"In this study the experience in the Netherlands with civic integration policies will be explained in a detailed and systematic way. As it stands, the Netherlands presently has one of the most encompassing and coercive civic integration policies, which is characterised by overseas civic integration testing, a general obligation to pass a civic integration exam for all foreign nationals and the existence of an elaborate sanctioning regime. Our main purpose is to understand the legitimacy of civic integration in this country, particularly through analysing its main implications and effects from a broader perspective. This perspective consists of an historical context, a framework of modern citizenship rights, and a cross border comparison of different national integration concepts. The principal issues to be addressed are the political and social arguments which lay behind the introduction of civic integration policies, and the extent to which these policies fit within academic notions of modern citizenship. In addition, the Dutch model of civic integration will be set against alternative national integration strategies as prevailing in some other immigrant receiving countries, particularly Belgium, Canada and the United States."--Publisher's description.

This incisive book provides a succinct overview of the new academic field of citizenship and immigration, as well as presenting a fresh and original argument about changing citizenship in our contemporary human rights era. Instead of being nationally resilient or in “postnational” decline, citizenship in Western states has continued to evolve, converging on a liberal model of inclusive citizenship with diminished rights implications and increasingly universalistic identities. This convergence is demonstrated through a sustained comparison of developments in North America, Western Europe and Australia. Topics covered in the book include: recent trends in nationality laws; what ethnic diversity does to the welfare state; the decline of multiculturalism accompanied by the continuing rise of antidiscrimination policies; and the new state campaigns to “upgrade” citizenship in the post-2001 period. Sophisticated and informative, and written in a lively and accessible style, this book will appeal to upper-level students and scholars in sociology, political science, and immigration and citizenship studies.

From anxiety about Muslim immigrants in Western Europe to concerns about undocumented workers and cross-border security threats in the United States, disputes over immigration have proliferated and intensified in recent years. These debates are among the most contentious facing constitutional democracies, and they show little sign of fading away. Edited and with an introduction by political scientist Rogers M. Smith, Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs brings together essays by leading international scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explore the economic, cultural, political, and normative aspects of comparative immigration policies. In the first section, contributors go beyond familiar explanations of immigration's economic effects to explore whose needs are truly helped and harmed by current migration patterns. The concerns of receiving countries include but are not limited to their economic interests, and several essays weigh different models of managing cultural identity and conflict in democracies with large immigrant populations. Other essays consider the implications of immigration for politics and citizenship. In many nations, large-scale immigration challenges existing political institutions, which must struggle to foster political inclusion and accommodate changing ways of belonging to the polity. The volume concludes with contrasting reflections on the normative standards that should guide immigration policies in modern constitutional democracies. Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs develops connections between thoughtful scholarship and public policy, thereby advancing public debate on these complex and divisive issues. Though most attention in the collection is devoted to the dilemmas facing immigrant-receiving countries in the West, the volume also explores policies and outcomes in immigrant-sending countries, as well as the situation of developing nations—such as India—that are net receivers of migrants.

In the past decade, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have formalised or introduced language and knowledge of society tests for immigrants applying for citizenship. The aim of this book is to assess the explicit and hidden goals these citizenship tests are meant to achieve, as well as to analyse their intended and unintended effects. The book answers the questions of why the countries under consideration introduced citizenship tests and what effects these tests have produced. The latter question has been answered on the basis of an analysis of relevant statistics and an analysis of interviews with immigrants and stakeholders. Furthermore, the content of the tests presented to (possible) future citizens of Germany, the Netherlands and the UK has been thoroughly analysed.

Many liberal democracies, facing high levels of immigration, are rethinking their citizenship policies. In this book, a group of international experts discuss various ways liberal states should fashion their policies to better accommodate newcomers. They offer detailed recommendations on issues of acquisition of citizenship, dual nationality, and the political, social, and economic rights of immigrants. Contributors include Patrick Weil (University of Paris Sorbonne), David A. Martin, (University of Virginia School of Law), Rainer Bauböck, (Austrian Academy of Sciences), and Michael Fix (Urban Institute).

Why are traditional nation-states newly defining membership and belonging? In the twenty-first century, several Western European states have attached obligatory civic integration requirements as conditions for citizenship and residence, which include language proficiency, country knowledge and value commitments for immigrants. This book examines this membership policy adoption and adaptation through both medium-N analysis and three paired comparisons to argue that while there is convergence in instruments, there is also significant divergence in policy purpose, design and outcomes. To explain this variation, this book focuses on the continuing, dynamic interaction of institutional path dependency and party politics. Through paired comparisons of Austria and Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands and France, this book illustrates how variations in these factors - as well as a variety of causal processes - produce divergent civic integration policy strategies that, ultimately, preserve and anchor national understandings of membership.

A defence of the meaning and function of borders and their necessity in the face of authoritarian attitudes to multiculturalism