From international press coverage of the French government’s attempt to prevent Muslims from wearing headscarves to terrorist attacks in Madrid and the United States, questions of cultural identity and pluralism are at the center of the world’s most urgent events and debates. Presenting an unprecedented wealth of empirical research garnered during ten years of a cross-cultural project, Contested Citizenship addresses these fundamental issues by comparing collective actions by migrants, xenophobes, and antiracists in Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

Revealing striking cross-national differences in how immigration and diversity are contended by different national governments, these authors find that how citizenship is constructed is the key variable defining the experience of Europe’s immigrant populations. Contested Citizenship provides nuanced policy recommendations and challenges the truism that multiculturalism is always good for immigrants. Even in an age of European integration and globalization, the state remains a critical actor in determining what points of view are sensible and realistic—and legitimate—in society.

Contested Citizenship: Immigration and Cultural Diversity in Europe

This paper investigates how integration policies and welfare-state regimes have affected the socio-economic integration of immigrants, focusing on eight European countries: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria and Belgium. It presents comparative data on integration policies and welfare-state regimes. The expectations derived from this comparative policy analysis are tested with cross-national data on integration outcomes regarding labour market participation, spatial segregation and incarceration. The results suggest that multicultural policies—which grant immigrants easy access to equal rights and do not provide strong incentives for host-country language acquisition and interethnic contacts—when combined with a generous welfare state, have produced low levels of labour market participation, high levels of segregation and a strong overrepresentation of immigrants among those convicted for criminal behaviour. Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands, which have co...

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Trade-Offs between Equality and Difference: Immigrant Integration, Multiculturalism and the Welfare State in Cross-National Perspective

Millions of ex-colonials, “guest workers,” refugees, and other immigrants have settled in western Europe during recent decades. Extensive research on this phenomenon broadens sociology's understanding of intergroup relations in industrial societies. Unlike African Americans, these new Europeans are often viewed as not “belonging,” and gaining citizenship can be difficult. The chapter discusses four major reactions to the new minorities: prejudice, discrimination, political opposition, and violence. Both blatant and subtle forms of prejudice predict anti-immigrant attitudes. And between 1988 and 1991, a hardening took place in these attitudes. Similarly, direct and indirect discrimination against the new minorities is pervasive. Moreover, anti-discrimination efforts have been largely ineffective. Far-right, anti-immigration political parties have formed to exploit this situation. These openly racist parties have succeeded in shifting the political spectrum on the issue to the right. In addition, violence a...

Reactions Toward the New Minorities of Western Europe

In a spirit of stocktaking and identifying frontiers of research, this article reviews recent changes of citizenship in three dimensions: status, rights, and identity. With respect to status, it is argued that access to citizenship has been liberalized. On the rights dimension, there has been a weakening of social rights and rise of minority rights. Citizenship identities today are universalistic, which limits states' attempts to counter the centrifugal dynamics of ethnically diversifying societies with unity and integration campaigns.

Transformation of Citizenship: Status, Rights, Identity

Several countries in Europe have recently adopted obligatory language and country-knowledge requirements for settlement, naturalisation and immigration. Integration tests, courses and contracts are only a few examples of the new ‘civic integration policies’ states are using to promote individual autonomy and common values for newcomers. Are these requirements in response to concrete problems of immigrant integration? Do they enable, or actually inhibit, integration? This paper examines the various pressures behind attaching mandatory integration requirements to status acquisition. To systematically examine these policies, I develop a civic integration index (CIVIX) to measure language, country-knowledge and value-commitment requirements across the EU-15. While there is a general shift toward civic requirements across Europe, evidence reveals important differences in the degree of policy change. Finally, I explore how new civic requirements complement or challenge existing citizenship practices, identifyin...

Integration Requirements for Integration's Sake? Identifying, Categorising and Comparing Civic Integration Policies

Nationality and citizenship have recently become a hotly contested policy field in several European states. Reforms of the acquisition or loss of nationality have been shaped by concerns about the integration of immigrants as well as by attempts to strengthen ties with emigrants. A team of 30 researchers has examined nationality laws and their implementation in the pre-2004 Member States of the European Union.http://www.imiscoe.org/natac/

Acquisition and Loss of Nationality. Volumes 1 + 2

Legal integration is often considered a precondition for the integration of immigrants into the society of a receiving country. The nature and the extent of the rights immigrants are eligible for has considerable bearing on their opportunities in, among other spheres, the labour‐ and the housing‐market and in the educational system. European states differ considerably in the number and the nature of the rights they are willing to grant to immigrants and each state thereby creates a specific legal base of opportunities for the integration of immigrants. The present article summarises the method and results of a research project that aimed at building an index to measure the Legal Obstacles to the Integration of Immigrants. The goal of the LOI‐index is to condense information on integration policies and to evaluate the liberality or restrictive‐ness of legal systems governing the integration of immigrants.

An index to measure the legal obstacles to the integration of migrants

Nationality and citizenship have been subjects of stormy policy debates in many EU countries in recent years. Concerns over the integration of immigrants, but also attempts to forge links with emigrants, have led to changes in the laws regulating loss and acquisition of nationality and citizenship. This title outlines the research conducted by a team of 30 researchers into the nationality laws and their implementation in 15 EU member states. "http://www.aup.nl/do.php?a=show_visitor_book&isbn=9789053569214&l=2"> Volume 2 of this study presents detailed studies of each country's nationality laws, their historical background and current provisions. It is a companion to "http://www.aup.nl/do.php?a=show_visitor_book&isbn=9789053569207&l=2">volume 1 which contains comparative analyses based on a novel methodology that permits a detailed comparison how nationality can be acquired or lost across all 15 countries. The results show divergent trends towards liberalization in some countries and new restrictions of access to nationality in others. "http://www.aup.nl/do.php?a=show_visitor_book&isbn=9789053569207&l=2">Volume 1 also examines the impact of international and European law, presents statistical data on naturalisation and assesses administrative practices. Although the European Union has no formal competence in regulating nationality, the nationality laws of member states are linked to each other via the common citizenship of the Union. Member States should therefore agree on common norms for their nationality laws. Volume 1 contains detailed policy recommendations based on the idea that stakeholders in the political community should be given access to nationality. In addition to the two volumes, detailed statistics and further comparative analyses of legal regulations of nationality are available at "http://www.imiscoe.org">www.imiscoe.org. Volume 1 & 2 are also available as a set, "http://www.aup.nl/do.php?a=show_visitor_book&isbn=9789053569498&l=2">click here form more information. This is the most comprehensive comparative study of the legal status of nationality so far and it will become an indispensable source of reference for further research. For more information see: "http://www.imiscoe.org/natac/">http://www.imiscoe.org/natac/

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Acquisition and Loss of Nationality|Volume 2: Country Analyses : Policies and Trends in 15 European Countries

Irregular migration: dynamics, impact, policy options

In recent years the need for indicators that measure the integration of migrant workers and foreigners in general has often been voiced. But most of the time scholars in the field of international migration have in mind single-indicator measures. By contrast, this article represents the first attempt to construct a multi-indicator index for the legal integration of migrant workers from non-EU (or other privileged) countries in eight European states (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland). This index should primarily work as an instrument of representation. It makes possible synchronous crosscountry comparisons as well as the establishment of time series for individual countries. In this first tentative version of an index of integration five domains of legal integration were taken into account: 1) residence and permanent residence, 2) access to the labour market, 3) family reunification, 4) legal status of the second generation of immigrants, and 5) naturalization. The major results of the index in its current version can be summed up as follows: First, there are enormous differences of legal integration in the eight countries studied which will pose great difficulties to the intended harmonization of immigration laws in Europe. Second, the three German speaking countries in the sample still have, generally speaking, the highest amounts of legal discrimination with Austria as the outstanding negative example: In four out of the five spheres analysed Austria shows the highest scores in legal discrimination.

Integrationsindex Zur rechtlichen Integration von AusländerInnen in ausgewählten europäischen Ländern. Inclusion Index to legal integration of foreigners in selected European countries. IHS Political Science Series 25, July 1995

Harald Waldrauch

Papers

Acquisition and Loss of Nationality. Volumes 1 + 2

An index to measure the legal obstacles to the integration of migrants

Acquisition and Loss of Nationality|Volume 2: Country Analyses : Policies and Trends in 15 European Countries

Irregular migration: dynamics, impact, policy options

Integrationsindex Zur rechtlichen Integration von AusländerInnen in ausgewählten europäischen Ländern. Inclusion Index to legal integration of foreigners in selected European countries. IHS Political Science Series 25, July 1995