Public attitudes toward granting citizenship status and extending rights to immigrants in European countries

Abstract

This chapter expounds public attitudes toward the acquisition of citizenship and rights extension to immigrants in European countries. We draw on survey data and the literature on attitudes toward immigrants in western liberal democracies to provide an overview of the relationship between citizenship and immigration, specifically how claims to membership triggers restrictive responses from national publics. We graph the trend of overwhelming opposition to granting citizenship and expanding rights to immigrants across European countries using data from several multi-national survey projects and lay out the micro- and macro-level determinants of these attitudes. As such, we pay tribute to the literature on procedures and criteria for citizenship acquisition, membership and belonging in the social and political community, and ‘citizenship regimes’. We conclude that citizenship acquisition is important for the life chances of naturalized immigrants, which happens without the natives necessarily consenting to full incorporation in the national and political community.