From politics to impact: How citizenship really works
Summary
The European Union Democracy Observatory on Citizenship publishes Thomas Huddleston’s article investigating the question ‘Which indicators are most useful for comparing citizenship policies?’ from the perspective of the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX)
Description
Thomas Huddleston: From politics to impact: How citizenship really works
Since 2006, I have headed the research for the Migrant Integration Policy Index, for its second edition and recent third edition. As a comparative political scientist, I am most interested in MIPEX’s main research goal. This public and regularly updated database compares policies within countries, between countries and regions, and over time (2007, 2010…). As the methodology goes global, MIPEX expanded from EU Member States to Norway, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, and soon Japan, Australia, and others. The profiles for each country and each area identify specific policies, changes, trends, and effects of European standards. You can download the raw data and comments. You can also “play with the data” by generating your own bar charts, maps, scatterplots, radar graphs, and changing the scores. Our latest findings on Access to Nationality are summarised in this EUDO-Citizenship News Item.
I understand Thomas Janoski’s enthusiasm to find this forum of other scholars measuring citizenship policies and outcomes; “For many years,” he writes, “I left I was doing this type of data collection and research in a vacuum.” In my experience, that disconnect is precisely the problem with today’s work on evaluating integration or citizenship.
In my post, I will argue that it is simplest and most efficient for researchers to (1) use EUDO-Citizenship data and MIPEX policy indicators for their research questions; (2) dig into the details of rich data-sources; and (3) collaborate to link sociology of/for policy.
1. Re-inventing the wheel?
Marc Helbling’s first recommendation is that keeping policy indicators as simple as possible will keep your research efficient and cost-effective. My advice to other young researchers is slightly different; keep it simple, if you really insist on doing it yourself. Otherwise, how can you alone accurately assess policies in different time-periods, especially if you cover different countries? Still, when your project is over this year, what indicators will I use for mine in one year or two?
I propose a simpler alternative: use MIPEX for your own research purposes. Its public database is designed for you. The main goal of the MIPEX policy indicators is and will continue to be measuring policies. This is not the goal of most other researchers, who attempt to analyse policy determinants or policy outcomes.
As David Reichel notes, researchers aim to answer different research questions, for which they need different indicators. Based on your unique research question, you may want to undertake secondary analysis, for which you may want to cut, edit, or weight certain MIPEX indicators. You may also want to code additional policies, for which you may want to add and code a few indicators. For instance, the EUDO-Citizenship data could be used to refine the MIPEX indicators or expand them beyond Access to Nationality. MIPEX will provide new data points in the future. I am interested how other projects could expand this resource for greater longitudinal analysis going back to 2004 (the MIPEX pilot year) and beyond to 2000, 1990, 1980… The SOM project is piloting this retroactive assessment for 7 countries. If you want more ideas, check out MIPEX IN USE, where I am posting how researchers incorporate the tool into their original research.
These many uses of MIPEX are a more efficient, cost-effective, and credible alternative, especially when applying for competitive funding. Researchers can then focus limited resources and time on their original contribution to the literature. Marc’s reliability and consistency checks encourage us to better use each other’s work, rather than to keep re-inventing the wheel.
2. The beauty of comparison
MIPEX brings several other advantages to comparative quantitative researchers. First, comparative researchers contributed to designing the indicators, while the data was compiled and peer reviewed by national independent legal experts in various areas. Most belong to comparative legal research networks on integration, anti-discrimination, education, and citizenship, including EUDO-Citizenship. Their scores not only reflect the official policy documents, but their comments add insight, case-law and administrative practice. These experts know how the law works, changes, and adapts to international standards and trends. The results are more rich and just as robust and consistent.
Second, researchers who collaborate or expand on their individual area of expertise can compare between the seven areas of integration covered in MIPEX. Citizenship researchers may be unaware of the links between Access to Nationality and other integration policies. One assumption bandied about the integration literature is that political rights for foreigners are a poor substitute for facilitated naturalisation. MIPEX 2007 and 2010 observes no such trade-off. In our book of secondary analysis, our co-authors found that the countries that open to immigrants a clear naturalisation path and citizenship entitlements for their children born in country tend to open many political opportunities before naturalisation. Jacqueline Gehring explored another positive correlation between access to nationality and protections against nationality discrimination. Between dimensions within the same strand, countries that allow dual nationality are more likely to allow short residence requirements and birthright citizenship. Between dimensions in different strands, the many high conditions (language, income, fees) that immigrants traditionally had to meet for naturalisation are increasingly also being imposed for long-term residence and family reunion.
In the seven areas covered, MIPEX’s 148 indicators offer greater detail than most indices and indicators that measure the same concepts. Like EUDO-Citizenship, MIPEX serves many audiences from “number-crunchers” to more qualitative researchers, lawyers, and diverse stakeholders. Compared to comparative quantitative researchers, they want more information in order to start policy evaluations, public debates, campaigns, or mutual learning exercises like peer reviews. When we invited several to EU-level consultations about our proposed policy indicators, we heard rarely “No, fewer” and often “Yes, and more!”
I argue that quantitative researchers also benefit from this level of refinement in the MIPEX indicators and scores. If your policy indicators are two-options questions, you will miss the massive middle where most policy is made. The answer is rarely Yes/No or Either/Or. Look no further than the EUDO-Citizenship Acquisitions database to appreciate all the exceptions and exemptions, the conditions, combinations, and compromises. I have a running debate with a colleague about whether immigration and citizenship law IS complicated because it deals with human beings, or is MADE complicated because it deals with “foreigners.” Whoever wins that free beer, we agree that is indeed complicated. Any indicator must live with this complexity, so ours in MIPEX uses a three-options format that better captures the full range of policy options.
If your policy indicators stay simple, they may miss slow-moving changes and trends. You will obtain country rankings and distributions that may only capture major reforms. Between the limited period of 2007 and 2010, MIPEX found that the average EU country improved overall just 1-out-of-100 points. Few countries were able to invest in such reforms, especially in sensitive areas as Political Participation (only Greece) or Access to Nationality (Greece, Luxembourg, Slovakia, United Kingdom). Still, MIPEX registered small-scale shifts on several citizenship indicators in eight additional countries, as evidenced by this scatterplot.
Simpler indices would miss these changes. They may reflect major debates in the media and divisions in politics, since much policy capital can be spent on making minor changes. Small signals may likewise have significant effects on procedures and peoples’ attitudes and behaviours.
3. Policy as outcome and input
Duyvendak et al’s very relevant distinction between sociology of/for policy should, in my opinion, encourage us to better link the two together in research. I regularly come across both types, since sociology of/for integration policy intersect around MIPEX. For sociology of policy, MIPEX is the outcome. Researchers are often political sociologists and scientists who ask what factors influence how bills become laws. These political factors are the inputs that create outputs (new laws), which change the MIPEX score. For sociology for policy, MIPEX is an input. These sociologists focus on integration processes, where laws are but one factor among many. For example, MIPEX Access to Nationality scores represent one type of policy input that affects application, rejection, acquisition rates and ultimately the share of foreigners who acquired citizenship.
I argue that researchers should analyse MIPEX as both an outcome and an input, since citizenship laws are developed as part of the policy loop. Sociologists of policy who want to analyse the political factors driving policy change need to understand what are the measured vs. perceived effects of a policy. Integration-and, to some extent, access to nationality-is increasingly submitted to the logic of “evidence-based policymaking.” Policymakers choose to use and/or misuse data in order to justify their proposed changes. These contested evaluations and statistics make up today’s “politics of numbers” in immigration debates. Similarly, sociologists for policy who want to evaluate the implementation and outcomes of the policy need to understand what are the political factors. Political parties and discourse are increasingly important factors, as citizenship is politicised and frequently reformed. These factors can change how the current policy is implemented and used, even if the legislator ultimately does not change the letter of the law. They change other inputs like the allocation of funding and staff. They can affect administrative interpretation and rejection rates in Europe’s discretionary naturalisation procedures, especially where decisions are made by civil servants without judicial oversight or by local/regional authorities, parliaments and presidents. They can even affect application rates. Most people “learn” about policies through the public discourse, which can inform or misinform-encourage or discourage.
Conclusion
All these links call for collaboration. If everyone keeps creating and scoring their own indicators in isolation, then we will miss all the links between how citizenship policies are formulated, implemented, and affecting people’s lives. Where I sit between research and policymaking, I see many intersecting questions that have and will bring together citizenship lawyers, practitioners, political scientists and those sociologists of/for policy:
a) What are the opportunities and obstacles to reform in different national contexts?
b) What are the links between countries’ citizenship policies and their integration policies?
c) How can the implementation of citizenship policies be measured?
d) Why are immigrants naturalising? Why are they not?
e) To what extent are policies responsible for high/low/changing acquisition rates? Do changes to policy change these rates?
f) How much do different policies and factors (including political factors) affect citizenship acquisition, from individual’s characteristics to conditions in their country of residence and origin?
g) How does becoming a citizen improve an immigrant’s socioeconomic status, political participation, representation or sense of belonging?
As part of a joined-up approach, we need together to develop and analyse indicators of policy, politics, discourse, implementation, outcomes, and impact. Many of you are part of this debate: Maarten Vink on explaining citizenship status, David Reichel on measuring the determinants and consequences of citizenship acquisition, Ines Michalowski on citizenship tests, Marc Helbling on public debates, Pieter Bevelander and Don DeVoretz on the economics of citizenship. I hope to follow and contribute to greater collaboration on the state of law, practice and outcomes in a crucial area of immigrant integration.
For more articles on this question, click here, for EUDO Citizenship
