Access to citizenship & its impact on immigrant integration (ACIT)

Citizenship acquisition and political participation of immigrants in Europe

Co-financed by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals

Socialization, Naturalization and Immigrant Political Participation in Europe: the Puzzle

• Research question: is there an independent role of citizenship in the process of re-socialization of first generation immigrants?

• The case of non-electoral political participation: ‘Legal activities by private citizens which are more or less directly aimed at influencing the selection of government personnel and/or the actions they take’

• Conventional & unconventional

Cf. Verba & Nie, 1972

Re-socialization Theories• Resistance - changes unlikely after ‘formative years’.

– Pre-migration experiences

• Exposure - adaptation depends on exposure to the new political environment– Length of residence + citizenship

• Transferability – early traits can be adapted by later experiences lifelong learning.– Pre-migration + post-migration experiences combined

Similar systems make transition easier– Relation naturalisation and participation conditioned by the

democratic experience in the country of origin.

Data & Methods

• European Social Survey– Pooled dataset of waves 1-5 (2002-2010)– 16 European countries

• First generation immigrants– Persons born outside test country and whose both parents

were also born abroad– Arrived in test country at/after age of 18

• N=9978• Multi-level analysis

Measures of political participation

Results I(without controlling for additional factors)

Participation Natives Immigrants with citizenship

Immigrants withoutcitizenship

Democracy Autocracy/partialdemocracy

Democracy Autocracy/partialdemocracy

Conventional 30.5 26.2 21.4 21.1 13.3Unconventional 39.7 45.3 33.6 39.4 17.6

Results I(without controlling for additional factors)

Participation Natives

Immigrants with citizenship

Immigrants withoutcitizenship

Democracy Autocracy/partialdemocracy

Democracy Autocracy/partialdemocracy

Conventional 30.5 26.2 21.4 21.1 13.3Unconventional 39.7 45.3 33.6 39.4 17.6

Political participation by immigrants by years of residence and democratic status of country of origin

Conventional Participation Unconventional Participation

Political participation by immigrants by years of residence and citizenship status

Conventional Participation Unconventional participation

Concluding remarks

• Re-socialization takes place: time matters• Conventional participation is driven by political context of

the country of destination• Un-conventional participation is driven by the political

context of the country of origin• The significance of the context of political socialization will

depend on the nature of the political participation • Independent but limited role of citizenship in this process Naturalization increases exposure to the democratic

process, but is no ‘magical solution’ for political engagement