Keeping policy and politics apartintegration policies in europe and the politics of citizenship in spain and italy

Abstract

This thesis investigates immigrant integration policies paying special attention to the Spanish and Italian citizenship regimes. It hinges upon a multi-method research design and its results take the shape of a three-article structure. The first article addresses similarities and differences among European countries’ integration policies and, by means of cluster analysis on MIPEX data, it identifies policy-models of integration characterizing the current European scenario. Two shared-configurations are captured, cutting across the East/West cleavage. The Eastern configuration is more restrictive than the Western one, especially in traditional areas of integration. The second and third articles concentrate on the domain of citizenship and they try to account for the puzzling continuity of nationality laws in Spain and in Italy by relying on the explanatory power of ideas. The Spanish case is treated in the second article whereas the third article compares such case to the Italian one. In both countries ideational factors prove to be crucial in driving the evolution of nationality laws; however according to distinct causal logic.