Costly citizenship : the supply and demand of political membership in Europe, 1970-2014

As Europe has struggled to adapt to the modern reality of mass migration in recent decades, the question of citizenship has emerged as an increasingly salient political topic across the continent. Numerous scholars have begun to analyze the evolution of citizenship regimes in Europe, the politics of citizenship policymaking, and the consequences of such policies for citizenship acquisition and immigrant integration. This dissertation advances a new theoretical understanding of citizenship policymaking and citizenship acquisition together within a framework of supply and demand. According to the theory, naturalization rates, and the corresponding level of integration required to naturalize, are the equilibrium result of the interaction between the political forces supplying citizenship and the varying determinants of immigrant demand for citizenship. This dissertation examines both in turn. On the supply side, I first argue that citizenship policy in Europe results not simply from the influence of radical right parties, but from broader modes of party competition that provide electoral incentives to either liberalize or restrict access to citizenship. Using a new quantitative measurement of citizenship policies across sixteen European countries from 1970 to 2014, I reveal how left party competition is associated with more liberal citizenship policy change, while right party competition and radical right electoral threats engender more restrictive policies. I then utilize my citizenship policy index alongside other political, economic, and social variables on the demand side to examine the aggregate level structure under which citizenship acquisition occurs across European countries and across time. Finally, through a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence gathered on two federal countries in Europe, Germany and Austria, I show that these same aggregate level variables operating at the national level may also operate within them.