Migrants into Members

Social Rights, Civic Requirements, and Citizenship in Western Europe

Bibliographic Data

ID8042016
AuthorsGregory Baldi (Russian State Agrarian Correspondence University), W Goodman (0000-0003-0211-985X, Goodman (Japan)), Sara Wallace Goodman
Year2015
Volume38
Issue6
Pages1152-1173
Publication date2015-05-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWest European Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0140-2382 • E-ISSN: 1743-9655
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01402382.2015.1041237
OpenAlexW1582325651
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited33

How do the states in Western Europe turn outsiders into insiders? This article examines that question by introducing a new qualitative framework that we term national membership conditionality structures (MCS). This framework includes not only status acquisition rules, such as those governing naturalisation and settlement, but also, crucially, civic integration requirements and social benefit eligibility standards. The article illustrates how linkages across these policy sectors shape different membership-making processes for third-country nationals by examining the MCS variation in Great Britain and Germany, two countries that both experienced significant migration inflows beginning in the first post-war decades. As a contrast to these two 'mature' MCS cases, a study of Spain is also included as a 'nascent' case, whose recent experience with large-scale immigration provides an opportunity to consider an MCS under active construction. The article concludes that while EU-level policies and institutions have extended their reach to cover ever more sectors, the components of national MCS remain largely outside supranational purview. As such, membership remains a core imperative of the contemporary nation-state

Citizenship · Conditionality · Economics · Immigration · Naturalisation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Settlement (finance · Sociology · State (computer science · European Union Policy and Governance · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Public Administration · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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