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Abstract
Through the analysis of citizenship legislation in the 28 EU member states between 1992 and 2015, this article explores ‘special’ and particularistic citizenship norms that are usually excluded from comparative citizenship legislation analyses. Such norms are identified by their application to small groups or exceptional cases, and by the presence of normative analyses that criticize such norms as opposed to universalism. Six categories – ethnicity, special merits, special demerits, norms for EU citizens, stateless individuals and refugees, and investors – are identified, with special merits and ethnicity showing a very high diffusion in the 28 member states. The article further explores the role of the political parties in government in the introduction of ‘special’ norms, showing that while both center-right and center-left governments are more likely to introduce than to abolish ‘special’ norms, center-left governments are comparatively less likely to introduce such norms.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank the participants at the two conferences and the two anonymous reviewers of JCES for their suggestions.
Notes
* Previous versions of this paper were presented at the ‘2015 EUDO Dissemination Conference – Spreading Citizenship: Regional Dynamics of Norm Diffusion in Europe’, 26–27 November 2015, European University Institute and at the ‘2017 ECPR General Conference’, 6–9 September 2017, Universitet i Oslo.
1. In this article by ‘norms’ I always refer to positive legal norms, or to categories used to group such norms. The idea that the positive norms inscribed in the laws are linked to cultural norms of membership existing in a given context goes back to the origins of the sociological study of citizenship legislation (Brubaker Citation1992), but qualitative research (e.g. Miller-Idriss Citation2006; Sredanovic Citation2014) has shown that the two do not necessarily match. A third concept, also distinct although with potential links to citizenship legislation, refers to the norms that a ‘good citizen’ should follow, as they are explored by political philosophy and political science (e.g. Beiner Citation1995) or shared by the general population (e.g. Dalton Citation2008; Bolzendahl and Coffé Citation2013).
2. More in-depth comparative analyses of the different indexes are present in Helbling (Citation2013) and Goodman (Citation2015).
3. Dumbravă (Citation2007) is an exception, as, while re-examining Howard’s model (Citation2009), he extends the norms considered to health and political record requirements (which I treat here in the ‘special demerit’ category), and to aspects of jus sanguinis that include the attribution of citizenship to those born abroad from citizens.
4. I include in this category provisions that are not considered in the analogous variable in the EUDO Citizenship variable (‘A24, Special Achievements’), by which only 22 EU member states are considered to have this kind of norm.
5. Multiculturalism, which usually receives stronger support from the left, might or might not be in contradiction with universalism according to different formulations – but see, e.g. Kymlicka and Banting (Citation2006), Ozkirimli (Citation2012), Lewicki (Citation2014).
6. I discuss further the different interpretations of citizenship legislation determinants in Sredanovic (Citation2015). A recent working paper (de Haas and Natter Citation2015) based on the DEMIG POLICY database has also explored the impact of the political parties in power on the changes in migration legislation, looking at both a longer period of time and at a more extended policy domain. Their conclusion, contrary to mine, is that politics is not an explanatory factor, but, given the difference in coding, especially for what concerns the left-right continuum, it is not clear if the different results are due to a particular salience of politics in citizenship legislation change or to other factors.
7. I employed the expert surveys closer in time to the year coded, including Huber and Inglehart (Citation1995, conducted in 1993), Benoit and Laver (Citation2006, conducted in 2002–2004), and the 1999, 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014 editions of the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (Steenbergen and Marks Citation2007; Hooghe et al. Citation2010; Bakker et al. Citation2015; Polk et al. Citation2017). A party is defined here as ‘center’ if it falls in the central 3/10s of the range used by each survey; see Sredanovic (Citation2015) for more details about this approach. A small number of cases have been recoded for this analysis, as in the meanwhile the 2014 edition of the Chapel Hill Expert Survey has become available. I have also used, as in Sredanovic (Citation2015); a left-middle-right approach, based on Hazan’s (Citation2007) concept of middle party, but as this analysis brings less clear results, I limit the presentation to the left-center-right approach.
8. This is done by attributing to each year between 1992 and 2015 in each of the 28 countries the profile of the government which spent the most months in power.
