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

Abstract

Traditionally, there are two contrasting views on the way states can use naturalisation and immigrants' rights policies to set out their broader agenda of immigrant integration. First, citizenship acquisition can be seen as complementary to the granting of social and political rights to immigrants, as a necessary step in the process of full integration in the political community. Whereas granting access to formal membership through naturalisation may instead be seen as an alternative to granting social and political rights, independent of citizenship status. In this paper, we analyse the relation between naturalisation and integration policies in 29 European states, looking at immigrants' rights in several areas of public life, such as political participation, anti-discrimination, education, the labour market and family reunion. We find strong empirical evidence in Europe that extending membership and rights are generally used as complementary, rather than alternative, means to immigrant integration. While our analysis does not invalidate the 'alternative' view as a normative stance, it does suggest that it comes with political constraints as, in practice, it is rarely practiced in Europe.

Democratic Deficits in Europe: The Overlooked Exclusiveness of Nation‐States and the Positive Role of the European Union

“…Those who provide their non‐citizens with voting rights also tend to have inclusive access to citizenship (for de jure components: Spearman's ρ = 0.45; for de facto components: ρ = 0.23). This finding of a moderately positive correlation is in line with previous studies on the empirical relationship of laws regulating the access to citizenship and alien enfranchisement (Huddleston and Vink, ). Furthermore, our results show that for the overall electoral inclusiveness, the role of enfranchising aliens is most indicative.…”

Monitoring report on integration 2020

“…Citizenship does not equate to full inclusion. Naturalisation policy often complements and is at the heart of wider integration policy (Huddleston and Vink, 2015). The publication and active implementation of the Migrant Integration Strategy is an important step towards the meaningful extension of equal rights and opportunities to migrants in Ireland.…”

Increasing Validity by Recombining Existing Indices: MIPEX as a Measure of Citizenship Models*

“…Citizenship models are of interest as they are thought to shape many aspects of political behavior. For instance, citizenship models have been linked to minority politics, political debates about minorities and immigrants, political participation and representation, or naturalization (e.g., Koopmans et al., ; Bird, ; Böcker and Thränhardt, ; Harrison and Munn, ; Ersanilli and Koopmans, ; Doomernik, Kraler, and Reichel, ; Wright and Bloemraad, ; Dronkers and Vink, ; Bloemraad and Schönwälder, ; Celis, Eelbode, and Wauters, ; Huddleston and Vink, ; Helbling, ; Dancygier and Laitin, ; Hainmueller and Hangartner, ). To capture these underlying citizenship models, a wide variety of approaches have been employed.…”