The Impact of the Far Right on Citizenship Policy in Europe: Explaining Continuity and Change

Abstract

Over the past decade, the empirical study of national citizenship policies has emerged as a fast-growing area of research. This article contributes to that literature by focusing on the question of continuity and change in the 11 ‘historically restrictive’ countries within the 15 ‘older’ member-states of the European Union. It explains why six of the countries have liberalised their citizenship policies since the 1980s, whereas five have not. The article develops an explanation that focuses on the politics of citizenship. The main finding is that, while citizenship liberalisation is more likely to occur with a leftist government, the most important factor is the relative strength of far-right parties, which can serve to mobilise latent anti-immigrant public opinion, and thereby ‘trump’ the pressures for liberalisation.

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