the geographical map for this territory, but also by changes in the legislation, economy, social life and, of course, the return of citizenship to the population.
The reintegration of the territory can occur both peacefully and by force. In the 20th century, we have witnessed this more than once. In the 21st century, it is obvious that force methods have outlived themselves, and the peaceful path is the only logical and reasonable way of any integration and reintegration processes.
Reinstatement of Citizenship
What is reintegration of citizenship? In essence, this is a return of civil rights, through the restoration of citizenship of a state for those persons who previously had citizenship, but for some reason lost it (collapse of the country, separation of territory, return of the territory to the state, etc. ) An important component of reintegration should be that a change of citizenship must be formalized in accordance with all legislative norms.
Most often this happens according to an accelerated and simpler procedure than prescribed by the legislation of a particular country, and can be expressed either by specially adopted legislative acts, or provided for by standard legislative acts on citizenship. Often the process of reintegration is called the restoration of citizenship.
As a result of this process, a person receives full rights, duties and responsibilities in the face of state law. And this status also imposes rights, duties and responsibilities on the state that accepts a citizen.
Reinstatement Examples
The largest example of reintegration processes is obtaining or restoring citizenship after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even after a quarter of a century, this process is not over yet, and citizens of the former Soviet Union and their descendants who moved after the Second World War and some political trends of the past, return to the former Republic of the USSR and apply for citizenship. Since Russia is the successor of the largest country in the world, these trends are especially noticeable in it. For most Russian-speaking readers, such an example of what reintegration is will be closest, since, most likely, almost everyone in life has examples of those who returned to Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union and received citizenship.
I would like to note that almost any integration process of an entire territory is certainly associated with the restoration of citizenship of the population living on it.
From world practice, one can also note the collapse of Yugoslavia, after which a huge number of people were scattered across several countries created instead of one large one. And after those tragic events, people also went through the process of reintegration with their native territory, receiving citizenship.
Territory reintegration examples
To understand that the reintegration of the territory (this is the process of reuniting a small part of the territory with something big), we turn to examples from world practice.
The first example that may immediately come to the minds of many who read this article is the accession / entry of the Crimean peninsula into the Russian Federation in March 2014, although many European countries, along with Ukraine, call this process illegal, that is, occupation. However, all the signs of the restoration of citizenship are obvious, the entire population of Crimea, which expressed a desire to obtain Russian citizenship, received it in a simplified and accelerated mode and acquired all the rights and obligations of citizens of the Russian Federation. Also, the territory itself began the process of joining Russia, which has not yet been completed, since many more economic, political and social aspects require refinement and polishing.
Another example of reintegration is the return of the Chechen land to Russia, although de jure this territory did not leave Russia, de facto, the Chechen wars and the policies pursued by the Russian government of that time, as well as international trends, special services and terrorism led to the fact that the territory of the Chechen Republic was simply a place on the map, marked as part of the largest country. Along with the forceful return of the territory back to the fold of Russia, there was a process of embedding the economy, social life, politics and many other aspects in the state system of Russia, as well as the reintegration of the population of Chechnya with the civil rights of the country.
From international practice, the reintegration of Hong Kong and Macau with China can be distinguished. These two territories have long been British and Portuguese colonies, respectively, with the rights and obligations of the population to the colonists. However, after the reintegration with China, the process of restoring citizenship also took place in parallel, which led to the incomplete but nevertheless correspondence of civil rights, freedoms and duties of the local population with Chinese law.
At the moment, another very complex process is underway, which on the one hand can be called reintegration - this is the situation around Donbass and Ukraine. As we see, attempts to solve the situation by force means exclusively that the solution of the issue is delayed, aggravated and sometimes leads to a dead end on both sides. Only a reasonable and civilized approach can resolve the situation. And there is hope that such a solution will be found soon.
So what is reintegration? This is the process of reuniting part of the territory or former citizens with their historical homeland.