Assessments of citizenship criteria:are immigrants more liberal?

The literature on citizenship policies is flourishing, yet we know little of which naturalisation requirements majorities and minorities find reasonable, and how they view existing citizenship regimes. Drawing on original survey data with young adults in Norway (N = 3535), comprising immigrants and descendants with origins from Iraq, Pakistan, Poland, Somalia and Turkey, as well as a nonimmigrant majority group, this article examines whether perceptions of ideal citizenship criteria and assessments of Norway’s current rules differ between groups. In terms of ideal citizenship criteria, we find a striking similarity across groups when looking at six different dimensions of citizenship policy. When merged into an index and estimated in a multivariate regression model, we find that both immigrants and descendants are significantly more liberal than natives are, yet the differences are small. When assessing the semi-strict citizenship regime in Norway, we find that immigrants are significantly more positive towards the current rules than natives. The results lend little support to recent work on ‘strategic’ and ‘instrumental’ citizenship and point instead to a close to universal conception of the terms of membership acquisition in Norway. This suggests that states may operate with moderate integration requirements while maintaining the legitimacy of the citizenship institution

In a New Land:Mobile Phones, Amplified Pressures and Reduced Capabilities

Framed within the theoretical lens of positive and negative security, this paper presents a study of newcomers to Sweden and the roles of mobile phones in the establishment of a new life. Using creative engagement methods through a series of workshops, two researchers engaged 70 adult participants enrolled into further education colleges in Sweden. Group narratives about mobile phone use were captured in creative outputs, researcher observations and notes and were analysed using thematic analysis. Key findings show that the mobile phone offers security for individuals and a safe space for newcomers to establish a new life in a new land as well as capitalising on other spaces of safety, such as maintaining old ties. This usage produces a series of threats and vulnerabilities beyond traditional technological security thinking related to mobile phone use. The paper concludes with recommendations for policies and support strategies for those working with newcomers

Welfare State, Integration and Legitimacy of the Majority: The Case of Norway

Assimilation has in recent years been established as an illegitimate power strategy in most contexts in Europe. Apart from trying to nuance the content of this position, the paper raises questions as to the possible hidden power agenda in the integration strategy, or rather, which are the intentional or non-intentional power related implications of this strategy? Who is integrating whom into what kind of society? How are conceptions of nationhood maintained, legitimized and possibly reproduced

Nation-building in the Scandinavian Welfare State: The Immigration Challenge

Scandinavia represents a particular type of welfare state, characterized by institutionalized social rights, universal access, generous benefits, a high degree of public involvement and comparatively high levels of redistribution. The basically tax-based system, which was designed to constitute a basic safety net for all citizens from cradle to grave, has been remarkably generous - and thereby also costly. It is thus vulnerable in relation to newcomers who cannot support themselves economically. In all of Scandinavia, the welfare state was from the beginning the self-evident instrument for incorporation of newcomers. Gradually, this instrument has turned more controversial, in parallel with general processes of social reform, in which the restructuring of policies has been regarded as necessary in order to avoid dependency traps and "overconsumption". This article spells out the historical background for the specific Scandinavian approach to immigration, and discusses the current dilemmas attached to this normatively complicated policy field

Country report : Norway

First published in November 2009; Revised May 2010Research for this EUDO Citizenship Observatory Country Report has been jointly supported by the European Commission grant agreement JLS/2007/IP/CA/009 EUCITAC and by the British Academy Research Project CITMODES (both projects co-directed by the EUI and the University of Edinburgh).Revised version: 2013/2

The Current Traps of European Immigration Policies

The main thrust of this paper is to describe and analyze the dynamics between the various EU member states and the European Community in the development towards a common immigration policy. There has so far been a striking contrast between the economic, social and political significance of migration, and the degree to which it has been subject to international organization. It is argued that conditional convergence has been a more relevant term than harmonization describing the process up till the end of the century, and the main reason for this is the strength of national interests and the impact of tradition and experience of policymaking in this realm

Welfare State, Integration and Legitimacy of the Majority: The Case of Norway

Assimilation has in recent years been established as an illegitimate power strategy in most contexts in Europe. Apart from trying to nuance the content of this position, the paper raises questions as to the possible hidden power agenda in the integration strategy, or rather, which are the intentional or non-intentional power related implications of this strategy? Who is integrating whom into what kind of society? How are conceptions of nationhood maintained, legitimized and possibly reproduced

Philosophies of integration? Elite views on citizenship policies in Scandinavia

Research on the ‘civic turn’ in European citizenship policies suggests that concerns over immigrant integration have fueled the restrictive development of citizenship policies in recent decades. However, few efforts have been made to explore the normative ideas underlying this development. Departing from Favell’s (1998) influential concept of ‘philosophies of integration’, this article draws on elite-interviews with top-level bureaucrats, politicians and citizenship experts in the Scandinavian countries and explores how ideas about nationhood and integration have influenced the divergence in citizenship policies in the region, and what overall purpose the policy-changes reflect. We find that, especially in Denmark, the gradual introduction of ever more demanding civic integration requirements appears to be a part of the broader aim of controlling the inflow of migrants and not to enhance the integration of those already present in the country. Conversely, the Swedish liberal approach to citizenship, which regularly has been analyzed as a steppingstone to societal integration, might in reality have been a reflection of benign neglect. In Norway, immigrant integration has clearly been part of the underlying rationale for changes in naturalization requirements, yet the control dimension have played an increasingly important role. These findings suggests that, although the citizenship institution remains important in nation states’ efforts to solve their ‘ethnic dilemmas’, the underlying rationale behind policy-change is more multifaceted than previously understood.publishedVersio

Stuck in Transit: Secondary Migration of Asylum Seekers in Europe, National Differences, and the Dublin Regulation

The European Union’s ambition to create a harmonized reception system for asylum seekers differs from the realities on the ground. We address how differences in national reception conditions stimulate the secondary migration that challenges the creation of an effective common migration regulation in Europe. We base our analysis on the Dublin Regulation (DR) and the secondary movement of Eritrean asylum seekers from Italy to Norway. The empirical material consists of qualitative interviews with civil servants, NGO representatives, and Eritrean migrants in Milan and Rome, and Norwegian civil servants. Recently developed models of migration destination selection were used to analyse the interaction between individual aspirations and structural constraints. We found that the Eritrean informants remained highly motivated to apply in a second country but were to some extent held back by the DR. Supranational regulations were challenged by the migrants’ actions and by national differences in reception and welfare standards. Both the migrants’ aspirations to move on and the challenges to a harmonized regional regulation of migration increased during times of economic crisis.acceptedVersio