Citizenship leads immigrants to integrate, not the other way around: Swiss Study

Interesting analysis of Swiss citizenship and the link to political integration:

When they surveyed these immigrants a decade later, they found that those whose applications were only just approved had significantly higher political integration than those who had only just failed. These people had increased political knowledge, were more likely to feel that they had a political voice, and were more likely to participate in politics through actions like voting, contacting politicians, or donating to political parties. This was consistent even for immigrants from different countries.

Because the survey was conducted in 2011-2014, which was a decade or more since the last citizenship votes in Switzerland, the researchers suggest that the results are picking up on genuine, long-term changes. It’s possible that immigrants might have a spike in their political participation after a successful application, but a temporary change is unlikely to have continued for a decade or more, they argue.

One important question to consider is whether the process in Switzerland has some characteristics that are likely to be different from other countries. For instance, perhaps something about gaining citizenship as a result of a vote by other citizens is really the catalyst for political participation rather than the citizenship itself. It’s possible that an immigrant who receives a positive vote on such a personally important matter might place more trust in the system and engage with it more than an immigrant who receives a negative vote.

Another potential objection to this study is that the researchers are wrong to assume that borderline cases are really all that similar. For the experiment to work, it has to be assumed that immigrants whose applications just failed by a hair’s breadth, and those who just passed, are the same in all important respects. When the researchers looked at characteristics like education levels, country of origin, or how long they’d lived in Switzerland, they did look the same. However, it could be the case that there were important details the researchers missed that actually made all the difference in political integration.

Given that social and political integration of immigrants is often something that policies explicitly aim to encourage, this is important information. Although a natural experiment like this would be difficult to find in other countries, future research will need to confirm whether the same effect seems to be consistent in different countries with different immigration procedures.

Source: Citizenship leads immigrants to integrate, not the other way around | Ars Technica