Rethinking processes of integration - Towards a revised form of social membership

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Rethinking processes of integration - Towards a

revised form of social membership

Name: Jinwen Omar Student number: 10019561 Supervisor: Robin Celikates Second reader: Yolande Jansen Date: 23-06-2018

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Introduction

Nations belonging to the Western world pride themselves on their self-proclaimed accomplishment of installing liberal democracies as the predominant political system in the world. Representatives chosen through democratic voting create policies under the influences of liberal political ideology. Through an election of multiple political parties and a separation of powers, free and equal participation is strived for. In liberal democracies, there is an equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people.

As a citizen of the Netherlands, one of the tiniest but wealthiest nations in Europe, I must admit that I am happy and lucky to have been born in such a liberal democracy. I experience the equal protection of all my rights, because as a citizen I am part of “all people”, it applies to. However, my sense of belonging in Dutch society can also feel conditional at times due to my complicated migratory background. This is most apparent whenever I am “not really considered Dutch” or whenever I am complemented on how well I speak Dutch. On these occasions, I am reminded that being entitled to my rights on the basis of my status as citizen does not automatically translate to being perceived as a “true” citizen, no matter how many times I reply that I am born here. These issues are minor, of course, in comparison to what other people with migratory backgrounds go through, from institutionalized racism and racial profiling to constant fear of deportation and denial of a “legal” life. To delve deeper into this issue, I would like to explore more inclusive processes of integration through different forms of membership.

A different form of membership opens up the opportunity towards a more inclusive form of integration. Current models of integration are exclusive, placing full accountability on individuals with migratory backgrounds to “earn” external recognition of membership. This phenomenon is to the extent that migrants nowadays have to act in a superhuman fashion in order to be regarded a members, such as the case of Mamadou Gasama, who scaled a building to save a child caught dangling from its banisters. After the incident, President Emanuel Macron awarded Gasama French citizenship. The direct granting of citizenship without an integration procedure is problematic because it promotes a competitive approach to obtaining citizenship where there should not be (Nourhussen, 2018).

In the first chapter of this thesis, I will discuss receiving Western liberal democracies, that pride themselves on their liberal values. I will argue that values such as inclusivity and equality are in contrast with, current integration policy. If integration policy remains necessary, I propose a liberal minimalist perspective when it comes to formulating integration policy. In the second chapter, I discuss the relevance of integration in a society with a liberal nationalist understanding of citizenship. I argue that the current understanding of nation-state dependent culturalized citizenship affects the understanding of integration from an individual one-sided level. I argue for a different conception of membership, with room for a more inclusive form of integration. In the final chapter, I move from theory to practice and discuss a case study on the Dutch integration policy, specifically in Amsterdam. I use this case study as an exemplification of a neoliberal process of individualized integration with a focus on acquiring nation-state dependent culturalized citizenship. In my concluding remarks, I will discuss why I deem other forms of membership as important for a more inclusive understanding of

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processes of belonging. Amsterdam is a good example for thinking about this new form of membership, because the city has been recognized as a future majority-minority city since 2011. Amsterdam’s status as a majority-minority city is not the sole reason to re-evaluate integration and membership conditions, but it provides a clear example that the ways integration and membership are currently conceived do not work sufficiently. To provide more context, only 49,7% of Amsterdam’s residents are of native Dutch origin, indicating that the majority population in Amsterdam consists of several minority groups (Crul, Schneider & Lelie, 2013: 12-14). Subaltern social spheres, therefore, have the opportunity to become part of native majority reality. Other forms of membership, as I will argue in this thesis, will thus create more opportunities for this mutual adaptation. Before proceeding, a caveat about the focus of this thesis is necessary. In this thesis I make a presumption of immigrated people regarding how they are legally admitted to stay in the receiving state they are residing in. Thus, the focus of this literature lies on integration processes and policies. Actual policy decisions are far more complex and there are many exceptions, whereas the aim of this thesis is to consider general principles as they apply to the integration of admitted immigrants. I will refer to them as people with a migratory background (PMBs). The abbreviation, on my account, refers to individuals who are not originally from the country where they are currently living, or who have ancestry from elsewhere1_. Consequently, this thesis will not provide an extensive counter answer on border policy by “liberal” democratic unities like Fort Europe, or a resettlement scheme for the more than 21 million refugees in the world. Also, to limit the scope of this thesis, I will not discuss the estimated number of 35.000 “illegal” or undocumented people that work and live in the Netherlands. I want to stress my awareness that these groups do contribute a fair share towards society, and that integration policies focused on them would benefit their position in society. However, this falls beyond the scope of my thesis, as my focus is on integration policies in liberal democratic states and how they influence PMBs that obtained a right to residency. A right to residency is made available to several groups, and in this thesis I will discuss: People who are in the process of their civic integration (status holders, applicants for naturalisation), settled first generation migrants and their descendants coming from former colonized countries, and former first generation labour migrants and their descendants (De Waal, 2017: 21).

This thesis is centered around the following main concepts: Integration, liberal democratic values, citizenship, (conditional) belonging, and social membership. For discussion of these concepts, I delved into the works of several authors such as: de Waal (2017), Carens (2015), Bauböck (1995; 2007) and Duyvendak, Geschiere & Tonkens (2016). I analysed how their ideas overlapped and contributed to the formation of these concepts. Furthermore, I read what other philosophers like Miller (2016) had to say, and counter argue these topics. Also, I moved beyond literature, especially when discussing the case study. I took ideas from a documentary: “Een vreemde wereld” directed by

1_{In the end, almost everyone has ancestry from elsewhere. In the Netherlands, for example, according to}

Wekker (2016, 6), people have ties to a migratory background, which can go a long way back. The Netherlands is a nation of (descendants of) migrants from Spanish and Portuguese Jews. When I talk about people with a migrant background in this thesis I do not talk about the “native” majority community who can have ancestry from elsewhere. I talk about people with a more recent migratory background.

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Julia von Graevenitz (2018) about integration policy in the Netherlands. I interviewed Graevenitz, to learn more about the insights she obtained regarding Dutch integration policy from filming the documentary. Lastly, I made use of several policy documents provided by the municipality of Amsterdam on their new integration policy. From these resources, I look at the way integration policy can be rethought through a different understanding of membership in liberal democracies, with a case study on the Dutch integration policy in the municipality of Amsterdam as a prime example.

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Chapter 1: Inclusive ethics of integration in liberal democracies

Topics such as immigration, citizenship, and integration are normally considered political issues. Therefore, it is up to the power of state sovereignty to decide on these political issues. States are free to construct their own policies, for example on integration. As a consequence, the criteria for the number of immigrants and the choice for certain immigrants differ per country. The manners in which these people go through integration processes in these countries varies. Carens (2013: 6) characterizes this political framework as misguided; he views these topics as part of a moral discussion as much as a political one. Carens’ work, The Ethics of Immigration, separates the two discussions. The political discussion scrutinises who ought to have the authority to determine a policy, whereas the moral discussion discusses whether a given policy is morally justifiable. In this thesis, I will mainly focus on this moral discussion.

In this chapter, I will write on the topic of integration as a moral discussion in a descriptive and normative sense. First, I will go into the concept of integration in liberal democracies in the Western World. Next, I will turn to liberal democratic core values that affect integration policies. To conclude this first chapter, I will show why some liberal democratic values are in contrast with the current understanding of integration. I will argue for a more inclusive ethics of integration, which will be more coherent with the liberal democratic values adhered to in liberal democracies.

By navigating through this moral discussion, I aim to show that the current understanding of integration is excluding. Integration as is currently understood stands in contrast with values important to liberal democracies. Showing this provides context for my argument in advocating for a more inclusive ethics of integration on the basis of a liberal minimalist perspective. This perspective is strongly present in the work of Carens (2013), and I have actively incorporated his work into research for this thesis. I argue that it is important to think of another social structure through the concept of an inclusive form of integration, since society as structured currently is problematic. A large group of PMBs is structurally and symbolically pushed to the margins of society, or, even, never considered as part of society. The aim of integration is to become successfully part of society, but what if this aim is not attainable with the current understanding of integration. In the following sections, I will formulate an answer to these questions and statements.

1.1. On integration

The notion of integration came into existence in the Western world with one of the first founders of modern sociology; Emile Durkheim, in 1892 with his book called The Division of Labour in Society. The concept of integration has since then changed, a conceptual shift from societal integration to individual integration. Integration used to be a notion that was applicable to collectives. Specifically, this meant that integration entailed a societal duty to maintain social cohesion by keeping individual entities connected to the collective whole through social networks. This rested on the assumption that societies where like a unity. Within this unity there would be constant reciprocal processes between individuals and subgroups through collective socialization. The state was at the centre of these processes, orchestrating a holistic perspective on integration (de Waal, 2017: 41).

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Opposite of the notion of societal integration were concepts such as: Segregation between groups, individual alienation from society, and social distances. These concepts did not exclusively concern non-integrated immigrants, being applicable to many marginalized groups. Exclusion and inclusion could happen on many different levels, in other words: Being excluded from the majority because of certain dispositions but included because of other assets (de Waal, 2017: 42). This idea can be exemplified through a look at changing roles of domestic work and altered divisions of gendered labour. There can be different experiences of in and exclusion for white career women and female housekeepers with a migratory background. Moreover, these mechanisms of in and exclusion can influence other axes that further constitute social structures (Bürkner, 2012: 186). This type of research is also known as intersectional research where researchers look at different axes and their interactions with one another in creating societal structures (Crenshaw, 1991: 1245). Disintegration from an intersectional angle could cause a negative influence on the social cohesion. From a societal perspective, integration could only be achieved on a collective level. In this line of thought, one would talk about the Dutch society as an integrated or disintegrated society (de Waal, 2017: 43).

Today, the notion of integration has shifted towards an individual’s achievement. An individual with a migratory background can be well-integrated or disintegrated within Dutch society. This understanding of individual integration is paradoxical. Schinkel (2008: 41) remarks upon the presence of this individualized integration in current policy. At the same time, he notices that this individualising shift is similarly a deindividualized move. The failure to integrate is the fault of individual Y, yet in spite of this, the failure of individual Y is causally linked to cultural attributes which belong to his placement in a group; for example, group Z. The responsibility to integrate, which is individualised, is similarly deindividualized to the level of the bigger group. Even if large groups immigrate in one big influx, integration at group level still implies integration as an attainment of individual membership through a process of learning and adapting (Bauböck, 1995: 9).

The current conception of integration is thus centred around something done by an individual, and not on a societal collective level. The conceptual shift towards individualized integration brought along the notion of belonging of the “Other”, which I will discuss further in chapter 2. Integration became a criterion to assess whether immigrated individuals belonged in the new society in which they resided (de Waal, 2017: 47). From this individual perspective, integration can only be achieved by the efforts of the PMBs. According to Miller (2016: 134), some authors argue that disintegration problems are caused by the unwillingness to integrate on the part of the immigrant groups. Moreover, a disintegrated diaspora of migrants will pull stronger on new immigrants coming in, making immigration rates go up. Miller argues that PMBs should steer away from their ethnic surrounding and fuse with majority in order to find success in the target society. Success in society is thus seen as a consequence of fruitful assimilation and is also an individual achievement. Ersanilli and Koopmans (2011: 218) state that disintegration has to do with the retention of PMBs towards their ethnic and religious customs, such as wearing a headscarf, participating in the Ramadan, or eating Halal food. The lack of these customs incorporated in individual lives is viewed as an indicator of successful integration2._{The individual integration approach is in great contrast with} the societal integration approach. From the societal perspective, it does not tell much about the level

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of integration when looking at individual customs. It would be more informative to inquire whether these immigrant specific customs influence social mechanisms, which contributes to interaction between individuals and groups to promote social cohesion (de Waal, 2017: 44).

The conceptual shift towards individualized integration has also brought along different forms of integration. According to Miller (2016: 132), there are three forms of integration: Social integration, civic integration, and cultural integration. Firstly, “social integration” is closely linked to the concept of societal integration as proposed by Durkheim. However, it still differs in integration outcome since the starting point is individualized integration. People who live somewhere can be socially integrated if they interact with one another across a range of different social contexts such as school, work, or sport clubs. When it comes to “social integration”, efforts are left entirely up to the immigrated individual, who has to befriend others through means such as communicating with other people outside their own ethnicity in school or work in places where the native majority is present. Secondly, the conceptualisation of “civic integration” concerns people who have come to share a set of principles and norms that guide them through their social and political decisions. It does not mean that there should only be one form of thought. There should be a collective sense of some general principles, which belong to most liberal democracies. Lastly, Miller discusses “cultural integration,” which concerns sharing a common culture with similar values and experiences. Defenders of multiculturalism contest this last form of integration, since it shows a very obvious form of adjusting to the majorities’ culture in order to integrate.

Every form of integration has an effect on the existing systems of society and integration lays bare a desired social order. Bauböck (1995: 10) argues that a negative connotation for the concept of integration would be systems that change and have negative consequences as a direct result, for instance the rise of internationally organized crime because of the opening up of EU borders. A positive connotation for the concept of integration in his argument is that existing systems of society do not change with the entry of new individuals because they are fully able to adapt. In contrast, I would argue that the entry of new individuals changes existing system nonetheless, which can have positive effects on an inclusive society. I will discuss this more in depth in Chapter 2. According to Carens (2013: 69), it is possible to change existing systems positively with the entry of new individuals because the existing system is able to adapt and include some of the necessary changes. As an example, he mentions organizations that decide to serve some Halal options for their Islamic co-workers. Bauböck (1995: 12) would prefer a more neutral term such as insertion instead of integration. He describes insertion as a process of entry or extension by a new entity into an existing system, where there is room for change because of this insertion. When it comes to word choice, I view Carens (2013: 71) argument as convincing if we uphold an inclusive society.

In the political sphere, “integration” might be seen as a value-free term. Every subject that decides to immigrate to another country than the country where they were born should integrate.

2_{In the Dutch context specifically, but in the Western world in general the fear for Islamisation translates in}

integration policy. As will become visible in section 3.1, and also is visible in this example of retention towards ethnic and religious customs.

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The matter of integration can differ per country, depending on the policies, but integration is necessary for every immigrated subject. In a moral discussion on integration, one could argue that the necessity to integrate does not apply to every subject that immigrates. In reality, however, integration, according to Bauböck (1995: 7), applies to people who are considered aliens instead of citizens. He gives the example of ethnic Germans that immigrated from elsewhere to Germany, who are easily considered citizens and therefore are faced with different effects of certain integration policies. In contrast, ethnic Turkish people immigrating to Germany would face much harder consequences of integration policies, which is based on their alienness. A similar distinction can be made between majority and minority groups. Descendants of immigrant parents are often considered as belonging to the same ethnic group as their parents. For these descendants, integration can still be considered necessary even though in a political or legal sense they might be recognized as citizens living here for several generations. As they are part of an ethnic minority group, the expectations for integration are different than with people fitting in the ethnic/ “native” majority. Ethnic refers to the internal cohesion of a group and their sense of a collective identity (Bauböck, 1995: 8). Beyond ethnicity there is recognition on a group level of dividing groups into majorities and minorities. The concept of skin colour works together with ethnic attributes and certain cultural beliefs that create these majorities and minorities. In Europe, there is a cluster of different ethnic groups that are considered as belonging to the majority because they are Western white Europeans (Wekker, 2016: 7). Everybody not belonging to this majority is expected to individually integrate in receiving liberal democratic states in the Western world. These are the descendants of people from ex-colonized countries3_{, guest workers and their} descendants, and, more recently, people arriving as labour workers and refugees. The latter group is also classified as status holders.

1.2 Liberal democracies and its core values

In section 1.1, I discussed the concept of integration, and clarified the shift from societal integration to individualized integration. In this section, I will discuss receiving liberal democratic states in the Western world. Also, I will examine the core values on which liberal democracies are constituted. I aim to clarify that there are certain core values which are essential to liberal democracies. This will help build my argument at the end of this section and in Section 1.3, where I go into the contrast of liberal democratic values and integration policy.

3_{Within groups coming from ex-colonized countries in the Dutch context, there is a difference between people}

coming from the former Dutch-East Indies and people coming from former colonies in the West such as Suriname. Official documentation by the Dutch government describe Indonesian people as western immigrants and Surinamese people are described as non-western immigrants. “Western” in this context implies belonging to a more Western European standard, further insinuating that those with this status are more capable of functioning in Western culture (Bosma, 2012, 200). The Dutch government does not elaborate on why this distinction is made. They simply explain that, due to their social-economic status and their social-cultural position from having been born in the former Dutch-East Indies, Indonesians are perceived as western immigrants

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https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/onze-diensten/methoden/begrippen?tab=n#id=niet-westerse-allochtoon-Firstly, I will turn to descriptives of the concept of liberal democratic states, which is a concept that is recognized in many countries around the world. Some of these democratic states are more liberal than others. Furthermore, some policies within liberal democratic states can be quite illiberal, as will be clarified later on. For now, when I discuss liberal democratic states, I speak of receiving liberal democratic states in the Western world, mainly the European Union, and specifically the Netherlands in Chapter 3.

A liberal democracy is based on the acknowledgement of individuals’ rights and freedoms: Equal protection of human rights, civil rights, political freedoms, and political rights to participate for everyone. Representatives who are chosen by society make decisions. This means there is a guarantee for democratic electoral government. Furthermore, representatives are horizontally accountable; there is an account-giving relationship between the representatives and society for the actions and decisions they make (Merkel, 2004: 36).

It is important to accentuate that I do not adopt a specific conception of liberalism when I write about liberal democracies in general. My argument follows that of de Waal (2017: 17); her argument is grounded in the core values of the European Union, specifically on values such as human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including those of minorities. Also, liberal democratic states are known for pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity, and gender equality. In liberal democracies, it is assumed that the norms and skills of citizens are not inherent, but must be learned, socialized and practiced. Citizens have an obligation of justice towards each other. They also have a basic responsibility to partake in society. Liberal democracies can be distinguished from illiberal and undemocratic states because of the inclusiveness they promote. It involves being inclusive towards people from different kinds of ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. Ideally, this inclusiveness does not require people to revise their personal convictions.

Authors like de Waal (2017: 71) conclude that some of the core values and principles of liberal democratic states do not translate to current integration and citizenship practices and policies (Carens, 2015: 2; Hampshire, 2011: 954; Triadafilopoulos, 2011: 863). Some of these authors even go so far as to say that liberal democratic principles and values greatly constrain the answers and solutions we offer when it comes to immigration and integration issues. Consequently, to operationalize these liberal democratic principles and values, it is of value to think of criteria that fairly establish when an immigrant is significantly affected by these liberal democratic values and principles that clash with illiberal policies. An example where we can see that immigrants are significantly affected can be found in an counterargument against Carens’ understanding of adaptation. Carens (2015: 3) argues that no liberal democrat today would think it morally acceptable to force someone to convert their personal convictions. I would contest otherwise, as illustrated by the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, policewomen are not allowed to wear a hijab (veil). If they want to practice their job, they have to convert their personal conviction when it comes to headcovers (Smit, 2017). This example shows what most authors discussed in this section will point towards. They consider themselves liberal democrats, yet such convictions do not prevent their sentiments that current illiberal integration policies clash with some of their core liberal democratic values and ideals. I will discuss this clashing of liberal values and principles with illiberal policies in the following section.

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1.3 The contrast between liberal values and integration policy

In the previous section, I discussed the concept of receiving liberal democratic states in the Western world and some essential liberal democratic values. I will now elaborate on why some of these liberal democratic core values are in contrast with the current form of integration, which is excluding and individualized. Firstly, my argument will layout several authors’ arguments that expose the excluding tendencies of liberal democratic values. Secondly, I go into arguments that can be classified as liberal minimalist, which I adhere to in this discussion. Thirdly, I will counter argue from a more liberal nationalist perspective. I will then showcase why liberal answers and its neoliberal solutions constrain integration policy. Despite my hesitation towards certain strands of liberalism, I will conclude with an argument for more liberal minimalist interventions. I position myself within a liberal minimalist framework, as I find this most compelling within the context of an inclusive ethics of integration.

Adamson et al., (2011: 845) argue that, despite the inclusive and pluralistic values liberal democracies uphold, several illiberal events suggest the need to re-evaluate some of these assumptions about liberal democracies. Furthermore, traditional liberal values that were said to create open migration and integration policies are increasingly deemed to be deployed as boundary-markers. Some liberal democratic values are thus used in an exclusionary fashion instead of an inclusive and pluralistic one. This shift towards excluding and boundary-marking migration and integration policies is in contradiction with policies made in the post-WWII period, which emphasized the opening up of liberal states to previously excluded groups.

Adamson et al., (2011:845) ask how we should understand this shift, by which they give several reasons from different authors: A reaction to security threats, an extension of hostile approaches to migratory movements from the 80s onwards, a populist turn in liberal democratic states, and a symbolical meaning towards a notion of ‘civilizational’ identities of which liberalism has become a key precept.

I argue that there is also a more historical understanding present: Inherent to the history of liberalism is an exclusionary tendency, which still affects certain understandings of liberalism in the present day. When looking for examples of one of the core shaping periods of the Western world, colonial history, one can see these excluding and harshly violent mechanisms arising in the same light as enlightenment and liberalism (Wekker, 2016: 21; Dhawan, 2014: 37). Even though liberalism has historically been complicit with violent mechanisms such as patriarchy and white supremacy, this complicity should be viewed as a contingent function of the majorities’ interests rather than the result of the inherent logic of liberal values (Mills, 2017:10). Liberalism should be able to escape the burdens of its violent imperial past and be recognized as a broad concept with many different variations. Although some values are consistent within all varieties of liberalism, it does not mean that these core values are intrinsically flawed (Bell, 2016: 29).

According to Hampshire (2011: 953) the theoretical debate on immigration and integration policies is split between two liberal positions: Liberal nationalism and liberal minimalism. In the following section, I argue that the liberal nationalist position is quite illiberal in the answers it offers for integration policy. I argue for the liberal minimalist position as a way of retrieving a specific strand of liberalism for a more inclusive agenda. As will become clear from the following section, there is

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some overlap between the two positions, because they are variations of the same ideology. In many ways, they are also different which is what I will move to now (Mills, 2017, 12).

Liberal nationalists like Miller (2016: 7) argue that state sovereignty is rule. Furthermore, liberal democratic states should foster national identity and encourage assimilated equal citizenship. On the contrary, liberal minimalists like Carens (2013: 55) argue that access to citizenship should be made easy and integration policies should not be too demanding on the grounds of liberal democratic values. The exclusionary tendencies that are present in liberal thinking manifest in contemporary immigration and integration policies. These exclusionary tendencies are present in language and citizenship tests for PMBs, and the lack of societal integration from the side of the majority. He objects language and citizenship tests on the grounds that all long-term residents should acquire citizenship after a while because they have engaged in society for a certain amount of time. This is part of his theory on social membership, which I will elaborate on in Chapter 2. He argues that political and societal knowledge are complex and multi-faceted and cannot be acquired through learning and passing a test. Also, it is disputed on what grounds certain information appears in these types of tests. Nationhood from Carens’ perspective is a mosaic of many different influences, which is why it is difficult to capture the essence of a nation in a few questions; these are questions native people often would not even know the answer to. Tests, from his point of view, can be classified as required illiberal tools to integration.

To counter these illiberal policies, Carens (2013: 80) draws a distinction between requirements, expectations, and aspirations for PMBs. He argues that social integration is part of an aspiration for PMBs, which can be fostered through making space for several personal convictions and creating positive incentives for PMBs. If social integration were to become a requirement or expectation, it would interfere unjustifiably with personal liberty. Carens argues that a system of incentives would be much more liberal. He views it as part of the tasks of a liberal democracy to create positive incentives for their inhabitants and diminish as much negative incentives as possible. Incentives for Carens include interests and informal norms. Incentives are inherently contingent because they are not obligatory but are responded to, as it can be in one’s interest to do so. He gives the example of a positive incentive: Learning the language of the country one is residing in not through tests but through the following of one’s own interest to aspire for social contact. A negative incentive in his view would be that PMBs encounter discrimination and hostility in society and therefore cluster together in migratory enclaves4_{. According to Carens, these negative incentives are} not in line with liberal democratic values of inclusiveness. Most incentives emerge spontaneously; still public policies can affect the incentives people face, which is also true for integration policies.

4_{Clustering together in subaltern social spheres, is not necessarily a consequence of a negative incentive. It}

can come out of values of belonging and recognition. It can become a negative incentive due to discrimination from the native majority society and even from excluding state intervention. In the 70s for example when a huge influx of people came from the former colony of Suriname to the Netherlands, they were instructed by the government to move to the Bijlmer: https://decorrespondent.nl/7450/niet-voor-surinamers-amsterdam-sloot-complete-wijken-voor-niet-witte-nederlanders/2291570226550-8670cd01

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Furthermore, Carens (2013: 79) argues that one of the key precepts of equal citizenship is to live and let live, which is a general principle most people in liberal democratic states would agree with for themselves. It entails treating one another’s personal convictions respectfully and accepting that there are differences. He gives the example of people who read Nietzsche and adhere to his ideas: Nietzsche was not a democrat, but these readers are entitled to maintain their democratic rights. The same holds for certain religious beliefs, which sometimes do not collide with liberal democratic thought, but should not dictate that somebody loses their democratic rights. The commitment to individual freedom and personal choice in liberal democratic states does not reconcile with the requirement for newcomers to personally endorse liberal democratic values. In this light it would only be required if PMBs have knowledge of these liberal democratic values and abide by the law (de Waal, 2017: 126).

Additionally, Carens (2013: 83) argues that many practices under the banner of integration are not compatible with the democratic ethos one should uphold in a liberal democratic society. He argues that in such a society there should be positive room for practices of recognition of certain groups. Negative effects of these could be stereotyping or result in policies like the banning of certain swimwear for Muslim women at the beaches of France. He contends that anyone who upholds democratic principles would not openly challenge a general principle of non-discrimination. Unfortunately, a lot of these tendencies have gone underground and still operate to create social disadvantages. To exemplify, I will draw on a recent research in the Netherlands. Here, a study has been conducted with employment agencies to research whether these agencies would be open to comply with a request to exclude people with a migratory background. 47% of the agencies that were researched complied with this request (Radar Avrotros, 2018). Moreover, Carens (2013: 67) argues that developing effective policy against discrimination is most effective at transforming attitudes of inclusion of migrants; which would be more than just legal rules. There should be other policies working with these legal rules to create an equal playing field for people with a migratory background. According to Carens, this is something that should be expected from a liberal democratic state if the state wants to take their own liberal values seriously. He stresses that this equal playing field is not yet reached, and therefore being subject to the same rules does not have an outcome of equality. One of the principles that Carens upholds is that all involved parties should in all reasonableness have the ability to adjust. This is a liberal democratic obligation following liberal democratic values.

Authors writing from a liberal nationalist perspective argue for the same inclusive and pluralist values of liberal democratic states, but their reference point is the nation. They view it as an essential part of a functioning liberal democratic state if there is a prevalent national identity, and enforce this national identity to motivate citizens to recognize each other as belonging to society. This belonging is defined through recognition in a unified history and intergenerationality. Liberal nationalist thinkers argue that states are permitted to cultivate forms of nationhood, with the goal of creating solidarity and stability. Within this perspective, one of the key precepts is that the promoted national identity is thin and backed by the principles and values of a liberal democracy. To put it differently, there should be room for inclusiveness and a plural formative understanding of membership where it should be possible to maintain one’s own personal conceptions (de Waal, 2017: 81). Also,

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Miller (2016: 138) argues that it is not troublesome to use state sovereignty and democratic self-determination as necessary tools to formulate fundamental policies that form a democratic nation. He contends that language and citizenship tests, and other demanding integration policies can still lead to solidarity and growth towards social mobility because they can foster national identity. From a liberal nationalists’ perspective, norms and values are not inherent to democratic citizens, and therefore must be learned through socialization. This process of socialization helps citizens to feel a responsibility towards each other and thus create equal participation. The state acting from its sovereign position, therefore, is permitted to educate newly belonging citizens. This education can be done through enactment of integration requirements such as demanding citizenship tests. Within the liberal nationalist movement, there are still different opinions on how demanding these tests should be. Will Kymlicka, for example, defends a relatively easy access to citizenship after a few years of residing in one place, with minimal testing on the national language and general knowledge of history and social institutions (de Waal, 2017: 251). Comparatively, from a liberal nationalist perspective, authors like Miller (2016: 139) understand that demanding civic integration tests can be in contrast with liberal principles and values. Despite this, he argues that, because of these type of integration policies, PMBs become equipped with certain skills that are required to live in a society and create equality. Therefore, he upholds the view that civic integration tests should be mandatory and also necessary in order to foster a successful national identity. Moreover, he adds citizens should feel proud of their acquired citizenship, as national pride fosters national identity. Citizenship tests are to provide an incentive for future citizens to learn something about the political system that governs them and understand some basic knowledge on national historic events, figures and symbols. Furthermore, it is to showcase the nations values, which from a liberal perspective is not something they have to agree on, but it nevertheless compels future citizens to have a basic idea of these values.

Miller (2016: 135) also points out that social integration is necessary because it is connected to social justice; the opportunities that are provided once somebody is integrated are significantly greater than if they stayed in their own ethnically homogenous circles. He questions whether states can make it obligatory to socially integrate. He believes it is not necessary to make it obligatory, because there are indirect ways to encourage integration. Despite this, he does not condemn instances where integration has been made obligatory through integration contracts, for example, such as in the Netherlands. Millers’ argument is thus in many ways diametrically opposed to the liberal minimalist perspective Carens upholds. Despite their shared preference for an inclusive and pluralist society, I argue that the way they envision this society to come into being differs, because they position the importance of the nation differently. I argue that liberal minimalism can offer more inclusive possibilities to the understanding of integration; the way the state is currently operating is tied to the preferences of liberal nationalists. Nationhood, at least in the Netherlands, is being enforced through demanding civic integration tests and contracts.

Integration contracts in their current form are a form of neoliberal governance. Liberal democratic states evolved their form of rule in the 20th_{century to deeply entrenched forms of} governance in different spheres of life. The political individual manifested itself through the free

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exercise of personal choice and responsibility. Governance programmes were evaluated on the criteria of increasing personal choice, responsibility, self-management, and self-fulfilment. Current immigration and integration policies were not exempted from these governance tactics. Liberal rule has thus rendered itself operable. “To govern” meant to acquire knowledge combined with neutrality and efficacy. It is operationalized through different apparatuses of public and private organisations, politics, the market, state and civil society, and, most of all, experts, managers, bureaucrats, civil servants, professionals, and individuals themselves. Governance in liberal societies was not a process of a central state extending its strategy of rule throughout society. It was an invention by intricate systems of “rules for rule.” This shaped the state into a centre that could programme, guide, and direct events and persons from a distance. Individuals are to be governed through society, which means acting upon them in relation to a social norm and to create a division between the civilized members of society and those who lack the capacities to exercise their form of citizenship responsibly (Miller & Rose, 2008: 51). This is the case with integration as well: Through social norms and standards, evaluated with tests, one gets to see who is a civilized member of society and who is not. The experiences and evaluations of these individuals came to be in a social form. This is true for people who are currently trying to integrate in Dutch society through the form of integration contracts, which I will elaborate further on in Chapter 3. These neoliberal ways in which integration policies manifest themselves are not to say that our freedom in liberal democratic states is fictitious. The polemical relation between liberty and government is an intrinsic part of what we have come to know as freedom in liberal democratic societies.

Despite these neoliberal solutions and the limited scope on freedom in liberal democratic states, I would still like to argue for liberal minimalist interventions in light of an inclusive ethics of integration. I do not hold liberal nationalism as a compelling perspective because the way liberal nationalist principles are executed stands in contrast to an inclusive and plural formative understanding of nationhood and integration (Tebble, 2006: 479). My argument rests on Carens’ (2013: 86) perspective. He disputes the argument that real nation holders should have several generations of people living within a nation. He views this as a hierarchical system, which is left over from the feudal era. He argues that this sort of national identity is incompatible with a liberal democratic ethos. National identity should not be tied to race or ethnicity, because people cannot change this fact. Given the current trends of globalisation, it would be too narrow-minded to say that only certain people with a certain ethnic background belong in a country because they have lived there for so many generations. One of the challenges within liberal democratic states is that their inclusive and open attitudes have a tendency to foster transnational bonds, which are in paradoxical relationships with boundary making policies. The evolving openness of liberal states, especially in blocs like the European Union has allowed for the development of transnational bonds. These transnational identities may be formed on the basis of nationality, religion, ideology, culture, political views, or a combination of these, which can transcend the physical boundaries of a state. The challenge for liberal democratic states is to reconcile liberal principles of openness and inclusion with an inclusive form of integration (Adamson et al., 2011: 848). According to Bauböck (1995: 12) integration is not a unilateral acceptance of the values and beliefs of the receiving state on the part of the PMBs, but a

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mutual adaptation. In liberal democracies where pluralism is one of the key precepts, there is room for this adaptation. This is not a mutual adaptation with a reached equilibrium but it is a constant negotiating of different forms of citizenship, which transcend the existing national forms of citizenship. According to Kymlicka (2018: 85), a defender of liberal multiculturalism, immigration, and integration is a process of cultural transformation that is as much about the PMB as it is about the state who needs to adapt accordingly.

Some last remarks before the end of this first chapter: I am concerned that within contemporary liberal democratic states there are very strong tendencies towards neoliberal solutions for integration challenges. These solutions are made operable and have a goal to govern citizens from a distance into responsible self-governing beings. I wonder whether the neoliberal solutions now on offer are what is best suited to obtain the goals of both Miller and Carens when it comes to integration. Easy operable solutions like a civic integration test say little about the moments after the PMB passes that test. On one hand, I argue that integration challenges should be handled from a liberal minimalist perspective. Still, this is with a focus on personal liberty, which, if carried on too far, becomes personal governance in a neoliberal sense. On the other hand, I would like for integration challenges to be handled from a state interventionist perspective without becoming nationalistic. I will discuss this precarious balance further in Chapter 3. Furthermore, I would like to add that even though it is not within the scope of this thesis, I agree with Carens (2013: 227) that the case for open borders would make it a lot easier to handle certain challenges such as illegality of people and the acceptance and integration of immigrants as citizens. I believe that the case for open borders can help counter neoliberal solutions being implemented along the imaginary borders of Europe as a fort where immigrants should stay far away from. It has made governing at a distance so “successful” that European immigration policy has placed state agents all the way across the African border to keep people from trying to cross the Mediterranean sea.

To summarize my arguments in this first chapter, I follow Carens’ perspective (2013: 291) and apply a liberal minimalist perspective to advocate for easy access to citizenship in liberal democratic states that value inclusive ethics of integration. Demanding civic integration tests and integration contracts should not be required, or even not be implemented at all, whereas plural formative understandings of nationhood should be adopted. Furthermore, integration should be a process of aspirations instead of requirements and expectations. Ideally, there should be a shift towards societal integration through integration programs that offer positive incentives for PMBs as integration should not solely be the responsibility of the PMB. An inclusive ethics of integration in liberal democracies should be re-interpreted as: The ethics of an inclusively integrated liberal democratic state.

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Chapter 2: From Citizenship to a Theory of Social Membership

In the previous chapter, I discussed the concept of integration in receiving liberal democracies in the Western world. I showed that the contemporary concept of individualized integration is not in line with liberal democratic values such as inclusivity and equality. I concluded the chapter by arguing for a liberal minimalist perspective when it comes to integration policy. A liberal minimalist perspective offers a starting point for an inclusive ethics of integration. Nevertheless, it remains insufficient to merely change integration policy to a more liberal minimalist form of integration, since the aim of integration is to become a member of society. The current form of attainable membership is membership on the basis of nation-state dependent culturalized citizenship. Current approaches towards membership are thus shaped by a liberal nationalist perspective with origins in the Enlightenment period, which leads to a restricted understanding of citizenship.

In this chapter, I will argue why this understanding of citizenship is not fruitful for thinking of an inclusive ethics of integration. I will proceed to show this through arguments in four steps. First, I will discuss what the concept of citizenship entails. I argue that citizenship is currently viewed as something fixed and culturalized. With this understanding of citizenship, I argue why these ideas can be viewed from a liberal nationalist perspective. Secondly, I will detail why this understanding of citizenship has an excluding tendency by highlighting the dichotomy of the majority and minorities in society and critiquing its perceived stability. Thirdly, I will expand upon the construct of this dichotomy by analysing the conditional belonging of minorities. Lastly, I present the theory of social membership by Carens (2013: 159) as a solution, and possibly a replacement to the nationalistic conception of citizenship. In conclusion to this second chapter, I argue that the theory of social membership creates a more-developed starting point to think of an inclusive ethics of integration.

In a legal and political sense, there are many different forms of citizenship, such as birth right citizens, dual citizens, returning citizens, and naturalised immigrants who have turned citizens (Bauböck, 1995: 25-26). My definition of citizenship here is on a more conceptual level instead of legal labels. This conceptual understanding was first understood as citizenship belonging to the nation-state, and gradually shifted to the culturalization of citizenship. When I argue for a modification of citizenship towards social membership, I do not go into the legal details on how to obtain this type of membership. I merely try to rethink the way citizenship is imagined in public discourses that then shape laws and policies.

2.1 Citizenship as Fixed Entity

In this first section, I will discuss the concept of citizenship as it originated within Enlightenment thought, which stressed the correlation between nationality and citizen rights and obligation. I will also examine the conversion towards a culturalization of citizenship. These conceptualisations of citizenship are essential to discuss in this thesis because they shape the way the modern world is organized and influence the ideas that drive integration policy. The current world order is shaped by political modernity, with its ideas of citizenship, nation-states, state sovereignty, and democracy. These ideas are an all-encompassing legacy that has seeped through most states, institutions and policies in the postcolonial world today. These ideas are a legacy of Enlightenment thought according

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to Chakrabarty (2000: 4). Mills (2015: 9) develops a similar argument when he writes that modern international relations have imperial and colonial roots. He argues that the history of modern international relations is widely accepted to be rooted in the European state system as it was formed after the Peace of Westphalia. Political institutions and norms of liberal democracy and sovereignty emerged in the centuries after Westphalia. What is often ignored is that this same period saw the rise of colonialism, imperialism, and global political economy. The rise of these brought about: European expansion, slave trade, and formal colonial occupation and rule of most of the world. Mills sees these different forms of political and international interactions occurring in the same time, not as coincidental isolated events but as interconnected and constitutive of the modern world order. If these arguments are convincing, it can be argued that ideas of humanity and citizenship, which were formulated around these times, have similar colonial and imperial roots, as a legacy of the Enlightenment period. Maldonado-Torres (2016: 11) argues that in the early modern world, a form of massacre and systematic dehumanization is what divided the world populations along fabricated degrees of being human. The demographic and metaphysical catastrophe that was a consequence of this divide continued in the colonisation of most of the world by the West up till this day, as will become visible from the following quote:

“The metaphysical catastrophe creates a profound scission in the concept of humanity, serving as foundation for a system that will no longer be structured in terms of intra-human differences justified by tradition and religion only, but gradually also by scientific and secular accounts of differences between the human proper and the sub-human. In the process of the expansion of the West since the 15th_{century to our days, metaphysical catastrophe has increasingly divided what used to be} conceived in terms of the Christian oecumene, into zones of being human and not being human or not being human enough” (Maldonado-Torres, 2016:13).

If one considers citizenship as a concept that can be broken down in being a free human and belonging to a certain nation, one can see these similar colonial and imperial roots in the conceptualisation of the concept of citizenship. Citizenship then can be categorised into zones of being a citizen and not being a citizen, or not being a citizen enough, or only being a citizen on conditional terms, as I will argue in Sections 2.2 and 2.3.

Firstly, let us delve deeper into the formation of the idea of citizenship, which came about in the 18th_{century. The status of citizenship was formatted over time by adding new civil rights to the} condition of freedom. In principle, this status of freedom and citizenship pertained to all male adults in society. Back then, women were not perceived as belonging to the category of free humans who were accounted for as political entities. Marshall does not mention the position of people of colour in society, but it is safe to say that their positions were not rooted in freedom either. Obtaining citizenship and freedom became interchangeable and universal concepts, from which the notion of citizenship came to be associated with possession of nationality (Marshall, 2006: 32). Nationality and citizenship thus became intrinsically intertwined, and were understood as citizens’ rights and obligations. Citizenship meant as much as being a full member of a nation, which entailed that one was granted

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the rights and accepted the duties that followed this membership. Marshall describes the formation of citizenship in England as a process spanning across several centuries. It began with the obtainment of civil rights, which guaranteed individual liberty, reedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to own property. In the 19th_{century, political rights were codified, which signified the right to vote} and run for political office. This led to the development of social rights in the twentieth, which were closely linked to the expansion of the welfare state. Social rights where focused on basic needs such as healthcare, education, shelter, and food; these social rights where the gateway for citizens to effectively enable their civic and political rights (Duyvendak, Geschiere & Tonkens, 2016: 3). These rights were decided on the basis of state sovereignty, which is limited to the territorial boundaries of the state. Citizenship thus came to mean full membership of a state through nationality. This full membership gives access to fundamental rights towards this state, and requires a certain responsibility of the state to take care of its members (Bauböck, 1995: 19).

Citizenship rights within a nation-state are generally tied to obligations in that same state. Contrarily, human rights are based on the sheer fact of being human. Duyvendak et al., (2016: 5) argue for a more unconditional understanding of membership: To arrive at this understanding they see a role for a cosmopolitan form of human rights based citizenship. Citizenship on the basis of human rights can grant an unconditional form of citizenship, because one never ceases to be human. In practice, this is hardly feasible, since it is difficult to conceive of an all-encompassing political institution that deals with universal human rights. Carens (2013: 97) argues that there are “membership-specific human rights.” Not every legal right can be called a human right on its own. Some human rights can be understood as moral claims that states are obliged to respect within their legal system, which can differ per state. As such, some human rights are membership specific and only granted to permanent residents or citizens. For example, when it comes to the universal human right to security of entry or residence within a nation, this is a right that is only upheld in relation to the country of origin. In the European Union, citizens have access to seeking residence within all member nations; non-EU citizens seeking residence within the union need to go through other procedures (European Commission, n.d.). The E.U.’s policies regarding the right to security of entry or residence in the E.U. thus highlights one context in which only members of a certain political community have access to the right. A form of membership is needed, and this membership is currently viewed as nation-state dependent citizenship. This liberal nationalist understanding of citizenship is problematic because its current functioning leaves little room to obtain citizenship for new members as a result of its excluding tendencies.

Before proceeding, I want to clarify that the process of acquiring nation-state dependent citizenship differs per country. It is country-specific, as nation-state dependent citizenship is linked to the ways in which a specific country conceives of culturalization of citizenship. In the Netherlands, for instance, citizenship is obtained through naturalisation once the civic integration is passed. The obtainment of nation-state dependent citizenship differs per nation, a full discussion of which is beyond the scope of this thesis. For now, I argue that being a member of society means more than obtaining a passport. Becoming a “real” member of society is not something that can be disciplined

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through the adhering of fixed norms and values. Therefore, the current functioning of nation-state dependent citizenship does not leave room for a pluralist understanding of citizenship due to culturalization, which I will move to in the following section.

The end of the Second World War saw the start of mass migrations towards the West, which led to a shift in the understanding of citizenship. The alteration of citizenship brought about, in turn, a culturalization of citizenship. Citizenship with culture at its core adheres to the question, “Who belongs in society?”. In the years that followed in the post-war era, large groups of new people started arriving in Western liberal democratic states, which gave rise to this new question. Processes of globalisation and migration made it relevant for citizens within these nations to ask questions about belonging. The culturalization of citizenship entailed that there is an essentialized and fixed understanding of culture. This fixed understanding and adherence to this understanding created the basis for one’s right to citizenship. The embodiment of specific cultural attributes made people “worthy” of being called a citizen of society. Culture was understood as a process with many attributes such as emotions, feelings, norms and values, symbols, and traditions and religion. The culturalization of citizenship has come to play an important role in the understanding of citizenship. It has been an additional form to political, legal, and social citizenship. In the Dutch context, somebody with a migratory background could then be indicated as “een echte kaaskop” 5_{. This is often understood as} somebody with a migratory background who is well-integrated according to the culturalization attributes of citizenship. In this culturalization of citizenship, there is little room for cultural evolvement, which is why citizenship as restricted on the solely on the basis of culturalist criteria is not sufficient. Culture is something that evolves, and it does so through dissent and criticism from its different members. Cultures cannot be taken as self-evident, homogenous wholes. Cultures of communities with migratory backgrounds do not readily participate in this discussion, yet new ideas spring, disagreements are stirred up, and power struggles are highlighted from this confrontation between different cultures (Duyvendak et al., 2016: 2)

Despite this, the culturalization of citizenship is also viewed as a way of granting somebody full citizenship. If there is no cultural adaptation demanded from people with a migratory background, it becomes more difficult to have socio-economic successes. It would be very difficult to find a job and know how to act socially. Therefore, it is argued that letting people with a migratory background cherish their own norms equals denying them the opportunity to access full citizenship (Duyvendak et al., 2016: 4). Similar arguments are made by Miller (2016: 134), who argues that for a successful and fair chance in society, one needs cultural adaptation through liberal nationalist policies. The concepts of citizenship and nationality are currently thus interwoven concepts. Duyvendak et al. (2016:6) argue that nation-state dependent citizenship cannot exist without the culturalization of citizenship. The two concepts are intrinsically intertwined because globalization and mass migration problematize the relationships between the nation, culture, and the current

5_{Een echte kaaskop can be literally translated to: a real cheese head, referring to the importance of cheese}

in Dutch culture. If one is a real cheese head it means that person has taken up a lot of traits and characteristics which are considered “truly” Dutch.

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understanding of citizenship. The authors have only considered cosmopolitan citizenship, in the form of universal human rights, as a promising possible solution out of these enmeshed concepts. Yet, they do not deem this a practical possibility because of the missing global political institutions that can account for these rights. They argue that the focus on universal human rights instead of nation-state based citizenship can be a critical vantage point from which to start thinking about a citizenship that does not deny minorities membership on the basis of “national tradition and culture.” I argue, instead, on the basis of Carens’ (2013: 159) theory that a focus on social membership: Rather than cosmopolitan or nation-state citizenship may be a possible alternative. Carens dismisses both cosmopolitan citizenship and nation-state culturalized citizenship as two concepts which are too constraining for people acquiring a right to belonging. I will go more in depth in this argument in Section 2.4 on ‘The Theory of Social Membership’.

Before doing so, I would like to stress why I argue for a theory of social membership. I argue for an acquiring of social membership as an addition to the current understanding of citizenship because I see the current understanding of citizenship as too exclusive. Acquirement of full citizenship has become a difficult and lengthy procedure in a legal sense as seen with the current liberal nationalist understanding of integration in Chapter 1. Furthermore, because the concept of citizenship is culturalized in a symbolic sense, getting access to national belonging is still often denied by the majority to even second- or third-generation people with a migratory background who are already legal citizens (Duyvendak et al., 2016: 2). The current exclusive conceptualization of citizenship does not allow for integration of majority and minorities in society. In the following section, I will deal with this dichotomy of the majority and minorities to stipulate this argument.

2.2 The Dichotomy Between the Majority and Minorities

In this passage, I will tackle the dichotomy of the majority and minorities in society to showcase that this divide is an effect of the excluding tendencies of the current understanding of citizenship. I will begin with an examination of the definitions of majority and minority groups. To expand my argument, I will show why this divide follows from the current understanding of citizenship. I will then argue against this divide by clarifying that the majority and minorities are not as diametrically opposed as is normally understood.

Bauböck (1995: 12) distinguishes several categorical dichotomies between immigrants and natives, aliens and citizens, and national majorities and ethnic minorities of immigrant origin. For this thesis, I describe this dichotomy as a divide between the majority and minorities. I argue that this broad definition covers the scope of differentialities within these two groups. In this thesis, the majority is presented as the native majority plus all the people who pass as belonging to this majority. In the receiving liberal democratic states I write about, these are mostly white Western European people. For the minorities, I mean everybody who does not belong to the group of white Western European people, specifically non-white Western European people with migratory backgrounds. Specific minority groups are faced with different kinds of treatments and expectations. Still, there are similarities amongst all minority groups that are not considered as white Western European people. An emphasis on history lays bare that this dichotomy is not arbitrary between white Western European people and

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non-white Western European people. Lentin (2017: 7) argues that the reason black and non-white (brown) bodies are coded as racial minorities has everything to do with the fact that these people were found in the territories that were invaded in imperial and colonial times by the European West. The history and continuation of immigration to the ‘West’ by people from ex-empires and ex-colonies, which links the colour of their skin and hair to relative power status, endures in the current world order. “Black and brown migrants continue to be those either locked out of the world’s wealthy countries or occupying positions of relative domination and exploitation within them” (Lentin, 2017: 7).

Before proceeding, a caveat about the different kinds of minority groups I am writing on in this thesis. There is a distinction between: 1) Citizens who belong to a minority group and have lived here for several generations and therefore have obtained legal citizenship, but are still excluded from society on the basis of culturalizing elements. 2) Inhabitants who are either undocumented, or have obtained the right to stay but did not pass to be counted as legal citizens yet. This last group is not only faced with a more difficult access to membership as a consequence of the culturalization of citizenship. They are faced with the possibility of deportation or living a life in “illegality”.

The distinction between these different groups already shows the excluding nature underlying the definition of citizenship. Marshall’s concept of citizenship, which I talked about in the previous section, has been criticized for ignoring the roles of ethnicity, religion, and culture. In his concept of citizenship, the majority in class, race, gender, culture and ethnic group of the country is what defines nation-state dependent citizenship (Duyvendak et al., 2016: 3). According to Carens, (2013: 63-64) it is possible for citizens with a migratory background, who obtained their citizenship legally, to still be l excluded from society. This can happen when they are excluded from educational and economic opportunities that others enjoy. This is also the case when these citizens are expected to conceal certain attributes that are related to their migratory backgrounds, when they are viewed with suspicion and treated with hostility, and, most of all, when their voices are not part of the political debate. This negatively impacts their own understanding of being genuine members of society and shapes how the native majority views the belonging of citizens with a migratory background in society.

In democracies, there is a lot of room for majorities, which is in line with democratic thought. Despite this, there can be an abuse in power that presents itself as a tyranny of majorities over minorities. Citizens with a migratory background are often considered to be minorities, not only on the basis of their background but also on the grounds of their physical appearance, religion, language, cultural patterns, and values. The tyranny of majorities over minorities takes shape in the assumption that the majority of citizens already possess the values and virtues of a liberal democracy, thus they do not need to change their attitude. It remains the sole responsibility of the minorities to adapt to the new society they entered, even though they might have entered several generations ago. Carens views it as an essential part of democratic principles that citizens with a migratory background are included. To make this happen, the majority need to adapt to the principles and values that the minorities profess as well. Carens (2013: 67) argues it is reasonable to a certain extent that minorities expect changing attitudes and actions from the majority as well. All parties

Rethinking processes of integration - Towards a revised form of social membership