“Us” or “Them”? How Policies, Public Opinion, and Political Rhetoric Affect Immigrants’ Sense of Belonging

Interesting study by MPI with this counter-intuitive finding that citizenship policy was not a significant factor in national belonging in contrast to popular conceptions of nationhood which, of course, are reflected citizenship policies that emphasize attainable criteria with reasonable requirements:

Citizenship Policy: Do Fewer Restrictions Signal a More Accepting Society?

Boundaries of national membership exist in different forms—whether formal or informal—and are formulated by different actors, such as politicians or the majority population. Formal boundaries are official policies designed to define membership, such as citizenship, voting rights, or employment policies.

The foremost example is citizenship policy, which sets the criteria for who may become an officially recognized member of a particular country. The restrictiveness of citizenship policies varies considerably across Western nation-states as do the signals these policies communicate about the type of knowledge and behavior one must comply with to become part of the nation. To become a citizen of Austria, for example, one must have ten years of residency, be economically self-sufficient, speak German, pass a knowledge test on Austrian history and the principles of the democratic system, and resign any previous citizenship. In Sweden, none of these requirements applies, except for length of residency (and here it is just five years), and dual citizenship is allowed. Scholars often point to citizenship policy as a signifier of a country’s openness or closedness toward newcomers. In this way, it could be expected that immigrants would find it easier to belong in countries with more liberal citizenship regimes.

A 2016 study by the author examined whether the substantial variation in the citizenship policies of Western democracies matter for the extent to which immigrants to different countries feel national belonging. The study used data from 19 Western democracies collected during two different years (2003 and 2013), data from the Migrant Integration Policy Index, and survey answers from first- and second-generation immigrants about the degree to which they feel close to the nation in which they live.

Surprisingly, the study offered no evidence to support the hypothesis that citizenship policy affects immigrant minorities’ national belonging. Other experts have come to similar conclusions in their research on civic integration and multicultural policies: In two studies by Goodman & Wright and Bloemraad & Wright, despite substantial variation over time and space in the use of civic integration and multicultural policies, these policies did not appear to foster (nor hinder) immigrants’ generalized trust and perceived discrimination.

One potential reason for the lacking effect of citizenship (and other types of integration) policy is that it is composed of various requirements—such as length of residence, economic self-sufficiency, language skills, and resigning one’s previous citizenship—making it difficult for the individual immigrant to assess exactly how open or closed a given national community is. In addition, there may be great variation across immigrants in how difficult it is for them to live up to the demands. In other words, while one type of immigrant may find the host country’s citizenship policies exclusive, others may find it relatively easy to live up to them.

Popular Ideas of Belonging

Boundaries are not only defined in formal terms through citizenship or integration policies, but also more informally in conceptions of nationhood shared among members of a society. While these boundaries are not officially sanctioned, they are not any less powerful as signals of inclusivity/exclusivity. In particular, how majority nationals define the boundary of the national community likely affect everyday encounters with immigrant minorities.

In the study mentioned above, the author also analyzed the potential effects of popular conceptions of nationhood by using survey responses to measure the nonimmigrant majority population’s boundary drawing in the 19 countries studied.

The author found the criteria valued for being considered part of the national community clustered in two groups: ascriptive and attainable criteria.

• Ascriptive criteria include being born in the country, having lived in the country for most of one’s life, having host-nation ancestry, and being of the host nation’s religion. These criteria are impossible to acquire if one does not have them in the first place. Of course, religious conversion is in principle a possibility but the fact that this criterion groups with the other ascriptive criteria suggests that most people consider religion a permanent trait of individuals.
• Attainable criteria include language skills in the host country’s official language(s), citizenship, respecting the country’s laws and institutions, and feeling like a national. These criteria are possible to acquire, at least over time.

Figures 1 and 2 show the value of importance assigned to the two groups of criteria in each country in 2003 and 2013, using a 0-1 scale, where 0 means not important at all, and 1 means very important. As can be seen, the values vary quite substantially across countries while the within-country variation over time is rather small for most countries, suggesting that conceptions of nationhood are relatively stable over time.

Figure 1. Importance of Criteria Immigrants Cannot Obtain to Select Countries

Source: Kristina Bakkær Simonsen, “How the Host Nation’s Boundary Drawing Affects Immigrants’ Belonging,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42, no. 7: 1153-76.

Figure 2. Importance of Criteria Immigrants Can Obtain to Select Countries

Source: Bakkær Simonsen, “How the Host Nation’s Boundary Drawing Affects Immigrants’ Belonging.”

In contrast to citizenship policy, popular conceptions of nationhood have significant effects on immigrant minorities’ national belonging in the study. In particular, first- and second-generation immigrants’ national belonging is greater in countries where the majority population places high value on attainable boundary criteria, such as the United States, France, and Canada. In other words, boundaries can be positive when they signal to immigrants their being welcome to belong, upon having met a set of feasible requirements, such as acquiring language skills and respecting the country’s norms and laws.

Source: “Us” or “Them”? How Policies, Public Opinion, and Political Rhetoric Affect Immigrants’ Sense of Belonging