From indigène to entrepreneur immigrant: Racism in the era of neoliberalism

In the past two decades, there has been a shift to the so-called civic integration model across European countries along with the development of a European migration regime. This article explores the ramifications of the civic integration model as it is introduced in France, situating it within the long history of colonial racial mechanisms deployed to manage the colonized populations. I argue that characterized by an entanglement of bio-sovereign exception and neoliberal rationale, the civic integration model and the mandatory integration contract it introduces enact a novel racism that marks the immigrants as non-European and thus yet-to-be integrated subjects, all the while engaging them as prudent individuals of entrepreneurial quality who must ‘own’ and ‘improve’ their nature in return for legal residency. In order to make sense of why and how the immigrants themselves are engaged in the processes of racialization through a contractual relationship, I explore the ways the French state has contested the nature and population-ness of non-European subjects across history. Employing a genealogical perspective, I thus trace the birth of the entrepreneur immigrant of the current neoliberal context in the colonial mechanisms of racism that gave birth to the figures of indigène during colonial rule and Muslim French under colonial developmentalism of the postwar era.

Civic Engagement, Legal Status, and the Context of Reception: Participation in Voluntary Associations among Undocumented Immigrants in California

For undocumented immigrants, processes of integration are contingent on the qualities of their local context. A lack of legal status may require them to strategically manage their presence in order to avoid detection that could lead to deportation. The authors ask how the need to mask one’s legal status affects the civic integration of undocumented immigrants. Drawing primarily on data from the California Health Interview Survey, the authors estimate the probability of participation in voluntary associations for undocumented immigrants. They naturalized immigrants and find that undocumented immigrants exhibit a lower rate of participation but that this low rate of participation is unlikely the result of their legal status. The findings also show that undocumented immigrants are less likely to participate in voluntary associations if they live in counties where large shares of voters cast votes for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

Deserving citizenship in Germany and The Netherlands. Citizenship tests in liberal democracies

Between 2003 and 2008, Germany and the Netherlands have replaced informal interviews with local officials by formalised language and knowledge of society tests (‘citizenship tests’) to determine whether long-term resident immigrants have sufficiently integrated to become citizens. In this contribution, the questions of why the citizenship tests were introduced and of which effects these tests have produced in Germany and the Netherlands will be answered. By doing so, the author aims to contribute to answering the question of whether language and cultural requirements can be considered liberal, which, as has been claimed, remains an unresolved issue relating to civic integration policies. Scholars disagree on whether citizenship tests can be justified in the liberal model for citizenship. Liberal minimalists oppose the introduction of requirements barring permanent residents from full-fledged citizenship. Liberal nationalists think citizenship tests can be justified in case they encourage the acquisition of competences that play an important role in creating or sustaining a reasonably just society. The author concludes that proponents of introducing citizenship tests have indeed asserted that these tests are required for prospective citizens to be able to develop the competences that play an important role in creating or sustaining a reasonably just society. Far more important explanations for the introduction of citizenship tests can however be sought in the linking of naturalisation policy to integration policy, and in the desire to promote uniformity in the application of the language and integration requirement as a condition for naturalisation. As regards the effects produced by the tests, the author shows that the tests permanently exclude certain categories of immigrants from becoming full-fledged members of society. The conclusion can therefore be drawn that the citizenship tests applied by Germany and the Netherlands cannot be justified in the liberal model for citizenship.