Ethnic and civic dealings with newcomers: naturalization policies and practices in twenty-six immigration countries

Abstract

Over the last decade or so, the comparative study of nationalism has produced a large number of cogent critiques of classifying nations according to how ethnic or civic they are. In fact, these critiques have been so convincing that many scholars today seem to agree that any mention of the words 'ethnic' and 'civic' is unwarranted. This is unfortunate, because the distinction still offers a useful heuristic device to compare and classify different nation-building practices. This article analyses naturalization policies in twenty-six Western immigrant-receiving democracies in order to show that the distinction constitutes a valuable analytical tool to explore how different countries deal with newcomers. The naturalization policy index developed in this article proves to have a high degree of face validity, to be a good predictor of actual naturalization practices, and to match up well with previous classifications of ethnic and civic nation-building practices.

Behind the ethnic–civic distinction: Public attitudes towards immigrants’ political rights in the Netherlands

“…The distinction between ethnic and civic citizenship is widely used in the literature to differentiate between policies and legislation of nation-states (e.g., Brubaker, 1992;Koning, 2011;Smith, 1991). Survey research in different national contexts has shown that these alternative conceptions and criteria of national belonging also emerge side by side as contrasting normative images among the public (e.g., Hjerm, 1998;Jones and Smith, 2001;Levanon and Lewin-Epstein, 2010;Reeskens and Hooghe, 2010).…”

Full membership or equal rights? The link between naturalisation and integration policies for immigrants in 29 European states

“…We find both international policy indicators or indexes focused on naturalisation policies (e.g. Howard 2009;Goodman, 2010;Janoski, 2010;Koning, 2011), as well as those measuring both or either naturalisation and other integration policies (Waldrauch and Hofinger 1997;Huddleston, Niessen and Ni Chaoimh, 2010;Ruhs, 2011;Banting and Kymlicka, 2013;Koopmans et al, 2012; see also Helbling 2013 for a more general discussion). Most of these works focus either descriptively on a trend analysis or use policy indices to understand cross-national variation.…”

Criteria of citizenship and social inclusion in immigrants’ discourse in Greece.

“…Another argument sustains that civic nationalism can be quite oppressive and intolerant towards minorities when it is considered that the cultural expression of minorities may undermine the principles of the civic nation-state (Ariely, 2011;Brown, 1999;Laegaard, 2007). Accepting the logic behind these criticisms theorists have suggested that instead of treating civic and ethnic nationalisms as different and exclusive forms of national belonging, a conceptualization of a continuum that ranges between 'pure' ethnic and 'pure' civic national attachment maybe a more fruitful approach (Koning, 2011).…”