Voice and Belonging: How Open vs. Restricted Models of National Incorporation Shape Immigrant-Minority Identification and Participation Emily Cochran Bech Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 © 2014 Emily Cochran Bech All rights reserved ABSTRACT Voice and Belonging: How Open vs. Restricted Models of National Incorporation Shape Immigrant-Minority Identification and Participation Emily Cochran Bech Young Europeans with immigrant background live in societies that practice different models of national identity, where nations continually define themselves through citizenship policies, politi- cal rhetoric, and everyday social interaction that signal membership to be more open, or more closed, to those without native roots. In other words, young immigrant minorities are constantly receiving signals about whether or not they are accepted as part of the national community. This dissertation investigates how these 'working national identities' influence immigrant minorities’ civic integration, defined as their identification with the national-civic community and their par- ticipation in political life. Denmark and Sweden, broadly similar societies with historically simi- lar immigration patterns, differ in their citizenship policies, political debates over integration and levels of discrimination. Using this variation, the dissertation analyzes primary survey and inter- view data collected among immigrant-minority young adults in both countries to observe the ef- fects of their citizenship policies, political debates and social inclusion on those minorities' per- ceptions, and the influence of those perceptions on their civic integration. I find that social inclusion increases minorities' national identification, while politician concern raises the likelihood that they will vote. But causes of engagement in other forms of po- litical action vary more: while minority men are more likely to engage in political action if they perceive their groups to be excluded, women are more likely to do so if they identify with the community. Throughout, I find men to be more affected by the exclusion of their own ethnic and religious groups than women are. Further, higher levels of exclusion and greater politicization of minority issues in Denmark mean that these factors have stronger effects there, but also raise par- ticipation by spurring interest in national politics. Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction: Investigating Civic Integration 1 1.1. Why Civic Integration? 3 1.2. The Main Question: How is Civic Integration Shaped by Different National 'Models'? 10 1.3. Study Design 14 1.4. Preview of the Argument and Dissertation Structure 18 Chapter 2. Theorizing Civic Integration: Who Identifies and Engages? 22 2.1. From Social Identity to 'Working National Identities': Dynamics of Belonging 25 2.2. National Identities Defined through Legal, Political and Social Inclusion 32 2.3. Expectations: Minorities' Inclusion Perceptions 45 2.4. Expectations: Perceived Inclusion Increases National Identification 49 2.5. Expectations: Identity and Inclusion Influence Participation 52 2.6. Additional Factors 62 2.7. Potential Objections to the Study 69 2.8. Summarizing the Model 71 Chapter 3. The National Case Settings: Denmark and Sweden 74 3.1. Citizenship Policies 79 3.2. Immigrant Minority-Related Issues in Political Life 97 3.3. Levels of Social Inclusion 106 3.4. Using These Differences to Study Civic Integration 111 Chapter 4. Methods and Data 113 4.1. Main Survey 114 i 4.2. Experimental Follow-Up Survey 140 4.3. Follow-Up Interviews 145 4.4. Measuring Identification 147 4.5. Measuring Political Participation 155 4.6. Structure of Analysis 157 Chapter 5. Findings: Perceived Inclusion in Denmark and Sweden 160 5.1. Legal Inclusion: Access to Citizenship 161 5.2. Political Inclusion through Political Elite Attitudes 172 5.3. Social Inclusion 185 5.4. The Role of the National Media Environments 199 5.5. Indexing Perceived Inclusion for Analysis 204 Chapter 6. Findings: How Inclusion Shapes National Identification 208 6.1. The Roles of Legal, Political and Social Inclusion 209 6.2. The Gender-Specific Effects of Inclusion 216 6.3. Moderators of Group Inclusion Effects 224 6.4. National Identification among Young Minorities: Insights from Interviews 231 6.5. The Inclusion-Identification Model: Belonging in Denmark and Sweden 240 Chapter 7. Findings: How Inclusion and Identification Affect Political Participation 251 7.1. Reported Political Participation 252 7.2. Inclusion and Identification's effects on Electoral Participation 261 7.3. Inclusion and Identification's Effects on Political Action 291 7.4. Inclusion, Identification and Participation in Denmark and Sweden 303 Chapter 8. Refining the Model: Civic Integration in a Diverse Europe 312 8.1. Social and Political Inclusion Shape Civic Integration 316 ii 8.2. Gender Moderates the Effects of Group Exclusion 327 8.3. Conclusion: New Ground for Research 333 References 339 Appendices 362 Appendix 1. Main survey response analysis 362 Appendix 2. Political action: means and inter-country comparisons (t-tests) 364 Appendix 3. Main survey instrument content, English version 365 Appendix 4. Follow-up survey: treatments and experiment-specific questions, English version 377 Appendix 5. Interview Guide, English version 381 Appendix 6. List of respondents, follow-up interviews 385 iii Acknowledgements I am grateful to a community of scholars and institutions on both sides of the Atlantic who have given me intellectual, moral and financial support that has been crucial to developing and com- pleting this dissertation--and to the even broader support of mentors, friends and family who have sustained me and this research at each step along the way. Columbia University has offered a strong and dynamic community where my emerging ideas have met clear thinking from many viewpoints, and have been challenged and sharpened by faculty and classmates. My first thanks go to my dissertation advisors, Jack Snyder and Alfred Stepan. I am grateful to them both for their generosity, for their thoughtful discussions about questions about minorities and civic integration in Europe, for urging me to think wider and deeper about approaches I needed to take in, and most of all for encouraging me to dig into and to keep pursuing this research, even when its nature has made it complex and even muddy. For comments and suggestions throughout the project's development, I would like to thank those who gave helpful suggestions and encouragement in the project's very early days, among them Saskia Sassen, Yotam Margalit, Rudy de la Garza, Macartan Humphreys, Simon Collard-Wexler, Neelan Sircar and Leanne Tyler. Great thanks go to Per Mouritsen, whose perspectives on Danish and nordic national identity institutions formed some of my first thinking in the project, and who has offered feed- back, ideas and encouragement along the way. Per brought me into a growing network of re- searchers doing work on integration all across Europe, and he also welcomed me to spend an ex- tended time at the Political Science Department at Aarhus University, which has been my academic 'home away from home' while I have researched and written this dissertation. I am iv grateful to the department and Ph.D. coordinator Peter Munk Christiansen for that opportunity, and to colleagues there for taking me in as one of your own. I want especially to thank Åsne Kalland Aarstad for being an office mate and friend who discussed research paradigms and laughed with me through long workdays, and Line Engbo Gissel for her friendship and wise en- couragement. I have been grateful for feedback and intellectual input from Jørgen Elklit, Debo- rah Stone, Lasse Lindekilde, Kristian Jensen, Rune Slothuus and members of the sociology and comparative politics sections in Aarhus. I am also thankful to Jack Dovidio for taking time on a trip to Denmark to advise on survey development. I was fortunate to be a part of the ZEIT-Stiftung's Bucerius Ph.D. Scholarship Program in Migration Studies as I conducted my dissertation research. In addition to material support, the program gave me the opportunity to meet an amazing and diverse group of scholars who are do- ing work on migration all over the world. I wish to thank my cohort-mates and the program advi- sors for their feedback and for inspiration for further research. I owe a great deal to the young adults who responded to surveys and participate in inter- views, sharing their experiences and stories to inform this research and bring it to life. I would also like to thank organizational leaders in Denmark and Sweden who took time from busy schedules to speak with me and teach me about their work. I could never have completed the project without assistance from my Swedish research assistants, especially Fatuma Awil and Amal Dirie--thanks to them for their persistence, ideas, and hard work. Many thanks also to those researchers who have allowed me to consult and use tools and data they have developed and collected as a supplement to my own research process: to Peter Morrison, Diane Lauderdale and Abdulrahman El-Sayed for their Arab name algorithm resource, to Oliver Razum (with Hajo Zeeb and Seval Akgün) for their Turkish name algorithm resource, and to Jørgen Goul Andersen v and Constanza Vera-Larrucea for allowing me to consult data from their integration-related studies. The project could not have been realized
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