Citizen Gap Citizen Gap
The CitizenGap project pursues two main questions:
(1) How and why do states invest in civil registration?
(2) How and why do citizens decide to obtain documents?
01
Mapping and Explaining the Citizenship Gap across Countries
We aim to map the extent and nature of the citizenship gap across countries by developing a comparative measure that captures the strength of societal groups’ claims to legal identity and citizenship. In this subproject, we shift the emphasis from the absolute number of those without identity documents per country to the questions of which groups in society are left out, and on what basis they are excluded.Â
02
Mapping and Explaining the Citizenship Gap in Specific Countries
In this project, we investigate the coverage of identity documents in India and Mexico. Our country studies draw on quantitative as well as qualitative data. We collect geo-referenced data to map variation in access to legal identity across subnational units and societal groups. We relate this to a measure of how challenging it is to develop administrative infrastructure in specific places based on factors such as altitude, terrain, and population density. Social marginalization and societal groups’ relationships with the state also influence access to civil registration.
