The modern world is constantly changing. Alliances are created and broken, geographical borders of countries are changing, political regimes are being rebuilt, entire countries are disintegrating. There are global integration processes at different levels: economic, political, territorial. However, in the end, there are people who interact with this world in some way. It is not uncommon for people to have to go through a reintegration process after something happened to their former country. So let's understand what reintegration is.
Deciphering the concept in question is already embedded in the word itself. Reintegration is a renewed action, indicating some kind of repeated action, that is, the reunification 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 are restored again as parts of exactly one whole.
Reintegration of the territory - what is it?
Globalreintegration of the territory is the return of the territory to the borders of a state, which for some reason previously seceded from this state (during the war, occupation, world 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 legislation, economy, social life and, of course, the return of citizenship to the population.
Reintegration of the territory can take place both peacefully and by force. In the 20th century, we have witnessed this more than once. In the 21st century, it is obvious that forceful methods have become obsolete, and a peaceful path is the only logical and reasonable way of any integration and reintegration processes.
Restoration of citizenship
What is citizenship reintegration? At its core, this is the return of civil rights, by restoring the citizenship of a state for those persons who previously had citizenship, but for some reason lost it (collapse of the country, separation of the territory, return of the territory to the state, etc.).). An important component of reintegration should be that the change of citizenship must be formalized in accordance with all legislative norms.
Most often this happens through an accelerated and simpler procedure than prescribed by the legislation of a particular country, and can be expressed either in specially adopted legislative acts, or provided for in standard citizenship acts. Often the processreintegration is called the restoration of citizenship.
As a result of this process, a person receives full rights, duties and responsibilities in the face of the law of the state. And this status also imposes rights, duties and responsibilities on the state that accepts the citizen.
Examples of citizenship restoration
The largest example of reintegration processes is the acquisition or restoration of 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 Soviet Republics 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, this example of what reintegration is will be closest to, since, most likely, almost everyone in their 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 necessarily 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 big one. And after those tragic events, people alsowere going through the process of reintegration with their home territory, obtaining citizenship.
Examples of territory reintegration
To understand that the reintegration of a territory (this is the process of reuniting a small part of a territory with something bigger), let's turn to examples from world practice.
The first example that may immediately come to mind for many reading 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, then is an occupation. However, all 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 becoming part of Russia, which has not yet been completed, since many economic, political and social aspects still need to be finalized and polished.
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 policy pursued by the Russian government of that time, as well as international trends, secret services and terrorism actually 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. Together with the forceful return of the territory back to the bosom of Russia, a processembedding the economy, social life, politics and many other aspects into 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 we can single out the reintegration of Hong Kong and Macau with China. These two territories were for a long time British and Portuguese colonies, respectively, with the rights and obligations of the population to the colonists. However, after reintegration with China, the process of restoring citizenship also took place, which led, albeit incompletely, but still, to the compliance of civil rights, freedoms and obligations 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, is the situation around Donbass and Ukraine. As we can see, attempts to resolve the situation by force only lead to the fact that the solution of the issue is delayed, aggravated and sometimes leads both sides to a dead end. 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 reunification of part of the territory or former citizens with their historical homeland.
