Naturalisation, Citizenship Policy and Mobility: A Longitudinal Analysis

• In Event: Migration, Populism and Democratic Politics in Europe

Abstract

The legal status transition from foreigner to citizen is typically viewed as part of the integration process, and therefore associated with permanent settlement in the destination country. However, literature on transnationalism paints a more complex picture in which immigrants do not necessarily relinquish all ties to their country of origin upon migration or even naturalisation, and instead develop complex interactive ties between the origin and destination context. While citizenship acquisition may signal permanent settlement for some migrants, the same event may encourage others to intermittently travel to their origin country and back, or migrate onwards to their ultimate destination. Yet research on immigrant naturalisation focuses almost exclusively on the host country, thereby ignoring that naturalisation may not always carry the intention of permanent settlement and assimilation. In this paper, we view naturalisation as part of a larger life course trajectory, and analyse for whom and when naturalisation is the catalyst for further mobility in terms of return/onward or circular migration. In that context, we focus particularly on the role of citizenship policies, which stipulate the conditions under which migrants can naturalise, and determine whether naturalisation entails the loss of the mobility rights granted by the original citizenship. To analyse these questions, this paper makes use of individual-level longitudinal register data of Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden from 1997 to 2016. These data contain information on all registered foreign-born individuals from cohorts 1995 to 2001 over a period of 15 years since migration. Our comparative, longitudinal approach provides the unique opportunity to analyse the temporal dynamic of immigrant naturalisation and mobility, whilst simultaneously capturing important citizenship policy variation within and between the host countries.

Authors

• Floris Peters, Maastricht University

• Maarten P. Vink, Maastricht University