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In many Western countries, it has become standard to demand immigrants that earn their right to citizenship by coming to meet a set of citizenship requirements. Moreover, many European governments justify the citizenship requirements on the grounds of fairness, because they are not discriminatory and because the demands of the requirements are to immigrants' individual efforts. This trend invites exploration of whether this practice is justified. We argue that citizenship requirements are justified from a liberal viewpoint only if differentiated to adjust for factors that are unmoved by the individual exercise of responsibility but have a strong impact on the chances of fulfilling citizenship requirements – such as age, prior education, economic cycles, and ethnic discrimination. Upon this, we develop a differentiated model for fair citizenship requirements inspired by the typological work of John Roemer. The model allows for different degrees of demandingness but preserves respect for fairness in so far as it differentiates requirements on the background of age, education, economic cycles, and ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rising requirements for citizenship across Western Europe, Denmark is one of the restrictive 'leaders,' with tough rules for language ability, economic self-support, and a clean criminal record. But what do these restrictions mean for newcomers' ability to qualify, and how does this differ between different types of immigrants? Using register data on refugees and family migrants who immigrated to Denmark between 2001 and 2009, we show that tough language requirements exclude more people than self-support and crime rules, and many cannot qualify even after 13 years in the country. Across groups, education level at entry is the biggest predictor of whether and when newcomers qualify. These findings raise questions about the liberal nature of such requirements and about the future of democratic inclusion in Western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Discussions within political theory on naturalisation tend to focus on whether or not it is reasonable and fair to make naturalisation conditional on meeting integration requirements. Those who emphasise the right of long-term immigrants to be included as equal citizens argue that automatic naturalisation is preferable, while those who put emphasis on the state's legitimate interest in promoting the conditions for a reasonably just society tend to argue that conditional naturalisation is normatively preferable. However, most participating in this debate seem to agree that naturalisation rules must balance these different concerns. In this paper, we argue that the conflicting views on each side of the automatic-conditional divide can be reconciled by introducing the model of discounting-conditional naturalisation. We suggest that a practice in which integration requirements are gradually relaxed over time can in fact sufficiently accommodate those normative considerations that are in conflict under the current practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years scholars have observed a restrictive turn in West European immigrant integration policies towards conditioning access to permanent residence and citizenship on language proficiency, knowledge of history, institutions, culture and political values, national loyalty and labour market integration. This has been accompanied by a strong reaction among European politicians and publics emphasizing that newcomers must share in certain liberal-democratic values and virtues that characterize the national community. Yet, the influential scholar Christian Joppke argues, among others, that liberal values cannot define national particularity, nor can cultural integration be enforced because legislation and policies are legally and normatively constrained by the same liberal values. Hence, prevalent liberal conceptions of national identity are paradoxical and inconsequential for the formulation of public policies. This article critically examines this argument in detail. It argues that the paradox of universalism does not exist, and that therefore nationalism should not be dismissed as a central factor behind recent policy developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]