Humanities Research Vol XV. No. 1. 2009

Contents

Diversity, integration anD Citizenship

1 Adam Berryman and Introduction: Diversity, integration and Kate Mitchell citizenship

5 Dora Horvath Tracing cosmopolitan strands in EU citizenship: A postmodern idea?

29 Mark Nolan and Citizenship and identity in diverse societies Kim Rubenstein

47 Julie Thorpe Population politics in the fascist era: Austria’s 1935 population index

49 Vesna Drapac Active citizenship in multicultural Australia: the Croatian experience

77 Stefan Markowski Citizenship and integration: A snapshot of the Polish migrant community in Australia

Vol XV. No. 1. 2009 ISSN: 1440-0669

CONTRIBUTORS

Adam Berryman is a graduate of La TrobeUniversity and was the 2006 Australian

ADAM BERRYMAN

postgraduate visiting fellow at the EuropeanUniversity Institute in Florence. He previouslytaught European politics at the University ofMelbourne and is now based at The AustralianNational University, where he is a visiting scholarat the National Europe Centre in the ResearchSchool of Humanities. Adam’s research interestsinclude European integration, migration andmulticulturalism in contemporary Europe.Vesna Drapac teaches modern European history atthe University of Adelaide. Her research interests

VESNA DRAPAC

include social, cultural and religious responses towar and occupation in Hitler’s Europe andcomparative historiographies of World War II. Shealso works on the history of Croatian immigrationto Australia. Her first book, War and Religion:Catholics in the churches of occupied Paris, waspublished in 1998 and her forthcoming book,Constructing Yugoslavia: A transnational history,is contracted to Palgrave.Dora Horvath is a PhD candidate at the Universityof Melbourne and holds a Masters Degree in

DORA HORVATH

International Relations from the Corvin University,Budapest, Hungary. Her research interests includecosmopolitanism and postmodernism, citizenshipand multiculturalism, rhetorical representations ofbelonging and European integration. She hasextensive experience in grant and projectdevelopment and management in the education andthe private business sectors. She is currently thecentre coordinator of the National Europe Centrein the Research School of Humanities at TheAustralian National University.Dr Stefan Markowski lectures at the School ofBusiness, the University of New South Wales at

STEFAN MARKOWSKI

the Australian Defence Force Academy(UNSW@ADFA), Canberra. He graduated from theUniversity of Warsaw and holds a PhD from theLondon School of Economics, where he started hisprofessional career as a lecturer in economics. Inthe United Kingdom, Stefan also worked as a

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professional researcher (Centre for EnvironmentalStudies) and an economic consultant (Roger Tymand Partners). In 1986, he was appointed principaleconomist at the Bureau of Industry Economics inCanberra. He migrated to Australia in 1988 to joinUNSW@ADFA, where he specialises in logistics,technology management, strategic procurement,industry and defence economics. He also continuesto advise public and private organisations oneconomic and management issues. Stefan’s mostrecent publications focus on defence industry andtrade, procurement and small arms proliferation.His current interest in migration follows his earlierwork on international factor mobility and foreigndirect investment.Dr Kate Mitchell holds a PhD in literary studies fromthe University of Melbourne and a BA (Hons) in

KATE MITCHELL

English and history from The Australian NationalUniversity. She is currently a visiting fellow at theNational Europe Centre in the Research School ofHumanities at The Australian National Universityand teaches within the College of Arts and SocialSciences. Her research is focused on nineteenthand twentieth-century literary and cultural history,with a particular interest in neo-Victorian fictionand historical recollection in fictional narratives.She has published articles that examine therepresentation of history and historical recollectionin neo-Victorian novels by Graham Swift, A. S.Byatt, Helen Humphreys and Gail Jones. Her firstmonograph, Victorian Afterimages, will be publishedby Palgrave in late 2009.Dr Mark Nolan (BSc [Hons], LLB, PhD [ANU]) is asenior lecturer at the College of Law, The Australian

MARK NOLAN

National University. After researching and teachingsocial psychology at the School of Psychology atThe Australian National University, Mark joined theANU College of Law in 2002 and researches andteaches law (primarily criminal law and militarydiscipline law) and interdisciplinary legalpsychology. Mark designed and teaches TheAustralian National University’s first Law andPsychology course to law students. His PhD insocial psychology was an empirical study of socialidentity, perceived injustice and the use of humanrights law. Other research interests include criminallaw and procedure, inter-group relations, justice,

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Humanities Research Vol XV. No. 1. 2009

counter-terrorism law and procedure andcomparative law including Japanese jury reforms.Kim Rubenstein is Professor and Director of theCentre for International and Public Law at the ANU

KIM RUBENSTEIN

College of Law. A graduate of Melbourne andHarvard Universities, her research concentrates oncitizenship law, nationality and women andconstitutional law. Before becoming an academic,Kim practised as a solicitor and she has appearedduring her academic career in several High Courtcitizenship matters. Kim edited the collectionIndividual, Community, Nation: 50 years ofAustralian citizenship (Australian ScholarlyPublishing 2000) and is the author of AustralianCitizenship Law in Context (Lawbook Company2002). In 2008, she was appointed a member ofthe independent committee reviewing the AustralianCitizenship Test, which reported to the Minister forImmigration and Citizenship with suggestions forreform.Dr Julie Thorpe holds a BA and PhD from theUniversity of Adelaide. She has lectured in the

JULIE THORPE

history programs at the University of Adelaide andat The Australian National University. In 2007, shewas awarded a visiting scholarship to the NationalEurope Centre at The Australian National Universityand currently holds a joint postdoctoral fellowshipwith The Australian National University and theUniversity of Konstanz. Her research interestsinclude nineteenth and twentieth-century CentralEuropean history, nationalism, political culture andfascism in Austria. Her first monograph, aboutnationalism in the Austro-fascist state (1933–38),is under contract to Manchester University Press.She is currently working on a project that focuseson wartime refugees in the Austro-HungarianEmpire during World War I.

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Contributors

INTRODUCTION: DIVERSITY,INTEGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP

ADAM BERRYMAN AND KATE MITCHELL

This issue of Humanities Research had itsgenesis in the European Diaspora ResearchNetwork, an initiative of the NationalEurope Centre at The Australian NationalUniversity and Victoria University inMelbourne. 1 The network was foundedwith the aim of connecting scholars froma variety of disciplines with relevantpolicy practitioners and migrant-com-munity leaders to facilitate collaborativeresearch. The primary activities of thenetwork culminated in 2006, with a cap-stone international conference that ex-plored the links and synergies betweenEuropean diasporic communities in Aus-tralia and the continuing processes ofEuropean integration.

One of the core research themes of thenetwork was citizenship. More specific-ally, researchers engaged with the chan-ging nature of citizenship in an era of in-creased international mobility, a progress-ively globalised economy and the forma-tion of supranational political entities suchas the European Union. In the currentcontext older questions were revisitedwith renewed urgency. How do politicaldiscourses shape national identities? Whatare the most effective means of integratingcultural, ethnic and religious minorities?What type, or degree, of (political) recog-nition aids integration and what level ofrecognition becomes counterproductive

to social cohesion, provoking divisionswithin host societies?

The articles in this volume analysecitizenship with a view to better under-standing its potential to accommodateethnic diversity and promote social integ-ration. In doing so, they raise and seek toaddress a series of questions regarding thepolitical uses of citizenship and its legitim-ising function for individuals, minoritygroups and political authorities. To thisend, the volume can be loosely dividedinto two parts. The first addresses ‘top-down’ approaches to citizenship that havedeveloped within Europe and Australia,examining the ways in which politicalconstructs of belonging are translated intopolicy and law. The second section reflectsa more ‘bottom-up’ analysis of the re-sponse of European diasporas to the condi-tions and provisions of Australian societyand citizenship.

In the first article, Dora Horvath looksat citizenship within the European integ-ration project. The European Union (EU)has introduced a multilevel citizenshipregime, aimed at enhancing supranationallegitimacy and developing a stronger senseof European identity. The article examinesthe constitutional basis of EU citizenshipthrough a cosmopolitan lens, identifyingthe different streams of cosmopolitanthought within the treaties that form thelegal basis for European integration. Tra-

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cing an arc of cosmopolitan philosophyfrom Kant to Habermas, the article high-lights some of the reasons why theEuropean Union has become the case studypar excellence for cosmopolitanists in thepast two decades. It points out, however,that postmodern conditions require newforms of citizenship that accommodate notjust cosmopolitan universalism, but multi-culturalism—a diversity of political andcultural traditions—and transnationalism,the active engagement of citizens in a post-national context. Although there is muchwithin the treaties to encourage a cosmo-politan understanding of EU citizenship,Horvath explains why it has done little tolegitimise Brussels elites or build supportfor deeper political integration in Europe.

In their article ‘Citizenship and iden-tity in diverse societies’, Mark Nolan andKim Rubenstein explore the recent changesto Australian citizenship law and its im-pact on the acceptance of blended identit-ies in Australia. Drawing on legal analysisof Australian citizenship and psychologicalresearch on identity, they argue that re-cent citizenship policy reforms representa backward step in terms of understandingcomplex, blended identities in Australia.They question the assumption, implicitwithin the new citizenship law, that thetesting of language proficiency and civicsknowledge, together with the endorsementof Australian values, will successfully en-courage the formation of simple, singleAustralian national identity—and theyfurther contest the desirability of such anoutcome. This article highlights some ofthe shortcomings of the 2007 AustralianCitizenship Act, notably the inconsistencybetween the introduction of testing to en-courage a singular notion of nationalidentity and the established legal provi-

sion for dual or multiple citizenship. Thearticle’s psycho-legal approach underlinesthe legitimising effect of legal processesrelating to citizenship, providing insightsas to how the application for and acquisi-tion of citizenship in Australia works to(de)-legitimise an individual’s desired self-definition. In doing so, it provokes a seriesof broader questions about the politicaluses of citizenship and its relationshipwith identity formation.

In keeping with the European DiasporaResearch Network’s promotion of interdis-ciplinary collaboration, the third articlein this volume takes a historical perspect-ive. Making interwar Austria her casestudy, Julie Thorpe subverts the conven-tional distinction between ‘authoritarian’and ‘fascist’ states, positioning herselfamong a number of historians who suggestthat it is more useful to plot these stateson a spectrum of radical right-wing tend-encies. Such an approach focuses on pro-cesses rather than outcomes and ap-proaches fascism as an extension of otherpolicies that seek to control the citizens ofa given state. To this end, her article exam-ines public debates about the 1935 propos-al for an Austrian population index, mod-elled on fascist Italy’s legislation. Thorpesituates Austria within a particular constel-lation of post-imperial state-building dis-courses, including exclusionary ultra-na-tionalism and aggressive, racially motiv-ated population politics, which was astimulus for and reaction to waves of intra-continental migration. By highlighting theroots of Austria’s extreme nationalist dis-course and the population policy itprompted, Thorpe illustrates the politicalfoundations of European intolerance in thetwentieth century. Placed alongside theother articles in this volume, Thorpe’s

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historical perspective enables us toidentify residual elements of this national-ist project in contemporary political dis-courses regarding immigration and multi-culturalism.

In the final two articles, the focusshifts to immigrant communities in Aus-tralia. These articles contribute to recentresearch that challenges the assumptionthat a diaspora’s connection to theircountry of origin weakens over time. In-stead, several scholars have recently sug-gested that in an era of globalisation manydiasporas are now redefining and reinfor-cing their identification with their home-land (see, for example, Dufoix 2008; Ful-lilove 2008). Vesna Drapac aptly illustratesthis in her examination of the experienceof Croatian immigrants in the context ofdebates about Australian multiculturalism.Focusing on those who arrived in the firsttwo waves of post-1945 immigration, sheargues that the active citizenship and asso-ciational practices of this group led to theirsuccessful integration into Australian soci-ety, but that this was coupled with theretention of elements of Croatian culturalidentity. She suggests that the mobilisationof the Croatian community in Australia inresponse to the political upheaval and vi-olence engendered by the collapse ofYugoslavia in the 1990s demonstrates theextent to which this group attaches them-selves to the democratic ideals and pro-cesses of their adoptive country. Signific-antly, Drapac notes this group’s paradox-ical success in gaining greater recognitionfor a Croatian national identity before theofficial recognition of the Croatian Stateby the Australian Government or the inter-national community.

The final article, Stefan Markowski’s‘Citizenship and integration: a snapshot

of the Polish migrant community in Aus-tralia’, draws on survey and census datato argue that Polish immigrants haveblended well into Australian society. Thedata presented here suggest that Polishimmigrants to Australia claim a strongsense of Australian national identity andthat they score well on traditional meas-ures of integration, such as language pro-ficiency and citizenship uptake.Markowski points out that, in this sense,Polish immigrants represent the type ofmigration that Australian policymakershave sought to attract. He acknowledgesthat there is still a tendency for Polish mi-grants and their descendents to retain orseek Polish citizenship, the value of whichhas increased since Poland joined theEuropean Union. He argues, however, thatthis is more a matter of convenience—tofacilitate ease of travel between Europeand Australia, for instance—rather thanany sense of political belonging or overtloyalty to the Polish nation, supported bythe fact that there has been minimal returnmigration to Poland.

Markowski engages directly with theargument put forward by Nolan andRubenstein in this volume regarding therecent reforms of Australian citizenshippolicy. He acknowledges that the engineer-ing of citizenship as a tool primarily formigrant integration has to some extentdevalued citizenship for the broader Aus-tralian community but is much less criticalof the notion of a ‘uniform’ national iden-tity promoted via the 2007 AustralianCitizenship Act. He argues that some senseof uniformity is logically necessary, butneed not be considered intolerant of socialdiversity or mutually exclusive with hy-brid, or blended, identity.

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Introduction: Diversity, integration and citizenship

What this issue of Humanities Researchseeks to do, then, is draw together a rangeof disciplinary approaches and multivalentperspectives on the important role citizen-ship plays—symbolically, socially andlegally—in integrating a state’s populationand shaping the identity of individuals,communities and nations. Although thearticles articulate diverse positions onthese issues, they nonetheless gravitate toa central concern: in an age of globalisationand multiculturalism, how can democraticstates, or supranational constellations ofstates, uphold a notion of citizenship thatfosters social cohesion while also legitim-ising diversity?

REFERENCES

Dufoix, Stephane 2008, Diasporas,University of California Press, Berkeley.

Fullilove, Michael 2008, World WideWebs: Diasporas and the international sys-tem, Lowy Institute for InternationalPolicy, Sydney.

ENDNOTES

1 The network was funded by an EU Jean MonnetReflection Activities Grant (No. 2005 1894/001-001),‘European Diaspora Research Network in Australia’,and by The Australian National University and Vic-toria University.

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TRACING COSMOPOLITAN STRANDS IN EUCITIZENSHIP

A postmodern idea?

DORA HORVATH

INTRODUCTION

The European integration project is, todate, the world’s most advanced post-na-tional constellation of states. As such ithas become a default case study and, attimes, a quasi laboratory for political the-orists and philosophers who are interestedin studying and developing workablemodels of supranational and/or globalgovernance. Prominent among thesescholars are those who view the EuropeanUnion (EU) through a cosmopolitan lens,analysing integration for its potential tocontribute to a Kantian brand of universalegalitarianism. Such analyses are furtherencouraged by European elites who em-ploy heavily normative rhetoric that re-flects many of the tenets of cosmopolitanthought.

In practice, the European Union hasevolved from a functional, utilitarian andlargely economic project to a more com-plex political enterprise. The politicalframework for a broader and deeper integ-ration of European states was establishedin the Treaty on European Union (alsoknown as the Maastricht Treaty). In addi-tion to consolidating the single market andopening the way for greater cooperation

on internal and foreign affairs, this docu-ment also introduced the status of EU cit-izenship. This was not intended to replacenational citizenship but rather to comple-ment it and, in doing so—it washoped—enhance the legitimacy of Brusselselites and promote a stronger Europeanidentity.

Although the labelling of Europeancitizenship as cosmopolitan is far from ex-plicit or coherent in EU policies and narrat-ive, proto-cosmopolitan doctrines of uni-versal and general equality 1 are ex-pressed by EU initiatives. It is claimed thatEuropean citizenship provides equal accessto the individual-based legal status ofunion citizenship to all nationals, anduniversal civic protection to all nationalsand residents, and this is to translate intoa transcendent European identity. But isthe cosmopolitan shaping of the EuropeanUnion’s common citizenship policy condu-cive to its underlying objective of legitim-ating the emerging European polity andcreating an integrated European public?

This article engages directly with theproto-cosmopolitanist arguments in orderto assess the relative legitimating potentialof EU citizenship. In the first section, I re-view the evolution of contemporary cos-mopolitan thought, highlighting in partic-

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ular its relevance for the postmodern con-ceptualisation of citizenship. The viabilityof cosmopolitan frameworks rests on theirability to facilitate a new understandingof citizenship that is emerging from theglobalised conditions of post-nationalmulticulturalism and transnationalism.This section also demonstrates that thescope of scholarly research in these fieldsoverlaps with European integration stud-ies, supporting claims that the EuropeanUnion represents the first proto-cosmopol-itanist postmodern polity. In the secondsection, the paper identifies and investig-ates the main developmental phases of theEuropean Union’s common citizenshipagenda. This section acknowledges therhetorical use of cosmopolitanism by theBrussels elites; nonetheless, its primaryfocus lies in assessing the proto-cosmopol-itanist threads in the treaties of theEuropean Union.

The article concludes by acknow-ledging the existence of cosmopolitanistthreads in the European Union’s commoncitizenship policy. It questions, however,whether EU citizenship has the simultan-eous ability to include all Europeans (cos-mopolitanist), to accommodate diversecitizenship practices (post-national multi-culturalist) and embrace emerging newand deliberative formations of citizenship(transnationalist). There are two observa-tions that stem from this conclusion: first,that the integrative capacity of the currentEuropean citizenship regime is strictlylimited; and second, that the cosmopolitanframing of EU citizenship has potentiallycontributed to the European Union’s legit-imacy deficit. These critiques also pointto generic shortcomings of cosmopolitanideology.

COSMOPOLITAN CITIZENSHIPAND POSTMODERNITY

The scholarly exploration of the EuropeanUnion’s evolving citizenship regime takesplace within an intellectual territory thatis framed largely by debates surroundingglobalisation and contemporary cosmopol-itan ideology. By the 1990s, globalisationstudies developed a set of new conditionsfor the postmodern re-conceptualisationof citizenship. 2 Cosmopolitanism emergedas a suitable ideological framework to ac-commodate these new conditions. 3 Aca-demics and European policymakers thusoften present the European integrationproject as a viable forum for the cosmopol-itan conceptualisation of postmodern cit-izenship and further propose that the cos-mopolitan framing of European citizenshiphas the potential to enhance the EuropeanUnion’s viability, legitimacy and integrat-ive capacity. 4

The end of modernity: postmodernconditions of citizenship

Scholars concerned with the impact ofglobalisation have come to a common un-derstanding that the modernist premisesof the national state have been eroded. 5

The Westphalian state is no longer thesingular unit of political power with abso-lute sovereignty. There exist quasi-autonomous political entities that nurtureembryonic rights regimes and democraticinstitutions beyond the State. The nationis neither culturally homogenous nor theprimary expression of collective identity.National communities are diverse; the in-dividual’s identity is multiple. Therefore,the modernist paradigm of citizenship thathas had long symbiotic existence with thenational state needs rethinking. The new

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postmodern conceptualisation needs to ex-press the multiplicity of citizenship as apolitico-legal status (post-nationalism),accommodate diverse and multiple identit-ies (multiculturalism) and facilitate thecitizens’ political activism on all levels ofsovereignty (transnationalism).

In parallel, the heightened post-world-war awareness of the need for ‘globalplanning, global knowledge and the recog-nition of a shared future’ 6 restored in-terest in universal conceptualisations ofbelonging and institutional expressions ofglobal norms. In the immediate absence ofavailable conceptual frameworks to under-stand and respond to these challenges, theKantian ideology of cosmopolitanism wasresurrected. The contemporary expres-sions of cosmopolitanism are noted torepresent a logical accommodation of thepostmodern challenges to citizenship.Cosmopolitanism is depicted as the expres-sion of a post-national multiculturalistmodel of political community, which pre-serves national and also facilitates global,regional and municipal loci of legal statusand political membership. 7 It is alsotransnationalist, in that it promotes anactive citizenry that is empowered withina global civil society and enabled to shapethe political future and the socio-culturalfacet of their communities. 8 The nextsection provides an abbreviated overviewof cosmopolitan philosophy, highlightingcritical junctures in its evolution and ex-amining its relevance for the developmentof postmodern concepts of citizenship.

The Kantian theorem of cosmopolitan-ism

A common reference point for contempor-ary cosmopolitanists is the Enlightenmentphilosophical works of Immanuel Kant. 9

Immanuel Kant’s cosmopolitanist theor-em10 was built around the vision of worldpeace. Kant proposed that the forming ofa global ethical regime would eliminatethe possibility of war, without the needto form a world state. The cornerstones ofhis normative order were the establish-ment of cosmopolitan law and the repub-lican grooming of states.

Kant outlined a tripartite system ofjurisprudence that contained a new typeof jurisdiction—cosmopolitan law—inaddition to domestic and international law.For Kant, cosmopolitan law was of a funda-mentally different type of jurisdiction. Thedomestic law of a particular state con-tained rights and duties that regulated theindividual citizens’ relationships with fel-low citizens as well as the State. Interna-tional law was to police states only, andthus governed state-to-state relations.Cosmopolitan law was to consist of rightsand duties that regulated ‘the relation ofindividual persons of one state toward theindividuals of another, as well as towardanother state as a whole’, 11 regardless ofnational origin or state citizenship.

Individual rights under the umbrellaof Kant’s cosmopolitan law also differedfrom citizenship rights in domestic law.First, the individual’s access to cosmopol-itan rights rested on the individual’s nat-ural belonging to humanity, a much widerjustification than the individual’s alliancewith a particular state. Second, the notionof cosmopolitan rights was also unique inthat it attempted to articulate a normativeideal in response to ethical problems thatwere raised by the organic transformationof the world order and the resultingheightened sense of global interconnected-ness. 12 These new conditions called fornew legal and institutional frameworks

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Tracing cosmopolitan strands in EU citizenship

and ultimately made cosmopolitan lawethically desirable and empirically neces-sary. With the idea of cosmopolitan rights,Kant sought to regulate this new type ofrelationship between the State and foreign-ers. Kant’s primary aim was to guaranteethe ‘conditions of universal hospitality’defined as ‘the right of a stranger not tobe treated with hostility when he arriveson someone else’s territory’. 13 Thus, forKant, hospitality was not based on philan-thropy but a legal and universal right. 14

As for the institutionalisation of cosmo-politan law and rights, Kant rejected theidea of a world state. 15 Instead, Kantembraced the modern era’s principle ofnon-intervention and reinforced the idealof ‘self-policing individual states’. 16 Heproposed the establishment of a cosmopol-itan world order centred on the congressof free states, whereby state cooperationwas a regulative but not a constitutiveprinciple. Externally, this meant the vol-untary federative cooperation of independ-ent states: ‘a united power and law-gov-erned decisions of a united will’. 17 Intern-ally, this referred to the consolidation ofthe republican and representative demo-cratic traditions of government. 18 Kantreasoned that democratic states did not goto war and therefore the establishment of‘domestic justice’ 19 was a sufficient pre-condition for the federal cooperation ofstates. Once the federative cooperation ofthe states is facilitated, a cosmopolitanethical order to guarantee the ‘cosmopolit-an condition of general political security’20

is likely to emerge.Kant’s cosmopolitan law and world

order fundamentally shaped Kant’s notionsof cosmopolitan citizenship. First, Kant’sinterpretation of the right to universalhospitality was grounded in the natural

right to exercise trading activity—that is,in the temporary, sporadic and trade-fo-cused interactions among the foreigners,and the State and its citizens. Only thoseforeigners who passed through or residedin another state for the specific purposeof trading were entitled to cosmopolitanrights. 21 Second, Kant’s rejection of theneed to institutionalise cosmopolitan lawbeyond the State meant that guaranteesfor generating, implementing, enforcingand upholding cosmopolitan rights reliedprimarily on the State’s ethical commit-ment to cosmopolitan ideals, rather thanon the sovereignty of supra and superna-tional institutions. According to these twoconditions, the State’s responsibility to-wards non-citizens was simply to providethe conditions of hospitality—that is, alimited form of civil protection to enabletheir economic activity. This further meantthat the rights of citizens and of foreignerswere to be kept separate. Despite the ex-pression of its global and universal scope,cosmopolitan law was not considered tohave the competence to override domesticlaw and grant foreigners access to civicand political rights associated with statecitizenship. In short, Kant’s cosmopolitancitizenship was more an expression ofglobal collective identity than a constitu-tionalised politico-legal status of universalbelonging. 22

It is evident that Kant’s theorem wasgrounded in the modernist rather than thepostmodernist understanding of citizen-ship. In the absence of inter and suprana-tional legal and institutional frameworksfor citizenship, it falls short of post-nation-alism. As the cosmopolitan ethical orderis conditioned on the states’ cooperativeactivity and democratic ability, it is alsodeficient in terms of transnational cit-

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izenry activism. As it is focused on theuniversal sameness of all, it does not en-gage with the notion of cultural diversity.Further to this, Kant’s cosmopolitan citizenis also an inconsistent notion. The cosmo-politan ideology and the modern paradigmof citizenship are founded in the liberalprinciples of individualism, egalitarianismand universalism. As Kant’s cosmopolitanrights are limited in content and in termsof access, it serves only as a fragmentedcategory that fails to fulfil universal andindividual equality.

Liberal national and universal cosmo-politanism

In the recent globalised context, cosmopol-itan thought has flowed into several corestreams, two of which—universalism andliberal nationalism—have preserved acommon root in the Kantian traditions. 23

Despite their shared legacy, liberal nation-alism and universal cosmopolitanism differfundamentally. Liberal cosmopolitanismembraces the Kantian limitations on polit-ical cosmopolitanism and proposes thatnormative cosmopolitanism is best ex-pressed and maintained within the nation-al context. As such, liberal nationalism isoften mistaken as being anti-cosmopolitan-ism. However, what liberalists in factfoster is the cosmopolitanist remodellingof the national state so that basic principlesof liberalism can be reconciled with multi-cultural diversity. 24

The universalist position promotes theexpression of global morality in the formof supranational legal systems and politicalinstitutions. It is founded on the belief thatthe ideology of cosmopolitanism and themodern national state-based theory of cit-izenship differ fundamentally. Universal-ists also claim that cosmopolitanism is su-

perior, or at least more valid, in the con-text of the postmodern conditions. As theypromote the politico-institutional establish-ment of the cosmopolitan ideal, the univer-salist stream is rightly labelled as the‘radical extension of Kant’s theory ofworld citizenship’. 25

The article proceeds with a focus onthe universalist stream of cosmopolitanthought, as it is the universalists who areengaged with the European traditions ofthe cosmopolitan theory of citizenship andthe development of the institutional andthe ethical frameworks of cosmopolitancitizenship—both of which are alreadyestablished to some degree in the EuropeanUnion. Universalists trace a developmentalarc of contemporary cosmopolitan thoughtfrom a singular to a hybrid and multi-layered expression of sovereignty andidentity, and from international rights toEuropean citizenship as the manifestationof the cosmopolitan idea.

The cosmopolitan democracy thesis

A major contribution to the universaliststream is the theory of cosmopolitandemocracy, centred on David Held’s ideaof global governance. Held argues that therealisation of the cosmopolitan vision, thatof lasting world peace and universalequality of individuals, cannot rely on thestates’ democratic capacity only. As a res-ult of globalisation, the locus of politicalpower can no longer be assumed to bewith the State. Therefore, the State on itsown cannot generate the conditions ofdemocracy within its boundaries and thentransfer the democratic principle into theinternational domain. Thus Held arguesthat, for ‘democratic law to be effective itmust be internationalised’. 26

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A regular collaborator with Held,Daniele Archibugi, elaborates on Held’snew democratic condition. Archibugi ar-gues that an international system that isbased on democratic principles does notnecessarily generate democracy within theconstituting states. Therefore, democracyhas to function simultaneously on all levelsof political authority—domestic, interna-tional and global—in order to generate alasting normative framework in each do-main. In short, Archibugi’s vision of thecosmopolitan world order is one of a multi-level system of democratic governance. 27

Therefore, Held’s and Archibugi’s re-creation of Kant’s tripartite jurisprudenceexceeds the Kantian global order in manyrespects. The democratic requirements ofdomestic law subscribe to the Kantian ideaof republican democracy in the State. Theinternational requirement of democracy isno longer purely reliant on the respect forreciprocal sovereignty between states; itrests on two additional criteria: the agree-ment on commonly shared norms to whichstates subscribe and the institutionalisationof these principles through the establish-ment of intergovernmental organisations.28 Further to this, the global (or cosmopol-itan) domain is not restricted to the univer-sal right of ‘hospitality for strangers’ buta more comprehensive, and state-like,package of rights.

Based on this new conditionality fordemocracy, it is thus clear that the cosmo-politan democracy theory moves awayfrom Kant’s purely ethical to a more con-stituting and institutionalised world order.For Held and Archibugi, the entrenchmentof democratic institutions outside of theboundaries of the State is indeed necessaryin order to complement the inadequatedemocratic capacities of the postmodern

state 29 and to monitor the domestic af-fairs of states. 30 Universalist scholarsemphasise that the cosmopolitan argumentfor the federative development of theglobal domain is not a call for the establish-ment of a global federation in the tradition-al sense. As Held notes, ‘any global legis-lative institution should be conceivedabove all as a “framework-setting” institu-tion’, and not a nascent global governmentof an emergent world state. 31

Further to this, cosmopolitan demo-cracy also means the active membershipof individuals in the global community.32 Global issues, such as human rights,the environment and poverty, have a uni-versal impact on all individuals, and assuch, transcend national and internationalframeworks of cooperation. If global chal-lenges are to be addressed in line withbasic democratic principles, citizens shallhave political representation in global af-fairs. This representation shall be inde-pendent and autonomous of the citizens’politico-legal status in domestic affairs.The citizen of the postmodern and global-ised epoch has ‘a twofold role—that ofcitizens of the state, and that of citizens ofthe world’. 33 Held and Archibugi arguethat this requires the establishment ofglobal bodies that are designed to facilitatethe deliberation of individual interests inspecific global issues. It further involvesthe institutionalisation of a universal andglobal citizenship status, which contains‘a mandatory core of rights’, such aspolitical rights of representation and parti-cipation, civic rights of protection, ‘dutiesvis-à-vis global institutions’, as well as in-struments of accountability and transpar-ency. 34 In short, global citizenship meansthe transfer of specific elements of national

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citizenship into the global domain so thatspecific global issues can be tackled.

On the basis of the previous synopsis,it is important to note that the cosmopolit-an democracy thesis expresses itself as apostmodern reinterpretation of Kant’scosmopolitan philosophy. The focus onthe institutional establishment of the cos-mopolitan ideal and the emphasis on themulti-level nature of the emerging systemof governance indicate that the thesissubscribes to the condition of multiplepost-nationalism. The introduction of a(global) cosmopolitan citizenship status tocomplement national citizenship indicatesthat the project of cosmopolitan democracyaspires to comply with the de-national andthe de-territorial, and consequently withthe multiple conditions of citizenship.References to the continuing relevance ofnational as well as regional and local lociof citizenship in terms of social member-ship and collective identity in the global-ised world mean that the thesis also claimsto suit the requirements of multicultural-ism. Finally, the expression of cosmopolit-an citizenship as the empowerment of anascent global civil society denotes thetransnational ambition of the cosmopolitandemocracy project.

Cosmopolitanism and constitutionalpatriotism

A comprehensive critique of the cosmopol-itan democracy thesis is provided by Jür-gen Habermas, whose own theorem sharesa common foundation in universal ethicsand rights. Like Held and Archibugi,Habermas endorses the requirement ofsupranational democratic institutions andtransnational civic activity, and denies theviability of Kant’s self-imposed limitationson political cosmopolitanism. Yet Haber-

mas takes issue with the postmodern defi-ciencies and the traditional modernistpremises of the Heldian model.

First, Habermas rejects the prospect ofa world state that he claims underwritesthe cosmopolitan democracy thesis.Habermas argues that Held’s andArchibugi’s cosmopolitan vision relies onthe reproduction of state-like institutionson a global scale. Therefore its globalcommunity-building trajectory has atendency to shift away from a multi-layered post-national system of gov-ernance to a universal state. In particular,Habermas notes that the cosmopolitandemocracy thesis explicitly advocates tra-ditional institutions and guarantees ofmembership. Habermas instead envisionsa new cosmopolitan order that is ‘a dynam-ic picture of interferences and interactionsbetween political processes that persist atnational, international, and global levels’.35 Further, Habermas proposes to intro-duce a procedural notion of governance,whereby only the conditions of rationaland democratic decision making are guar-anteed but not a fixed institutional andlegislative outcome.

Second, Habermas also maintains thatthe thesis of cosmopolitan democracy doesnot employ multiculturalist attributes. Itprioritises universalism that is focused onan all-inclusive and a priori sameness atthe cost of multicultural particularism. Itfails to engage with the notion of the‘other’ in general and the idea of nationalpolitical culture in particular. In simpleterms, it cannot reconcile universalism andparticularism and therefore re-establishesthe competitive relationship between thenational and cosmopolitan domains ofcollective belonging.

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On this point Habermas stresses theimportance of implementing a new com-munity-building logic in the national andthe global domains. He argues that thecohesiveness of a national communitycannot be guaranteed by fostering an ex-clusionary ethno-cultural identity. Instead,Habermas pleads for the advancement ofa civic form of national identity: ‘constitu-tional patriotism’. He reasons that ration-ally chosen commitments to a common setof constitutional principles, fundamentalrights and democratic institutions canprovide a common normative frameworkthat is culturally neutral and thereforesufficiently inclusive for binding a multi-cultural society together. 36

Habermas claims that although consti-tutional patriotism is posited on neutraland universally shared norms, it does notinvolve the rejection of particularism perse. Like any other civic form of collectiveidentity, constitutional patriotism is alsoculturally patterned—it is an expressionof ‘universalism sensitive to difference’.37

Universalism refers to the individuals’commitment to abstract principles andrights. Particularism is attributed to ‘thecontext of a historically specific politicalculture’, 38 which for Habermas is indeedcrucial in translating abstract norms intomeaningful political actions and institu-tions for the individual.

Habermas’s third critique regards thedemocratic credentials of the cosmopolitandemocracy thesis. He notes that Held etal. draw on the traditional Kantian beliefin a pre-existing global morality that holdsall humans together in a global com-munity. This grounding implies that cos-mopolitan rights are also understood aspredefined and universal, distilled fromthe notion of global morality. 39 For

Habermas, this logic is antithetical to theprinciples of democracy. Democracy, asHabermas understands it, is the self-defined and self-legislated power of thepublic. That is, identity, rights and theirinstitutional manifestations are organicand negotiated categories, and not element-al and constructed notions. The cosmopol-itan democracy project does not meet thistransnational requirement. Rather, it em-ploys conservative notions of republicandemocracy and democratic legitimacy, re-lying on the logic of functional (or system)integration from above and avoids thenotion of social, informal integration frombelow. In this sense, Habermas claims, thetheory of cosmopolitan democracy sub-scribes to the traditional logic of com-munity building that underlines the mod-ern national paradigm of citizenship: cit-izenship rights constitute the single sourceof collective identity and collective iden-tity is a sufficient source of legitimacy.

In order to overcome the democraticdeficiency of the cosmopolitan democracythesis, Habermas advocates the move awayfrom representative towards a deliberativenotion of democracy domestically andglobally. The latter entails a more extens-ive involvement of the people in thepolitical decision-making processes. 40 Itinvolves a ‘self-referential model of citizen-ship’ 41 under an umbrella of a politicalorder that is ‘created by the people them-selves and legitimated by their opinionand will formation’. 42 In particular, delib-erative democracy promotes channels ofinteractive and discourse-based civicactivity in addition to the formalised insti-tutional representation and participationof the citizen. 43 It further facilitates acomprehensive notion of public sphere: adimension of civil society whereby indi-

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viduals can engage in rational critical dis-course about affairs of common politicalinterests. Following from here, Habermasargues that deliberative democracy createssocially constructed collective identitythat is constantly reproduced, and gener-ates legitimacy from below. He notes thatdeliberative practices facilitate epistemicas well as integrative functions. They ac-cumulate knowledge and thus enablereason-based decision making. They inter-nalise decisions and create ownership ofagreements. 44

Habermas’s final criticism of the cos-mopolitan democracy thesis refers to itsempirical foundations. It is mistaken tobase a cosmopolitanist thesis on the devel-opments of the international domain: theevolution of an international human rightsregime and the UN system. He insists that‘any plans for a “cosmopolitan democracy”will have to proceed according to anothermodel’ 45 and posits the European Unionas a viable ‘example for a form of demo-cracy beyond the nation-state’. 46 Haber-mas points out that since Maastricht, theEuropean Union has created and consolid-ated the status of union citizenship,gradually upgraded the European Parlia-ment’s decision-making power, introducedthe deliberative-style convention methodin the European Union’s decision-makingprocedures and launched the constitution-alisation process. These developments, heargues, demonstrate the willingness of thepolitical elites to empower the citizens ofEurope in shaping the future direction ofthe integration project.

Despite this positive outlook, Haber-mas admits that the European Union is notyet adequately equipped to deliver on thispromise. He insists that the integrationventure must incorporate the vehicles of

constitutional patriotism and deliberativedemocracy so that the deficiencies of theEuropean Union’s democratic capacity canbe mended while the multi-layered natureof the European polity can be maintained.In particular, a common European politicalculture—shared political values, moralnorms and legal rights—is yet to be dis-tilled. The exercise of producing such acommon ethical framework can only tran-scend but not erode national and culturalparticularism if it wants to provide a vi-able and meaningful basis of solidarity forthe public. 47 For this, the European Uni-on needs to advance the deliberative capa-city of the supranational institutions ofdemocracy, simplify multi-level decisionmaking by deepening the federative as-pects of the European Union 48 and estab-lish a common European constitution. 49

COSMOPOLITAN SHAPING OFTHE EUROPEAN UNION’SCITIZENSHIP POLITY

This section explores the rights attachedto the union status, the way access to theserights is defined and the supranationalinstitutional framework of these rights.The analysis is divided into three sections,which correspond to the European Union’sconstitutional development in the form oftreaties. These are the founding treaties(1951, 1957), which established an em-bryonic supranational rights regime forEurope; the Maastricht Treaty (1992),which introduced the status of union cit-izenship; and the Treaty of Nice (2001),which launched the constitutional processin the European Union.

The founding treaties and Kantian cos-mopolitanism

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Although it can be argued that Europeanintegration has always been a politicalproject, the founding treaties did not con-tain explicit political provisions. Thesetreaties focused on the functional, largelyeconomic cooperation of the memberstates. Accordingly, the transfer of compet-encies and sovereignty from the nationalto the supranational level was minimal.The supranational decision-making mech-anism and inter-institutional relationshipswere based on the primacy of national in-terests and the logic of intergovernmental-style bargaining. 50 As a result, the sover-eignty of the member states remained rel-atively intact. Thus, the creation of acommon European status of citizenship ina binding treaty form was seen as neitherviable nor desirable, and the foundingtreaties of European integration made noexplicit reference to citizenship.

These treaties did, however, institutefour basic freedoms in order to facilitatethe establishment of a free trade area (latercommon market). These four freedomspertained to the movement of goods, cap-ital, services and, most importantly, per-sons/workers. These principles were lateridentified as ‘mobility rights’. 51 The EC-SC Treaty (otherwise Treaty of Paris, 1951)applied the freedom of movement ofpeople to only coal and steel workers, butthe subsequent Rome Treaties (1957) exten-ded the scope of mobility rights to allworkers, with the only exception of thoseemployed in the public service. 52 In ad-dition, these treaties also established acommunity-wide ethical framework forthe European Union’s emerging rights re-gime. They upheld the general principleof equality and introduced binding anti-discrimination legislation on grounds of

nationality, race, ethnic origin, religion,gender and age.

Finally, the founding treaties alsosettled the institutional competences overthese provisions. They empowered theHigh Authority (later European Commis-sion) with the right to propose measuresto achieve the free movement of workers.53 It was, however, the member state thatremained primarily responsible to decideon the content of mobility rights throughthe Council of Ministers, and then to im-plement them domestically. The thirdsupranational institution, the CommonAssembly—later to become the EuropeanParliament (EP)—was a marginal suprana-tional player at this time, which had anadvisory role but no decision-makingpower. Its democratic credentials were alsocompromised as its members were appoin-ted by national parliaments and not dir-ectly elected by the public. 54 As a result,the developmental capacity of mobilityrights remained in the hands of nationalgovernments.

The ‘freedoms’ of the founding treatieswere, in effect, quite restricted. Due to thelimited economic scope of communitycompetences, the application of individualmobility rights, as well as the attachedprinciples of non-discrimination andequality, was limited to employment inmember states. The right of residency wasgranted only to workers and was linkedto their right to exercise labour activity inanother member state. 55 Further, themember states were also granted the powerto limit mobility rights on grounds ofpublic policy, health and security. 56 Fi-nally, eligibility for European work per-mits was linked to ‘recognised qualifica-tions’, as defined by national legislation.57 These legislative and institutional re-

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strictions demonstrate that the early rightprovisions of EC treaties were not boundto any citizenship concept. They werepragmatic facilitators of the economic in-tegration of the member states. In thissense, Elisabeth Meehan rightly points outthat Europe’s ‘first citizens’ were ‘citizens-as-workers, not citizens-as-human-be-ings’.58

Antje Wiener argues similarly whenshe stresses that the special rights grantedto individuals by the founding treatieswere not accessible for all Europeans butonly for a well-defined group of com-munity citizens. On this basis, she argues,these entitlements were inherently prob-lematic as citizenship rights. Their limitedscope and accessibility undermined theprinciple norms that underwrote the ab-stract notion of citizenship (and also cos-mopolitanism), that of equality and indi-vidualism. Further to this, the restrictionsalso contradicted the principle of equalityestablished in the very same treaties. 59

Therefore, I propose that Europe’srights regime created in the foundingtreaties conforms to the Kantian model ofcosmopolitan citizenship. The very defini-tion provided for mobility rights in thetreaties echoes Kant’s notion of cosmopol-itan right—that is, the right to universalhospitality. The limited supranationalcharacter of European institutions in gen-eral and the restricted developmental capa-city of the treaties’ rights provisions inparticular emulate the model of ‘self-poli-cing individual states’, which underwriteKant’s cosmopolitan order.

The Maastricht Treaty—cosmopolitandemocracy?

By the 1970s, the understanding of integ-ration as a primarily economic cooperation

of quasi-sovereign states driven by politic-al elites changed profoundly. The deepen-ing of the economic integration of memberstates, the multiplication of commonpolicies and the extension of supranationalcompetencies were shifting the scope ofintegration from economic to more politicaland social arenas. This transition culmin-ated in the political redefinition of theEuropean integration process, labelled asa paradigm shift from ‘policy to polity’and from ‘diplomacy to democracy’. 60 AEuropean polity was in the making.

The new discourse that stemmed fromthis transformation was organised aroundone key theme, that of legitimating thepolitical development of the Europeanproject. The key question that engagedEuropean political elites regarded the needfor a European status of citizenship in or-der to render itself as a legitimate politicalcommunity. 61

The Maastricht Treaty (1992) reflectedthe paradigm shift in constitutional terms.62 In response to the desire for greaterpolitical legitimacy, it introduced thestatus of European Union citizenship—sub-sequently consolidated in the Treaty ofAmsterdam (1997). Maastricht establishedthat ‘every person holding the nationalityof a Member State shall be a citizen of theUnion’. 63 The status of union citizenshipthat emerged from Maastricht did not re-place but complemented national citizen-ship. 64

There was a widespread view that theestablishment of democratic institutionsand legal status of European citizenshipwould solidify the European Union as anemerging political community and provideit with the direct popular legitimacy itlacked. 65 The assumption that groundedthis belief was a rather traditionalist take

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on the political uses of citizenship: rightstranslate into collective identity, andidentity produces sufficient popular legit-imacy. de Burca accordingly describes theconcept of citizenship employed in theMaastricht era as ‘unifying, community-building, identity-building and legitimat-ing’. 66

The Maastricht Treaty defined thestatus of union citizenship primarily as alegal concept, which contained a bundleof individual rights, specified access tothese rights and set the institutionalframeworks of the developmental capacityof the status. In addition, the treaty alsoreinforced the normative bedding of theEuropean Union’s rights regime. It expli-citly linked the newly established statusto earlier provisions, 67 and incorporatedthe principles of non-discrimination, andthe principle of equal access to the com-munity’s Civil Service. 68

The rights of the union citizenshippackage, compared with what is generallyregarded as citizenship, made up a ratherlimited and ‘unusual’ set of political andcivil rights. 69 Politically, the union statusgranted electoral rights: the rights to voteand stand in local government andEuropean Parliament elections in thecountry of residence. This was limited tomunicipal (local) and European elections.They did not address state (national) andfederal (regional) elections. 70 Further tothis, political freedoms—such as thefreedoms of association, peaceful assemblyand expression—were only implicitly ref-erenced in EU law at the time ofMaastricht. 71 The Charter of FundamentalRights was not incorporated in the treatyproper and therefore had only declaratorystatus in EU law. As such, the charter didnot provide a binding framework of gen-

eral principles for political membership inthe European Union. 72

With respect to civic rights,Maastricht granted the following entitle-ments: right to have diplomatic and consu-lar protection from the authorities of anymember state where the country of whicha person was a national was not represen-ted in a non-union country; right of peti-tion to the European Parliament and appealto the European Ombudsman. The Amster-dam Treaty later amended the civic com-ponent of the status to include the rightto write to European institutions in any ofthe official EU languages and to expect aresponse in the same language. 73 Amster-dam also introduced the transparencyclause, making the documents of the par-liament, the commission and the councilaccessible to union citizens, subject tocertain principles and conditions. 74

Finally, as a clear indication of the willto generate a continuation of the pre-Maastricht legacy as well as to rationalisethe so-called quasi citizenship rights estab-lished in the pre-Maastricht period,Maastricht also placed the so-called mobil-ity rights under the union status. Withthis act, Maastricht extended the right tofree movement in the member states’ ter-ritory to all union citizens. 75 The so-called attached rights—rights associatedwith the free movement principle, such asaccess to employment, welfare benefitsand public services as well as passports,identity cards and resident permits—didnot fall under supranational competencesbut were included within the intergovern-mental decision-making mechanism. 76

This means that the content of and accessto these rights were determined by nation-al legislation. 77

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With regard to determining access tounion citizenship rights, the Treaty ofAmsterdam institutionalised the national-ity rule. Only national citizens of themember states had access to union statusand the rights it involved. 78 Third-country nationals (TCNs)—nationals ofnon-European Union states—remainedexcluded from the political provisions ofEU citizenship. This means that the Treat-ies of Maastricht and Amsterdam failed toestablish a consistent legal basis for resid-ency-based electoral rights: EU citizenshad local voting rights throughout theunion, while the granting of voting rightsto TCNs remained dependent on nationalelectoral legislation and diffuse internation-al principles. 79 The nationality rule wasalso applied to mobility and associatedrights. The civic component of union cit-izenship was, however, conferred to allresident natural and legal persons.

The consolidation of supranationaldemocracy was also an integral part of thelegitimation efforts. Maastricht and Ams-terdam set out to consolidate the institu-tional essentials of representative-styledemocracy. Direct elections based on uni-versal suffrage to the European Parliamenthad been already effective since the ParisSummit resolution in 1974. The first suchelection took place in 1979. Until theMaastricht Treaty, however, the EuropeanParliament was lacking effective politicalpowers and was considered a secondarypolitical player in the supranational edi-fice. Therefore, the specific objective ofMaastricht and Amsterdam was to improvethe relative political status of the parlia-ment in the supranational decision-makingedifice.

The TEU expanded the decision-mak-ing competences of the European Parlia-

ment by the introduction of the co-de-cision procedure and the extension of theuse of the cooperation and assent proced-ures. The co-decision principle gave theparliament the power in specific policyfields to adopt legislations jointly with thecouncil. 80 The extension of the coopera-tion and assent procedures established agreater consultative and mending role, andthus increased political influence for theEuropean Parliament. As a result, thecouncil was no longer in position to ‘defacto impose its views on other institu-tions’. 81

Nonetheless, the co-decision principledid not extend to all policy areas of com-mon interest at that time; the power bal-ance between the council and the parlia-ment continued to favour national in-terests over European, and intergovern-mental bargaining over supranational de-cision making. 82 More notably, theoverall strengthening of the EuropeanParliament’s formal power and relativestatus had little relevance for the EuropeanUnion’s common citizenship provisions.The co-decision principle did not apply tothe policy field of citizenship. In mattersof union citizenship, the European Parlia-ment was granted only consultative com-petence. Maastricht specified thatEuropean citizenship rights could beamended via a truncated treaty amendingprocedure. The council would make thedecision on strengthening or adding rightsto the existing union status unanimously,on the basis of the commission’s proposaland after consulting the parliament. 83 Asa result, the future potential of union cit-izenship lay clearly in the hands of themember states, and not the EU institutionsor the newly established European pub-lic.84

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On the basis of the above depiction ofunion citizenship in the Treaties ofMaastricht and Amsterdam, it can be ar-gued that the treaty approach to com-munity building followed a similar logicto the cosmopolitan democracy thesis.Maastricht and Amsterdam focused onbuilding the vertical relations between thecitizen and the European polity. The ‘na-tional prototype’ of citizenship was re-voked on the supranational level as re-gards rights, access to rights and represent-ative democracy beyond the State.

The implementation of Held’s andArchibugi’s cosmopolitanist ideal was,however, deficient in the European con-text. Instead of building a common statusof citizenship that was independent ofnational citizenship, union citizenship wasdefined as a derivative and secondarystatus. The treaties also failed to assert thesupranational competences over citizen-ship and the development of common cit-izenship remained under the control of themember states. The establishment of theEuropean Parliament, and thus theEuropean citizen, as a competent politicalactor was also lacking.

Towards constitutional patriotism?

The ratification crises in the 1990s wereinterpreted by many as an indication ofthe European Union’s lingering legitimacydeficit. This was not interpreted as a signof the public’s rejection of the Europeanintegration project per se. According tothe discourse of the Brussels elites, thecauses of the crisis were specific and alsorectifiable. The legitimacy crisis was inter-preted as a combined failure of deliveryand communication. Delivery referred tothe failure to translate rhetorical promisesand the public’s primary concerns into

concrete treaty provisions. At the time ofAmsterdam, the economic phase of integ-ration remained incomplete, the politicalprovisions still embryonic and the com-mon citizenship policy only a transitionalarrangement. As for the last, the normativeand the social (mobility rights) componentswere noted as seriously deficient. Thecommunication failure was understood asthe public’s inability to connect with andunderstand the process, institutions andtreaty provisions of European integration.Lack of sufficient information campaignsand the complexity of supranationalstructures and procedures were identifiedas the primary contributing factors.

The recognition of the complexity ofthe European Union’s legitimacy deficitwas linked to a growing awareness thatthe Maastricht approach to communitybuilding had failed. It became evident thatconferring rights did not necessarily pro-duce strong collective identification withpolitical order. Although Maastricht canbe considered a successful project in creat-ing the legal hallmarks of citizen–polityrelations, it failed in establishing cit-izen–citizen relations, instituting particip-atory channels of democracy and accom-modating mediating structures. Withoutthese, the formation of thick collectiveidentities is problematic. The revision ofthe Maastricht approach also concludedthat a (thin) collective identity was not asufficient source of legitimacy. Maastrichtand Amsterdam reinforced the traditionalelite-driven nature of European integra-tion, consolidated the dominance of inter-governmental decision making and insti-tuted a rather deficient representativedemocratic body. This meant that thepublic had little if no influence on theshaping of the European polity, including

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the content of the European Union’s com-mon citizenship policy. In short, theMaastricht approach did not deliver onthe putative need to generate a unified,active and enabled European demos.

The call for a new paradigm shift cul-minated in the commission’s White Paperon Governance (2001). The white paperpresented, once again, common citizenshipas the cure for the European Union’s legit-imacy deficit. However, while the docu-ment defined similar long-term goals tothe strategic underpinnings of theMaastricht and Amsterdam Treaties, itexpressed profoundly different under-standings of citizenship and legitimacy.Regarding citizenship, the white paperadvocated a shift away from the politico-legal aspects towards the socio-culturaldimensions of citizenship. More notably,it proposed to complement the supranation-al arrangements of representative demo-cracy with increased participatory oppor-tunity channels. Improved participationwould enhance the legitimacy and demo-cratic credentials of European governanceby transforming the ‘top-down approach’of supranational decision making into‘more inclusive and accountable’ pro-cesses. 85

The white paper marked a consciousshift from the political to the social condi-tions of legitimacy. While Maastricht fo-cused on building citizen–polity relations(vertical), the post-Maastricht narrative ofthe white paper concentrated on buildingcitizen–citizen relations (horizontal). Theproposal called for the establishment ofdeliberative frameworks of democracy. Inparticular, the introduction of the conven-tion method was to facilitate a pan-European dialogue, nurture a Europeancivil society and ultimately produce a

single legal basis, a constitution, forEurope—requisites of the emergence of aEuropean demos. 86

The white paper reflects a certain as-piration for provisions conducive to theestablishment of a Habermasian-styleconstitutional patriotism. According toHabermas, pan-European solidarity andloyalty are to emanate from a set of legallyentrenched rights and deliberative demo-cratic procedures. Constitutional patriot-ism would ultimately establish theEuropean citizen as not simply the subjectbut the creator of the EU law and theEuropean polity. 87

The post-Maastricht era brought aboutonly a partial resolution of the deficienciesof the Maastricht approach and a limitedimplementation of the white paper’s rhet-orical promises. The Treaty of Nice andthe Draft Constitution did not amend therights component of union citizenship,and did not introduce new rights. Regard-ing political rights, they failed to extendthe range of elections covered under theunion status and did not establish a con-sistent constitutional legal basis for resid-ency-based electoral rights. Neither didthe Treaty of Nice and the Draft Constitu-tion institute participatory and deliberat-ive-style democracy in Europe. The treat-ies treated the notion of governance withinthe standard liberal model of representat-ive democracy. Further, the relative statusof the European Parliament has not beenimproved. Although there has been con-siderable increase in the use of qualifiedmajority voting within the council, neitherthis nor the co-decision principle havebeen defined as the standard supranationaldecision-making mechanism.

The achievements of Nice and theDraft Constitution lie elsewhere. First, they

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made considerable progress in consolidat-ing the normative framework of unioncitizenship. Fundamental rights were as-sembled in one single text, the Charter ofFundamental Rights of the European Union.The charter was proclaimed by all supra-national institutions in Nice (2000) andlater incorporated in the treaty establish-ing the Draft Constitution. Further to this,the protection of civil liberties of all indi-viduals was reinforced. Second, Nice andthe Draft Constitution also strengthenedthe supranational competences over mobil-ity rights and attached rights. The treatiesdid not reform the overall supranationaldecision-making mechanism; the primarydecision-making body remained thecouncil. Nonetheless, according to the Niceresolutions, decisions regarding mobilityrights were to be made according to quali-fied majority, and not unanimity, in thecouncil. 88 Nice and the constitutionaldraft also moved considerable parts of theattached rights under supranational com-petences (EC pillar). Decisions about theseattached rights were made according tothe original restricted mechanism of de-cision making, that of the council’s unan-imous decision following consultation withthe parliament. 89

That is, neither the Nice Treaty northe failed Constitutional Draft Treaty im-plemented the Habermasian model of cos-mopolitanism and established postmodernconditions for citizenship. The legal basisof union citizenship remained reliant onthe premises of cosmopolitan democracyand tied to a traditional conceptualisationof citizenship.

CONCLUSION

The historical overview of the EuropeanUnion’s common citizenship policydemonstrates that the notion of union cit-izenship has followed the developmentalarc of cosmopolitan thought. The under-standing of common rights moved fromthe politically restrained grounds of Kan-tian cosmopolitanism to the Heldian-Archibugian model of cosmopolitandemocracy. By the time of the Draft Con-stitution, the European Union’s citizenshipdiscourse expressed Habermasian aspira-tions of establishing a new political com-munity resting on the premises of consti-tutional democracy and a deliberativemodel of cosmopolitan citizenship. Therhetorical transition to the Habermasianmodel implies the European Union’s ambi-tion to overcome the traditional limitationsof union citizenship and the shortcomingsof its cosmopolitan credentials. It can beconsidered as a conscious move away fromthe national prototype to a postmodernistnotion of citizenship.

Nonetheless, the translation of therhetorical aspirations into concrete treatyprovisions was insufficient, in terms of itscosmopolitan stance and postmodern po-tentials. As for its cosmopolitan creden-tials, union citizenship does not fullysubscribe to the principles of universalegalitarianism. As political rights are notconferred on the basis of a Europe-wideresidency rule, a considerable part ofEurope’s social constituency, TCNs, areexcluded from the European Union’spolitical process. TCNs are conferred onlythe civic entitlements of union citizenship.Further, due to the lack of supranationalcompetences and common provisions toconverge national citizenship policies,

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conditions for accessing national citizen-ship, and therefore the union status, arepersistently diverse across the memberstates. This means that the European Unionhas also failed to establish a Europeannorm of equality with regard to nationalsas well.

From a postmodernist perspective, theshortcomings of the common citizenshippolicy—the nationality clause and partialconstitutionalisation of the residencyprinciple pertaining to voting rights; fail-ure to include national elections in theelectoral rights package; and consolidationof national competencies over supranation-al interests in the policy area of citizen-ship—all detract from the objective ofcreating a direct link between the individu-al and the union. Maastricht, rather,helped to consolidate national sover-eignty90 and established a subordinatesupranational citizenship status. The post-national credentials of the European Uni-on’s common citizenship regime thus re-mained compromised.

The post-national multicultural qualit-ies of union citizenship were limited bythe consolidation of the nationality rule.The nationality rule undermined the cos-mopolitan principles of generality and re-inforced the national character of citizen-ship in Europe. Further, it prioritised na-tional/ethno-cultural difference over othertypes of diversity.

Finally, the decision-making procedurespecified in the treaties is problematic re-garding the transnational value of commonvoting rights. Gardner remarks that elect-oral rights are the central ‘hallmarks’ ofcitizenship since ‘the content of the rightsand duties of citizens at any one time canindirectly be influenced or determined byits exercise’. 91 Despite the rhetorical am-

bitions, the treaties continue to facilitaterepresentative, rather than participatoryand deliberative, democracy. Thereforethe European Union currently does notsufficiently facilitate its citizens’ involve-ment in the shaping of the future directionof the integration project. Further, thecompetence to determine the very statusof union citizenship is still not delegatedto the European Parliament, thus allocatingEuropean citizens a minor role in theshaping of the European Union’s evolvingpolitical community.

The two corollary conclusions thatstem from these observations are the fol-lowing. First, the legal and institutionalfoundations of union citizenship havefailed to move away from the nationalprototype of citizenship. The treaties havenot established the postmodernist creden-tials of political membership and collectivebelonging in Europe. The limited transna-tional and multicultural character under-mines the legitimating potential of unioncitizenship. Second, the bifurcation ofnarrative and treaty feeds into a rhetoricaloverreach, which, in the retrospect of thefailure to ratify the Draft Constitution andits subsequent revision, 92 has contributedto the European Union’s lingering legitim-acy deficit. It can then be argued that theproto-cosmopolitanist posing of citizenshipin Europe seriously undermines the integ-rative and legitimating potential of com-mon citizenship in Europe.

On such critical grounds, I wish to putforward the following recommendation.By overcoming the postmodernist deficien-cies of union citizenship, the EuropeanUnion could translate its rhetorical prom-ises into concrete political action, whichin turn would close the union’s legitimacygap. In particular, in order to generate a

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culturally neutral and all-inclusive frame-work for accommodating all types of di-versity, the European Union shall overridethe nationality clause and place politicalrights on a residency basis, and establisha European condition of residency. Thiswould enhance the multicultural creden-tials of union citizenship and also emancip-ate it from national citizenship, making itof post-national status. Further to this, bythe extension of the co-decision principle,the European Union could place the parlia-ment on equal footing with the council.This, matched with residency-basedelectoral supranational rights, wouldfound the transnational condition of EUdemocracy.

ENDNOTES

1 Thomas Pogge defines three central principles thatall streams of cosmopolitan thought share: individu-alism, universality and generality. According to in-dividualism and universality, cosmopolitan citizen-ship rights are granted to all human beings. Thesetenets also underwrite the modernist liberal paradigmof rights. It is the principle of generality that distin-guishes cosmopolitanism from state-based citizenship.In opposition to the particularistic character of thenational paradigm of rights, generality means thatthe cosmopolitan status has a global force. See Pogge,Thomas W. 1992, ‘Cosmopolitanism and sovereignty’,Ethics, vol. 103, no. 1.2 The literature identifies three stages in globalisationstudies. First-wave scholars investigated the impactof globalisation on national economies and concludedthat a neo-liberal world economy government andhomogenous world society were on the rise and thenational state was in demise (globality and universal-ism). The second-wave engaged in the cultural as-pects of globalisation and argued against the conver-gence thesis of the first wave. It advocated a fragmen-ted and multidimensional world view, whereby na-tional communities would be only one of the multipleloci of human organisation (globalism and particular-ism). The third-wave brings together a multidiscip-linary and multidimensional exploration of globalisa-tion, with particular focus on the political manifesta-tion of globalisation. It concludes that globality andglobalism represent the dual character of globalisa-tion, in that they simultaneously generate the condi-

tions of universalism and particularism. Beck, Ulrich2000, What is globalization?, Polity Press, Malden,Mass.; Brodie, Janine 2004, ‘Introduction: globaliza-tion and citizenship beyond the national state’, Cit-izenship Studies, vol. 8, no. 4; Falk, Richard 2000,‘The decline of citizenship in an era of globalization’,Citizenship Studies, vol. 4, no. 1.3 Habermas, Jürgen 1996, ‘The European nation-state—its achievements and its limits. On the pastand future of sovereignty and citizenship’, in GopalBalakrishnan (ed.), Mapping the Nation, Verso, Lon-don; Habermas, Jürgen 2003, ‘Making sense of theEU: toward a cosmopolitan Europe’, Journal ofDemocracy, vol. 14, no. 4; Archibugi, Daniele, Held,David and Kohler, Martin (eds) 1998, Re-ImaginingPolitical Community—Studies in cosmopolitan demo-cracy, Stanford University Press, Stanford; Linklater,Andrew 2002, ‘Cosmopolitan citizenship’, in EnginF. Isin and Brian F. Turner (eds), Handbook of Citizen-ship Studies, Sage, London; Preuss, Ulrich 1998,‘Citizenship in the European Union: a paradigm fortransnational democracy’, in Archibugi et al., Re-Imagining Political Community; Rumford, Chris 2003,Rethinking the state and polity-building in the EuropeanUnion: the sociology of globalization and the rise of re-flexive government, European Political CommunicationWorking Paper Series, Issue 4/03; Rumford, Chris2003, ‘European civil society or transnational socialspace?’, European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 6, no.1; Weiler, Joseph 1996, ‘European neo-constitution-alism—in search of foundations for the Europeanconstitutional order’, in Richard Bellamy and DarioCastiglione (eds), Constitutionalism in Transformation,Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.4 Bowden, Brett 2003, ‘The perils of global citizen-ship’, Citizenship Studies, vol. 7, no. 3.5 Chris Rumford expressly concludes: ‘Modernityhas come to an end, replaced by the Global Age, atransformation which requires a new conceptualframework.’ See Rumford, Chris 2002, The EuropeanUnion: A political sociology, Blackwell, Oxford, p. 24.See also Albrow, Martin 1996, The Global Age: Stateand society beyond modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge;Biswas, Shampa 2002, ‘W(h)ither the nation-state?National and state identity in the face of fragmenta-tion and globalisation’, Global Society, vol. 16, no. 2;Brodie, Janine 2004, ‘Introduction: globalization andcitizenship beyond the national state’, CitizenshipStudies, vol. 8, no. 4.6 Nussbaum, Martha 1994, ‘Patriotism and cosmopol-itanism’, Boston Review, vol. 19, no. 5, p. 5.7 Habermas, ‘The European nation state—itsachievements and its limits’; Koopmans, Ruud andStatham, Paul 2000, ‘Challenging the liberal nation-state? Post-nationalism, multiculturalism, and thecollective claims-making of migrants and ethnicminorities in Britain and Germany’, in Ruud Koop-

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mans and Paul Statham (eds), Challenging Immigrationand Ethnic Relations Politics, Oxford University Press,Oxford.8 Conway, Janet 2004, ‘Citizenship in a time of em-pire: the world social forum as a new public space’,Citizenship Studies, vol. 8, no. 4. See also Dagnino,Evelina 1998, ‘Culture, citizenship and democracy:changing discourses and practices of the LatinAmerican left’, in Sonia E. Alvarez, Evelina Dagninoand Arturo Escobar (eds), Cultures of Politics, Politicsof Cultures: Re-visioning Latin American social move-ments, Westview Press, Boulder, Colo.; Falk, Richard1994, ‘The making of global citizenship’, in Bart vanSteenbergen (ed.), The Condition of Citizenship, Sage,London; Falk, ‘The decline of citizenship in an eraof globalization’; Fraser, Nancy 1997, Justice Interrup-tus: Critical reflections on the ‘postsocialist’ condition,Routledge, New York.9 Delanty, Gerard 2006, ‘Nationalism and cosmopol-itanism: the paradox of modernity’, in GerardDelanty and Krishan Kumar (eds), The SAGE Hand-book of Nations and Nationalism, Sage, London;Linklater, ‘Cosmopolitan citizenship’.10 The depiction of Kant’s cosmopolitan theory inthis article relies primarily on Kant’s highly influen-tial 1795 essay, ‘Perpetual peace’. His furtherworks—such as ‘Idea for a universal history withcosmopolitan purpose’, ‘The metaphysics of morals’and ‘The conflict of faculties’—will also be refer-enced. See Kant, Immanuel 1970 [1795], ‘Perpetualpeace: a philosophical sketch’, in Murray Forsyth,Maurice Keens-Soper and Peter Savigear (eds), TheTheory of International Relations: Selected texts fromGentili to Treitschke, Allen & Unwin, London; Kant,Immanuel 1970 [1784], ‘Idea for a universal historywith cosmopolitan purpose’, in H Reiss (ed.), Kant’sPolitical Writings, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge; Kant, Immanuel 1991, The Metaphysicsof Morals, Translated by Mary J. Gregor, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge; Kant, Immanuel 1992,The Conflict of Faculties, Translated by Mary J.Gregor, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Fur-ther, the article also presents a mainstream readingof Kant’s cosmopolitan vision, which accepts Kant’sself-imposed limitations on political/institutionalcosmopolitanism and thus a world state. This ortho-dox reading is claimed to have grounded moderninternational relations theory and contemporarystreams of cosmopolitan thought. Central to themainstream reading of Kant’s theory is the originalscholarship of Friedrich and Hisley (see Friedrich,Carl Joachim 1948, Inevitable Peace, Harvard Univer-sity Press, Cambridge, Mass.; Hinsley, F. H. 1963,Power and Pursuit of Peace: Theory and practice in thehistory of relations between states, Cambridge Univer-sity Press, Cambridge). On non-orthodox reading,see further under Note 17.

11 Kant’s ‘Doctrine of rights’ (6:34), cited in Muthu,Sankar 2000, ‘Justice and foreigners: Kant’s cosmo-politan rights’, Constellations, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 32. Seealso Brown, Garrett Wallace 2005, ‘State sovereignty,federation and Kantian cosmopolitanism’, EuropeanJournal of International Relations, vol. 11, no. 4;Hutchings, Kimberly 1999, ‘Political theory andcosmopolitan citizenship’, in Kimberly Hutchingsand Roland Dannreuther (eds), Cosmopolitan Citizen-ship, St Martin’s Press, New York.12 ‘Perpetual Peace’, p. 107. See also Muthu, ‘Justiceand foreigners’.13 Ibid., p. 105, emphasis added.14 Brown, ‘State sovereignty, federation and Kantiancosmopolitanism’, p. 511. See also Pagden, Anthony2000, ‘Stoicism, cosmopolitanism, and the legacy ofEuropean imperialism’, Constellations, vol. 7, no. 1.15 ‘Perpetual Peace’; Brown, ‘State sovereignty,federation and Kantian cosmopolitanism’; Covell,Charles 1998, Kant and the Law of Peace. A study inthe philosophy of international law and internationalrelations, Macmillan, London; Donaldson, Thomas1992, ‘Kant’s global rationalism’, in Terry Nardinand David Mapel (eds), Traditions of InternationalEthics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge;Franck, Thomas M. 1990, The Power of LegitimacyAmong Nations, Oxford University Press, Oxford;Linklater, ‘Cosmopolitan citizenship’; Pagden,‘Stoicism, cosmopolitanism, and the legacy ofEuropean imperialism’.16 A term borrowed from Linklater, ‘Cosmopolitancitizenship’, p. 321.17 Kant explicitly remarked that ‘this federation doesnot aim to acquire any power like that of the state,but merely to preserve and secure the freedom ofeach state itself (‘Idea for a universal history withcosmopolitan purpose’, p. 104; ‘Perpetual peace’, p.47). According to the mainstream interpretation ofKant’s limited political cosmopolitanism, as presentedin this article so far, Kant consolidated the centralityof the national state as the locus of political powerand the referent to the political organisation of hu-manity. Nonetheless, there exists another, non-ortho-dox reading of Kant’s scholarship. There are a num-ber of scholars who argue that Kant’s cosmopolitanvision is a teleological theorem and ultimately antag-onistic to the modern state. The textual inconsisten-cies and ambiguities indicate that Kant proposed thatthe federative association of states was indeed atransitional stage towards a world republic. See Bull,Hedley 1977, The Anarchical Society: A study of orderin world politics, Columbia University Press, NewYork; Cavallar, Georg 1999, Kant and the Theory andPractice of International Right, University of WalesPress, Cardiff; Bohman, James and Lutz-Bachmann,Matthias (eds), Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s

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cosmopolitan ideal, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.;Wight, Martin 1987, ‘An anatomy of internationalthought’, Review of International Studies, vol. 13, no.3.18 For Kant, the internal conditions of democracymeant the implementation of four principles: separa-tion of powers; freedom for all members of society;legal equality of citizens; dependence of everyoneupon a single common legislation. That is, liberaldemocracy and representative government are theessential and sufficient mechanisms to generate theinternal guarantees of Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal.Further, inherent to Kant’s depiction of republicandemocracy was the establishment of a social contract(anima pacti orignarii) between the citizen and theState. With this, Kant expected to delegate sovereignpower to the people and thus to replace the liberalidea of absolute sovereignty with the republican ideaof popular sovereignty. For Kant, the long-termguarantee for the democratic credentials of the Staterested on popular sovereignty (see ‘Perpetual peace’).See also Franceschet, Antonio 2002, ‘Popular sover-eignty or cosmopolitan democracy? Liberalism, Kantand international reform’, European Journal of Inter-national Relations, vol. 6, no. 2.19 Brown, ‘State sovereignty, federation and Kantiancosmopolitanism’, p. 503.20 ‘Perpetual peace’, p. 210; ‘Idea for a universalhistory’, p. 49.21 Kant wrote that the right to hospitality derivedfrom the ancient and natural right to ‘free access toall for the purpose’ to ‘establish community with all’(‘Perpetual peace’, pp. 107–8, 106–7).22 Kant, Immanuel 2002, Critique of Practical Reason,Translated by Werner S. Pluhar, Hackett Publishing,Indianapolis, Ind., p. 321.23 Delanty, ‘Nationalism and cosmopolitanism’.Further to universalism and liberal nationalism,Delanty identifies a third stream of the contemporarycosmopolitan scholarship: post-colonialism. The post-colonial stream differs from universalism and liberalnationalism, in that it rejects the modernist legacyof political thought in general and opposes the Euro-centrism and liberal individualistic ideology entailedin the other streams of cosmopolitanism. Post-coloni-alists argue that the nation and national identity areessentially hybrid categories, in which the national,transnational and global domains are simultaneouslyimplicated. That is, nationalism and cosmopolitanismare neither competing nor separable frameworks forthe political and social organisation of humanity. Forpost-colonialism, see Bhabha, Homi K. (ed.) 2000,‘Cosmopolitanisms’, Public Culture, vol. 12, no. 3;Bhabha, Homi K. 1990, Nation and Narration, Rout-ledge, London; Appiah, Kwame Anthony 1998,‘Cosmopolitan patriots’, in Pheng Cheah and Bruce

Robbins (eds), Cosmopolitics: Thinking and feelingbeyond the nation, University of Minnesota Press,Minneapolis, Minn.24 Miller, David 1999, ‘Bounded citizenship’, inHutchings and Dannreuther, Cosmopolitan Citizen-ship; Miller, David 2000, Citizenship and NationalIdentity, Polity Press, Oxford; Walzer, Michael 1994,‘Spheres of affection. In response to Martha Nuss-baum’s patriotism and cosmopolitanism, 1994’, BostonReview, vol. 19, no. 5; Walzer, Michael 1997, OnToleration, Yale University Press, New Haven.25 Linklater, ‘Cosmopolitan citizenship’, p. 328.26 Held, David 1997, ‘Democracy and globalization’,Global Governance, vol. 3, no. 3, p. 225.27 Archibugi, Daniele 1998, ‘Principles of cosmopol-itan democracy’, in Archibugi et al., Re-ImaginingPolitical Community, pp. 207–9. See also Archibugi,Daniele 2004, ‘Cosmopolitan democracy and its crit-ics: a review’, European Journal of International Rela-tions, vol. 10, no. 3.28 Archibugi, ‘Principles of cosmopolitan demo-cracy’, pp. 210–11.29 Held, ‘Democracy and globalization’, p. 263.30 Archibugi, Daniele and Held, David (eds), Cosmo-politan Democracy—An agenda for a new world order,Polity Press, Oxford, p. 14.31 Held, David 1995, Democracy and the Global Or-der—From the modern state to cosmopolitan gov-ernance, Polity Press, Oxford, p. 274 (emphasis ad-ded).32 Archibugi, ‘Cosmopolitan democracy and itscritics’, p. 456. See also Carter, April 2001, ThePolitical Theory of Global Citizenship, Routledge,London; Dower, Nigel and Williams, John (eds) 2002,Global Citizenship—A critical introduction, Routledge,New York; Heater, David 2002, World Citizenship:Cosmopolitan thinking and its opponents, Continuum,London.33 Archibugi, ‘Cosmopolitan democracy and itscritics’, p. 456.34 Archibugi, ‘Principles of cosmopolitan demo-cracy’, pp. 216–17. See also Dower, Nigel 2000, ‘Theidea of global citizenship’, Global Society, vol. 14, no.4; Held, ‘Democracy and the global order’; Linklater,‘Cosmopolitan citizenship’.35 Habermas, Jürgen 2001, ‘The postnational constel-lation: political essays’, in Thomas McCarthy(ed.),Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, PolityPress, Cambridge, p. 110.36 Habermas, Jürgen 1994, ‘Struggles for recognitionin the democratic constitutional state’, in AmyGuttman (ed.), Multiculturalism: Examining thepolitics of recognition, Princeton University Press,

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Jürgen. See also MacCormick, Neil 1999, ‘Does a na-tion need a state? Reflections on liberal nationalism’,in Edward Moritimer (ed.), People, Nation and State:The meaning of ethnicity and nationalism, I. B. Tauris,London.37 Habermas, ‘The postnational constellation’, p. 84.38 Habermas, Jürgen 1998, ‘The European nation-state: on the past and future of sovereignty and cit-izenship’, Public Culture, vol. 10, no. 2, p. 226.39 Habermas, ‘The postnational constellation’. Seealso Fine, Robert and Smith, Will 2003, ‘JürgenHabermas’ theory cosmopolitanism’, Constellations,vol. 10, no. 4.40 Habermas, ‘The postnational constellation’.41 Ibid, p. 76 (emphasis added).42 Ibid, p. 65. See also Habermas, Jürgen 1995, ‘Cit-izenship and national identity: some reflections onthe future of Europe’, in Ronald Beiner (ed.), Theor-izing Citizenship, University of New York Press, Al-bany.43 Habermas, ‘The European nation state—itsachievements and its limits’. See also Cohen, Joshua1989, ‘Deliberation and democratic legitimacy’, inAlan Hamlin and Phillip Pettit(eds), The Good Polity,Blackwell, Oxford; Dryzek, John S. 1990, DiscursiveDemocracy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge;Dryzek, John S. 2000, Deliberative Democracy andBeyond, Oxford University Press, Oxford.44 Habermas, ‘The postnational constellation’, p. 76.45 Habermas, Jürgen 2001, ‘Why Europe needs aconstitution’, New Left Review, vol. NLR II, no. 11,p. 109.46 Habermas, ‘Making sense of the EU’, p. 94.47 Habermas, ‘Citizenship and national identity’.48 Habermas, ‘Making sense of the EU’.49 Habermas, Jürgen 1999, ‘The European nation-state and the pressures of globalization’, New LeftReview, vol. NLR I, no. 235.50 Nugent notes that the founding treaties put inplace a mechanism of decision making in which ‘theCommission would propose, the Parliament wouldadvise, the Council would decide, and—when lawwas made—the Court of Justice would interpret’.See Nugent, Neill 2003, The Government and Politicsof the European Union, Macmillan and Palgrave,Houndmills, Basingstoke and New York, p. 49.51 Maas, Willem 2005, ‘The genesis of Europeanrights’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 43,no. 5. Further, the importance of mobility rights wasacknowledged by Europe’s political elites. The free-dom of movement of workers was noted to ‘representa rather incipient form—still embryonic and imper-

fect—of European citizenship’ (Levi-Sandri, Lionello1968, Free movement of workers in the EuropeanCommunity, Bulletin EC 11/68, Commission of theEuropean Communities, Brussels, p. 6). See alsoHallstein,Walter 1972 [1969], Europe in the Making,Allen & Unwin, London.52 The Rome Treaties defined the freedom of move-ment for workers as ‘the right…to accept offers ofemployment actually made; to move freely withinthe territory of the Member States for this purpose;to stay in a Member State for the purpose of employ-ment…[and] to remain in the territory of a MemberState after having been employed in that State’(Treaty of Rome, EEC, Article 48).53 Treaty of Rome, EEC, Article 49.54 The fourth institution, the European Court ofJustice (ECJ), was set up as a supranational legal bodywith the competence to produce binding legislationas regards community competencies. It was not untilthe late 1970s, by the time the European Court ofJustice accumulated a vast amount of case law, thatit started to play a greater role in the non-legal,political shaping of the European venture.55 Treaty of Paris, Article 69; Treaty of Rome, Article48. The ECSC Treaty announced that the ‘MemberStates undertake to remove any restriction based onnationality upon the employment in the coal andsteel industries of workers who are nationals ofMember States and have recognised qualificationsin a coalmining or steelmaking occupation, subjectto the limitations imposed by the basic requirementsof health and public policy’ (Treaty of Paris, Article69).56 Maas, ‘The genesis of European rights’, pp. 1014,1020–1. Maas remarks that since the introduction ofthe freedom principles, the legal and practical re-straints on the freedom of movement have beengradually disappearing. Nevertheless, on the basisof Articles 39 and 46 in the Treaty of Amsterdam(1997), mobility rights continue to be subject to theselimitations.57 Treaty of Paris, Article 69.58 Meehan, Elizabeth 1993, Citizenship and theEuropean Community, Sage, London, p. 147. See alsoEverson, Michelle 1995, ‘The legacy of the marketcitizen’, in Jo Shaw and Gillian More (eds), NewLegal Dynamics of European Union, Oxford UniversityPress, Oxford.59 Antje Wiener expressly writes that the set ofrights granted to certain groups of citizens of themember states ‘was not only contradicting the uni-versalising (Europeanizing) mission of the integrationof the founding fathers but also posed a challenge toconceptualisations of citizenship as universal’. Fur-ther, Wiener remarked that this intrinsic tension of

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the early approach to ‘citizenship’ rights was only,and only partially, resolved by the institutionalisa-tion of the status of union citizenship in theMaastricht Treaty (Wiener, Antje 1998, EuropeanCitizenship Practice: Building institutions of a non-state, Westview Press, Boulder, Colo., p. 294).60 Shaw, Jo 1998, ‘The interpretation of EuropeanUnion citizenship’, Modern Law Review, vol. 61, no.3; Bellamy, Richard and Castiglione, Dario 1998,‘Between cosmopolis and community: three modelsof rights and democracy within the European Union’,in Archibugi et al., Re-Imagining Political Community;Chryssochoou, Dimitris N. 2001, ‘Paradigm shift:from policy to polity’, in Dimitris N. Chryssochoou(ed.), Theorizing European Integration, Sage, London.61 As testimony to the political awakening of Europe,the discourse about legitimacy produced a numberof policy initiatives as regards common Europeancitizenship, such as: the Tindemans Report (1975),the Dooge Report (1984), the Draft Treaty Establish-ing the European Union by the Spinelli group (1984)and the Adonnino Report (1985).62 In the late 1980s, the decision-making elites ofthe European Community proved to have insufficientpolitical commitment (council) and inadequatepolitical weight (commission and parliament) to pushthrough politically candid proposals. The SingleEuropean Act (SEA, 1987) did introduce commoncitizenship status and did not increase the status ofthe European Parliament.63 Treaty on European Union (TEU), Article 8; Treatyof Amsterdam (hereafter, TEC), Article 17.64 TEC, Article 17.65 Jo Shaw writes that ‘specific motivation for theinstitution of the concept of citizenship via the Treatyof Maastricht was a top-down [approach] concernedwith facilitating the creation of European identity,and even a European demos which could be the basisfor a European democracy’. See Shaw, Jo 2007, ‘Thetransformation of citizenship in the European Union:electoral rights and the restructuring of politicalspace’, in Laurence Gormley and Jo Shaw (eds),Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy, Cam-bridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 38.66 de Burca, Grainne 1996, ‘The quest for legitimacyin the European Union’, Modern Law Review, vol.59, no. 3, p. 359. de Burca (ibid., pp. 355–6) furtherelaborates: ‘What most of the suggestions and pro-posals [had] in common [when preparing theMaastricht Treaty as well as in the post-MaastrichtTreaty debates was] that the concept of Europeancitizenship has the potential to contribute to a senseof European identity and thus of identification withthe Union as a legitimate polity’.

67 These included: fundamental freedoms and theprinciple of equality as set out in the Rome Treaties(1957), the Joint Declaration on Fundamental HumanRights (1977), the Declaration on Democracy (1978),the principle of direct parliamentary elections (1979)and the Charter of Fundamental Social Rights (1989).68 TEU, Articles 12–13.69 TEU, Articles 8a–8d; TEC, Articles 18–21.70 This is often considered an important limitationthat renders the union status deficient and secondaryto national citizenship. See Meehan, Citizenship andthe European Community; O’Keefe, David 1994, ‘Unioncitizenship’, in David O’Keefe and Patrick M.Twomey (eds), Legal Issues of the Maastricht Treaty,Wiley, Chichester; d’Oliviera, Hans 1994, ‘Europeancitizenship: its meaning, its potential’, in RenaudDehousse (ed.), Europe After Maastricht: An evercloser union?, Law Books in Europe, Munich. HeatherLardy goes even further and contests whether theunion citizenship status ‘which carrie[d] with it suchlimited political rights [was] not really a form of cit-izenship at all’. See Lardy, Heather 1996, ‘The polit-ical rights of union citizenship’, European Public Law,vol. 2, no. 4, p. 613.71 Article 12 in the Charter of Fundamental Rightsaddressed the freedom of association in politicalmatters. In Article 21(2), the charter prohibited dis-crimination on grounds of nationality.72 Shaw, ‘The transformation of citizenship’, p. 155.Further, Shaw notes that political freedoms are ex-pressly provided to foreign residents on the sameterms as to nationals of the given state in the Councilof Europe’s Convention on ‘Participation of foreignersin public life at the local level’. However, as theconvention was signed by only the minority of thecommunity’s member states, it could not provide auniversal and binding legal basis for politicalfreedoms in EU law either.73 TEC, Articles 21 and 314.74 TEC, Article 255.75 It was argued that the inclusion of mobility rightsin the union status resolved the tension between ac-cess to freedom principles and the universal concep-tualisation of citizenship rights. It is important toemphasise that this was, however, only a partialresolution, as the union status remained inaccessibleto third-country nationals under EU law; see nation-ality clause later. See Wiener, European CitizenshipPractice.76 These were included within ‘Justice and HomeAffairs’ (otherwise, Third Pillar) in the MaastrichtTreaty. For background, with the reinforcedEuropean Parliament, the Maastricht Treaty solidifieda two-tier decision-making and legislative system forthe European Union. This was based on the division

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of powers between the national and supranationallevels. The novelty of Maastricht in terms of divisionof powers was a new pillar structure, which organ-ised the competencies by policy fields. The first pillarconcerned the domains in which the member statesand the community had shared competencies andproduced common policies under binding EU law.Decisions were taken according to the communitymethod, favouring the co-decision and cooperationprinciples and the qualified majority rule in thecouncil. The second pillar, titled Common Foreignand Security Policy (CFSP), established a mechanismfor the member states to take joint actions, devisecommon strategies and reach common positions inthe field of foreign policy. The second pillar followedan intergovernmental decision-making procedurethat relied heavily on the unanimity rule in thecouncil. The third pillar, titled Justice and HomeAffairs (JHA), facilitated intergovernmental cooper-ation among the member states in the areas of free-dom, security and justice. The TEU listed the follow-ing nine areas of ‘common interest’ under the JHApillar: asylum; crossing of external borders; immigra-tion; combatting drug addiction; combatting fraudon an international scale; judicial cooperation in civilmatters; judicial cooperation in criminal matters;customs cooperation; police cooperation (TEU, Article11; TEC, Article 29).77 Previous treaties simply excluded these attachedrights under the category of sensitive issues close tothe concerns of national sovereignty (see TEC, Article18[3]). Nonetheless, certain groups of TCNs had ac-cess to civic protection as well as mobility and at-tached social rights, originating in the resolutions ofthe Treaty of Rome, such as: members of a migrantEU family and nationals of a third country that heldan agreement with the community. See Meehan,Elizabeth 2000, Citizenship and the European Union,ZEI Discussion Paper, C63/2000Meehan, Centre ofIntegration Studies, Rheinische Friedrich WilhelmsUniversitat, Bonn; Shaw, ‘The transformation of cit-izenship’.78 TEC, Article 17.79 Siofra O’Leary points out that by the implement-ation of the Maastricht Treaty, only three of themember states (Denmark, the Netherlands and Ire-land) provided long-term residents with votingrights. As for international protocols, the electoralrights of immigrants in the member states remaineddependent on the given state being a signatory ofthe Council of Europe’s Convention on The PoliticalParticipation of Foreigners in Local Life (1992). SeeO’Leary, Siofra 1996, The Evolving Concept of Com-munity Citizenship: From the free movement of personsto union citizenship, Kluwer Law International, TheHague. See also O’Keefe, ‘Union citizenship’; Wiener,European Citizenship Practice.

80 Maastricht also improved the European Parlia-ment’s position vis-a-vis the European Commission.Parliamentary approval was henceforth required forthe appointment of the Commission President (seeTEU, Article 189b; TEC, Article 251).81 Falkner, Gerda and Nentwhich, Michael 2000,‘The Amsterdam Treaty: the blueprint for the futureinstitutional balance’, in Karlheinz Neunreither andAntje Wiener (eds), European Integration After Ams-terdam. Institutional dynamics and prospects fordemocracy, Oxford University Press, Oxford.82 Ibid.83 TEU, Article 8e; TEC Article 22.84 Shaw, ‘The transformation of citizenship’, p. 9.See also Preuss, Ulrich, Everson, Michelle, Koenig-Archibugi, Mathias and Lefebvre, Edwige 2003,‘Traditions of citizenship in the European Union’,Citizenship Studies, vol. 7, no. 1.85 European Commission, White Paper on EuropeanGovernance, CONM 20010 428, The European Com-mission, Brussels .86 The central objective of the white paper wasidentifying tools to improve the democratic capacityof the European Union. It argued for the introductionof participatory and deliberative opportunity chan-nels to complement the supranational institution ofrepresentation. This was matched with a range ofpragmatic reform proposals that aimed at closing thecommunication gap and providing a point of closurefor the Maastricht initiatives. These includedlaunching information campaigns and streamliningand simplifying the common policies and structuresunder a consolidated single treaty (constitution).87 Habermas, ‘The European nation-state: on thepast and future’.88 Constitutional Treaty (CT), Article III-125(1).89 CT, Article III-125(2).90 O’Leary, The Evolving Concept of Community Cit-izenship.91 Gardner,J. P. 1997, Citizenship: The white paper,The Institute for Citizenship, London, p. 39.92 Treaty of Lisbon (otherwise Reform Treaty), 2007.

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CITIZENSHIP AND IDENTITY IN DIVERSESOCIETIES

MARK NOLAN AND KIM RUBENSTEIN

This article examines the relationshipbetween the legal status of citizenship andpsychological research about blendedidentity in diverse societies such as Aus-tralia. A blended identity could includeAustralian national identity as well asother identities relevant to a person’s self-definition. Analysing the link betweencitizenship law and the psychological en-joyment of blended identity is importantafter the reforms to Australian citizenshiplaw in 2007. 1 As discussed below, theformer Liberal-National Government intro-duced a new citizenship knowledge testfor citizenship-by-conferral applicants. Indoing so, that government expressedstrong beliefs about the power of a shared,unitary, national identity. It also suppor-ted calls for citizenship applicants to signa statement of Australian values (differentto the citizenship pledge) and to completean English language test. In light of thereforms and political debate, we attack thesuggestion that blended identification (forexample, as a Greek Australian) is some-how inconsistent with true Australian na-tional identification and citizenship, andmoreover we argue that a single nationalidentification sits uneasily with the legalacceptance of dual or multiple citizenshipin current Australian legislation.

We first discuss the concept of blen-ded identity from a social-psychologicalperspective. Then we examine the details

of the 2007 Australian citizenship law re-forms, bearing in mind that the RuddLabor Government recently released thereport of the independent committee re-viewing the Australian Citizenship Testand the government response to the re-port. 2

Legal notions of citizenship and thepsychological experience of blendedidentities can often be in tension. This isunderstandable since legal and psycholo-gical concepts of national identity are buttwo ways of conceptualising relevant self-definitions shaping social existence andbelonging in diverse societies. We do notbelieve that the legal identity or citizen-ship always completely defines the self inpractice. However, we argue, as do otherresearchers,3 that citizenship law andpsychological identity are in a relationshipof mutual influence creating expectationsabout and reactions to legal treatment.

Notions of citizenship and associatedassumptions about psychological identific-ation that are legally endorsed in diversesocieties have the power to legitimise aswell as de-legitimise the desired enjoymentof self. Indeed, salient identities shape theperspective from which many people willeither support or challenge citizenship lawand decision-making processes. The extentto which the 2007 Australian reforms mayhave (de-)legitimised desired self-defini-

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tions will be examined in the final sectionof this article. Another way of addressingthis issue is to consider whether citizen-ship law and application processing satisfythe basic human need for inclusion andfor adequately expressing and enjoyingall aspects of a blended identity. 4

PSYCHOLOGICAL-SOCIALIDENTIFICATION

This section begins by describing a pro-cess-based understanding of social identi-fication. For example, an unsuccessful cit-izenship application results in particularself-definitions. So too could the existenceof an official policy that treats differentclasses of citizens in different ways, suchas testing only civics knowledge, valuesand language skills for particular citizenapplicants and not, say, for Australianswho are citizens by birth.

These situations can make a singleidentity salient and relevant for self-definition. However, sometimes such con-texts can make a more complex blendedsocial identity salient. For example, an in-stance of discrimination against ArabAustralians could be relevant for their self-definition when reacting to felt discrimin-ation. For example, this inter-group dis-crimination could result when an intelli-gence-gathering or policing decision isbased on the assumption that one aspectof a person’s identity (for example, theircountry of birth and/or religion) threatensnational security by weakening their alle-giance to Australia in some way. Theseassumptions and comparisons cause peopleto self-select identity or identities. How-ever, context and comparisons can alsocause people to be treated by others in

terms of an identity even when they donot wish to so identify.

Both of these identity processes—self-definition and ascription of identity byothers—narrow the number of identitiesused for self-definition. They render otheraspects of self (for example, other identit-ies based on, say, religion, gender, race,residence or political orientation) less rel-evant for shaping the immediate perspect-ive from which people make social judg-ments, decisions or policies. This selectionof relevant (or ‘salient’) identity by thesocial context has been demonstratedprimarily by research focusing on chan-ging operative social comparisons, but alsoby the nature of the normative content orideologies related to salient identities. 5

These contextual changes create iden-tity management challenges for the socialperceiver, helping them determine thepsychologically best way to self-define orto respond to an (often unwanted) ascrip-tion of identity by another. Extendingthese process-based theories of single-identity salience to the study of the simul-taneous salience of many aspects or dimen-sions of self-definition 6 constituting oneblended identity is important for under-standing citizenship and identity in di-verse societies.

BLENDED IDENTIFICATIONAND ITS PSYCHOLOGICALCONSEQUENCES

The concept of blended identity

This article uses the term ‘blended iden-tity’ to convey the concept that many dif-ferent aspects or dimensions of self-defin-ition can be salient simultaneously. Inother words, it includes the situationwhere more than one identity simultan-

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eously shapes a person’s self-definition ina particular social context. The study ofblended identity is controversial, perhapsmainly due to the fact that some criticsbelieve that this theoretical notion can beoverstated. Some scholars reject talk ofblended identity as naïve or unrealistic,concerned that some theorists suggest thatthe adoption of a blended identification isvirtually automatic, common and univer-sally desired. 7 Of course, some migrantsmay wish to stop identifying in terms ofan identity that, for example, representsa tyrannical regime from which they haveescaped. Other critics of the notion ofblended identity suggest that claiming thatblended identification is common is simplyanother form of essentialism that suggeststhat migrants always identify in terms ofthese complex identities. This universalismis overstated in our view, and fails to ex-plain the psychological processes determ-ining when particular identifications oc-cur. 8 Our use of this concept, alongsideempirical, process-based descriptions ofblended identity salience, should reassurethose critics.

The concept of blended identity hasbeen discussed by researchers from anumber of different disciplines. Othercommon terms include: dual nationality,dual citizenship, ethnic national identity,9 hyphenated identity or ethnicity, 10 orsimply mixed identities. In particular, so-cial psychologists have sometimes labelledblended identities as ‘crossed categorisa-tions’ to describe the combination or‘crossing’ of many identities to form acomplex identity. There have been threedecades of social psychological researchinto phenomena flowing from blendedidentifications. This has mainly involvedresearch into how crossed categorisations

shape perceptions of other group mem-bers. For example, being biased in favourof your in-group (that is, the identity per-spective made salient for you by a socialcomparison) and distinguishing self fromand/or thinking negatively of out-groups(that is, groups and their perspectives withwhich you do not feel a sense of belongingin the context of a particular social contro-versy). 11

The term ‘crossed categorisation’ re-flects theoretical ideas about social identitysalience described above. In the case ofblended identity salience, the social con-text makes salient at least two identities,rather than simply one identity. This morecomplex categorisation or definition of theself is the perspective from which peopledetermine their identity-based beliefs andideologies. 12 Importantly, researchersstudy crossed categorisations that includethe salience of national identities as partof a blended identification. 13

If people have many constituent as-pects of self, it should not be surprisingthat sometimes two or more of these iden-tities are simultaneously salient and re-sponsible for shaping our perspective ona social issue. Perhaps these more complex,blended identities are in fact more normalfor some people including migrants thanis the simpler case of the salience of onlyone (national) identity. The burgeoninginterest in the social psychology of crossedcategorisations is a valuable addition tocitizenship research. It is useful to consultresearch on crossed categorisation beforecitizenship law reform championing iden-tification with only one single nationalidentity is thought superior to celebratingblended identity.

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Citizenship and identity in diverse societies

Measurement of identification with ablended identity

Verkuyten studied the relative strengthof religious and national identification ina sample of 206 Turkish-Dutch citizenswho identified as Sunni Muslims. Atti-tudes, though not real behaviours, towardsother religious groups in the Netherlandswere also measured. The study was con-ducted in the context of what Verkuytendescribes as Dutch citizenship policiespromoting assimilation via strong nationalidentification. 14

Verkuyten found that half of thesample rated their Islamic identity asstrongly as they could on all measurementdimensions, choosing seven on a seven-point rating scale on all measures of theimportance of the Islamic identity. Thisceiling effect or ‘total’ identification as aMuslim within these blended identitieswas interpreted as supporting studiesshowing the very high importance of Is-lamic identity for Muslims living blendedidentities in the West. 15

For these ‘total’ Muslim identifiers, thereligious component of identity appeareda highly central way of defining self in thesocial judgment contexts examined. Import-antly, even though half of the participantshad a ‘Muslim identity [that] was an integ-ral or inextricable part of how they sawthemselves’, 16 their Dutch nationalidentification was not eliminated. TheirDutch national identification was signific-antly lower than the national identificationof the other half of participants whose Is-lamic identity was strong though not‘total’. Those with ‘total’ identificationrated their in-group most positively andfelt strongly about Islamic group rights.However, Verkuyten could still classify19 per cent of the ‘total’ Muslim identifiers

as high Dutch identifiers (who rated theimportance of that identity above themidpoint of the response scale). Also, 31per cent of high Muslim identifiers simul-taneously identified as Dutch nationalsand had high levels of national identifica-tion.

For some, the impact of strong reli-gious identification upon national identi-fication could appear alarming. However,the observable psychological benefits ofthese blended identities are an importantpart of evaluating any alleged risk ofblended identification. For these ‘totallyidentified’ Muslim participants, the mostnegative feelings towards other religiousgroups in the Netherlands were towardsnon-believers. When total Muslim identi-fication and high national identificationco-occurred, hostility towards other reli-gious groups (Jews, Christians, Hindus)decreased. Most negative beliefs aboutother Dutch religious groups were heldby total Muslim identifiers with low na-tional identification, suggesting that hos-tile beliefs were caused more by a singlerather than a blended identification.

These data suggest the importance ofrelationships between each aspect of ablended identity for resulting social atti-tudes (that is, beliefs about nationality andabout religious groups to which the per-ceiver does or does not belong). It doesnot suggest, however, that high or totalidentification as a Muslim always elimin-ates or suppresses national identification.This detail of this study is highlighted asan example of the type of research thatshould be conducted and consulted in or-der to understand the subtle dynamism ofblended identity expression in politicalcontexts. The reasons why a blendedidentifier does or does not strongly

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identify as a national of their country ofresidence is an important social-psycholo-gical and political question. Not only dothese data suggest the reality of blendedidentities and the possibility of identifica-tion with a blended identity and high na-tional identification, these data suggestthat detailed measurement of the impactof citizenship regimes is needed so we canbetter understand exactly how and whencitizenship regimes may stifle blendedidentities or allow them to exist.

Verkuyten notes too that crossing reli-gious identity with national identity is anexample of a complex blended identity,perhaps even more complex than combin-ing two national identities or, say, lan-guage groups. 17 It should be rememberedthat each example of crossed categorisa-tion, in political and historical context,will produce its own unique identitymanagement challenges. Possible socialtensions that result are not simply a func-tion of whether blended rather than singleidentity salience occurs but are influencedby relationships between the constituentidentities in a crossed categorisation andsocial treatment of these identities.

Common in-group identity research

Some social psychologists argue that adopt-ing one superordinate, common in-groupidentity (for example, Australian) withindiverse societies can reduce tension andhostile beliefs between groups. However,some researchers have found this occurswhen valued cultural identities (for ex-ample, Arab identity) can remain strongfollowing identification with the commonin-group identity (for example, Australi-an). 18 This suggests the benefit of blen-ded identification that prevents mere rec-ategorisation of all subordinate identities

into a higher-order national identity.Rather than replacing this diversity witha unitary national identity, there is benefitin promoting a superordinate Australiancitizenship that allows explicit and continu-ing identification with other elements ofa blended identity.

Similarly, important recent empiricalwork reveals the impact on in-group biaswhen making a common in-group identitysalient whilst measuring how people per-ceive the relative importance of maintain-ing a crossed categorisation. 19 In thiswork, the perceived importance of thecrossed categorisations determinedwhether use of a common in-group iden-tity (for example, Australian) resulted inharmony and perceived inclusiveness in-stead of continuing tension and continuingperceptions of inter-group difference.Results showed that when the elements ofa blended identity remained subjectivelyimportant for a perceiver, then identifyingonly in terms of a common in-group iden-tity did not reduce perceived inter-grouptension between subordinate identities.

SOCIAL RESEARCH ONBLENDED NATIONAL IDENTITY

In this section, social research on blendedidentity provides further examples ofblended identification. Two examples aredrawn upon: British Muslims and citizen-ship, as well as studies of Latin Australi-ans.

British Muslims and citizenship

In line with other theorists, 20 social psy-chologists Hopkins et al. suggest thatsensitivity to cultural diversity has alsocreated a tension between ‘the actualityof a plurality of social identities and the

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singular identity implied by citizenship’.21 In terms of self-categorisation theory,22 these researchers analysed how BritishMuslims used Islamic identity to encour-age or dissuade citizens voting during the1997 general election. The British NationalParty (BNP) claimed that there was a con-tradiction between being a Muslim andbeing a British citizen. Against this polit-ical backdrop, the Muslim Parliament ofGreat Britain asked British Muslims toboycott the polls and to demand alternat-ive institutional arrangements throughwhich they could express their politicalviews. 23 They also claimed a degree ofidentity incompatibility, stating that Brit-ish Muslims could not be loyal to the La-bour Party and God at the same time. 24

The Muslim Parliament called for BritishMuslims to live up to the example of theProphet and to aim for interaction withthe community without integration inBritain.

To counter that call, the UK ActionCommittee on Islamic Affairs citedQur’anic verse to produce an anti-boycottmessage encouraging British Muslims tovote in order to fulfil the duty they owedto Britain. This civic duty as British cit-izens was asserted to be the same type ofoutward-looking, communal duty theyowed as Muslims to other Muslims.

This political debate is a dramatic ex-ample of how blended identity can be usedfor political purposes in a dispute overcitizenship rights (voting and representat-ive democracy). It demonstrates thatblended identity allows for the possibilityof encouraging, as well as sometimes dis-suading, civic participation when usingrhetoric derived from all the aspects of ablended identity. Hopkins et al. state thereis little use concluding that blended iden-

tities will always have negative effects fornational politics and harmony. The re-searchers note that conceptualising subject-ive notions of citizenship or blended Brit-ish Muslim identity as fixed, essentialistic,homogenous or universally expressedconcepts is misguided. Even if the BNPbelieved there was only one essential typeof British Muslim, analysis of the realpolitical context showed that there couldbe at least two British Muslim views on theimportance of voting in the general elec-tion, both derived from Islamic texts. Theideological content of blended identifica-tions and descriptions of citizenship willvary in line with specific political contextand the political end sought, as may thecase when single category national identit-ies are used for political purposes. 25

This dynamism should not be per-ceived as a weakness of blended identific-ation per se. It is not as if all blendedidentities have an essence tending towardsinevitable identity conflict. Rather, thesocial constructions revealed in this studyreflected strategic political behaviour froma salient identity perspective. It demon-strates that each element of blended iden-tification can be mutually reinforcing, asmuch as they can be antagonistic. In thissense, the research shows that one groupof highly identified British Muslims soughtpolitical autonomy that downplayed thesignificance of British citizenship rights.The other, a similarly highly identifiedgroup of British Muslims, argued for elec-tion voting and full civic participation asa core duty consistent with their Muslimidentity. The latter political approachdemonstrated an ability to unify both as-pects of their crossed categorisation des-pite political attack suggesting that asingle British citizenship must prevail as

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it was inconsistent with blended identific-ation as a British Muslim.

Identification by Latin Australians

Zevallos conducted a study of 13 young(seventeen to twenty-five year old) womenof Latin American heritage living in Aus-tralia. 26 Five of the participants wereAustralian born, and the remaining eighthad come to Australia between the ages oftwo and seven. One finding obtained wasthat 11 of the 13 interviewees rejected thenotion that their identities were best cap-tured by the simple label ‘Australian’; onlytwo interviewees were happy with thatlabel, having grown up in Australia.

This rejection of the singular labelAustralian did not mean they rarely feltAustralian, or had low attachment toAustralia. Indeed, they felt most Australi-an, and were treated most as Australians,when travelling in Latin American coun-tries. 27 When this salience occurred, theyreadily attributed traits, views and beha-viours to their ‘Australian side’ or to theAustralian influence upon their self-definition as, say, ‘a South American livingin Australia’. When discussing gender andsexuality issues, for example, the womenendorsed values of egalitarianism as anAustralian influence. In terms of the cit-izenship values debate in Australia, it isnoteworthy that use of a blended identitydoes not mean these interviewees failed toendorse values (for example, egalitarian-ism) that some would claim as Australian.

Most of the women reported thatAustralia was considered to be home andwhere they hoped to have careers andchildren; interviewees contemplated onlyholidays in Latin American countries.However, they still preferred not to bedefined simply as Australian. Based on the

data collected, Zevallos concluded that:‘There has been no consensus on the bestway to bridge the gap between the ideo-logy of multiculturalism and an all-encom-passing Australian identity.’ 28

Perhaps the missing consensus on thebest way to bridge the gap between theideology of multiculturalism and an all-encompassing Australian identity is totruly celebrate the existence of blendedidentities socially, politically and legally.Indeed, Australian citizenship law hasmoved from a rejection of dual or multiplecitizenships to an acceptance and affirma-tion of these in legislation, to which thisarticle now turns.

AUSTRALIAN CITIZENSHIPLAW

Dual or multiple citizenship in Aus-tralia

From the inception of the Australian Cit-izenship Act 1948 (Commonwealth) until4 April 2002, there was a provision man-dating loss of Australian citizenship for aperson who acquired a new citizenship.This was found in Section 17 of the act(‘Loss of citizenship on acquisition of an-other nationality’). 29

Section 17 and the deterrence of dualcitizenship was one of the most contestedand contentious areas of the AustralianCitizenship Act 1948 (Cth). Dual citizen-ship was the subject of a 1976 review bythe Joint Committee on Foreign Affairsand Defence and it was also considered inthe context of the national consultationson multiculturalism and citizenship con-ducted in 1982. Then, two further reviewsconsidered the worthiness of s. 17, 30 anda related parliamentary review of s. 44(i),which disqualified dual citizens from be-

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coming Members of Parliament, also con-sidered related policy matters.31

At one level there was a basic inequal-ity in the system. When citizens of anothercountry became Australian citizens, theapproach in practice had varied. Thepledge taken upon becoming an Australiancitizen has changed over the years.Between 1966 and 1986 the words in-cluded ‘renouncing all other allegiance’.32

However, this wording had no legalconsequence for their status as citizens ofthe other country. As a matter of interna-tional law, it is a question for the countrywhich bestows citizenship to determinewhether someone loses that citizenship—itis an incident of sovereignty of that na-tion-state. The leading case on the ques-tion of nationality for the purpose of dip-lomatic protection is the 1955 Nottebohmcase.33

The High Court of Australia confirmedthis in Sykes v. Cleary, 34 in which twoof the people running for Parliament, andwhose positions were challenged, werecitizens of other countries, Greece andSwitzerland, and therefore ineligible unders. 44(i) of the Australian Constitution.

The issue of dual citizenship becamequite central to the deliberations of theAustralian Citizenship Council. In August1998, the Howard Government establishedthe council as an independent body toadvise it on Australian citizenship matters.In a report at the end of 1999, later pub-lished as Australian Citizenship for a NewCentury, the council made 64 recommend-ations including the repeal of Section 17.Considering matters such as globalisation,the Australian Citizenship Council stated:

[A]s we move into the twenty-firstcentury, the prevalence of dualcitizenship internationally will

rapidly increase. The law andpractice of most countries withwhich Australia likes to compareitself permits citizens of thosecountries to obtain another citizen-ship without losing their originalcitizenship…These countriessimply recognize that they havean internationally mobile popula-tion and that they can retain con-nection with this population evenif another citizenship is ac-quired.35

This recommendation was acted upon bythe government and implemented in the2002 amendments to the act, which werethen enhanced by the 2007 reforms towhich discussion now turns.

Howard Government policy reforms in2007

In 2007, the Howard Government intro-duced two separate pieces of legislationon citizenship that had different policyobjectives. The first was the repeal of the1948 statute with a new Australian Citizen-ship Act 2007. The second (and after thefirst was fully implemented) was anamendment to the new act introducingmore elaborate citizenship testing.

The 2007 act

The Australian Citizenship Act 2007 cameinto force on 1 July 2007. As the Reader’sGuide to the new act outlines, 36 the ori-gins of the 2007 act lie with the formerAustralian Citizenship Council (the coun-cil). In its report at the end of 1999, re-ferred to above, within its 64 recommend-ations was ‘Refining the structure of theAustralian Citizenship Act 1948’. 37 The2007 act’s origins lie with that recommend-ation.

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While all the other substantivechanges to the 1948 act recommended inthe council’s report (such as the repeal ofSection 17 of the former act to allow fordual citizenship) were implemented in le-gislation in 2002, this last recommendationto ‘tidy up’ the act ‘to improve presenta-tion so it is logically organized, numberedand consistent, with relevant matters dealtwith together, and ensuring the balanceof matters dealt with between the Act andthe Regulations conforms to modernstandards’ was implemented with thepassage of the Australian Citizenship Act2007 (the new act).

The act has a more logical structure,including terminology that is more access-ible and changes complementing thepolicy rationale of the 2002 amendments,as well as some further changes to assistAustralia in better responding to the threatof terrorism. 38

The most significant change from theperspective of this article emanating fromthe report was the 2002 repeal of s. 17 ofthe original citizenship act. The new 2007act extended that inclusive approach toAustralian citizenship in various ways,including broadening the resumption ofcitizenship provisions and the extensionof citizenship by descent to children ofpeople who had lost their Australian cit-izenship.

These latter changes were part of thepackage that could be referred to as inclus-ive; they were including in the Australiancommunity many people who had oftenseen themselves as Australians, but hadnot been recognised formally in law assuch, and importantly for our discussionof blended identity, included dual citizensin the fullest legal sense. However, verysoon after the passage of the new legisla-

tion, an amendment act, which was intro-duced before the core legislation, waspassed,39 underpinned by a less inclusivepolicy approach to Australian citizenship,as set out below.

Citizenship testing

Before the 2007 citizenship test reforms,citizen-by-conferral applicants generallyhad their language ability assessed at inter-view, though there was no standardisedor objective test of English language profi-ciency.40 There was no formal writtencitizenship knowledge test administered,save for applicants needing to demonstrateat interview a satisfactory understandingof the rights and responsibilities of Aus-tralian citizenship. Citizenship applicantsthen needed to make the CitizenshipPledge (see below).

Following the passage of the Australi-an Citizenship Amendment (CitizenshipTesting) Bill 2007, the minister can requirecertain applicants to sit a formal citizen-ship test (which may include English lan-guage testing as well as civics knowledgetesting).41 A review of the amendment actis thoroughly canvassed in the Parliament-ary Bills Digest.42 As part of the new ad-ministrative system, a resource book isavailable for prospective applicants toread,43 and from which information isavailable that will assist applicants in an-swering the randomly selected questionsdrawn from a secret set.

The department publishes CitizenshipTest Snapshot Reports on a regular basis.44

The latest information about the testingreveals some form of substantive discrim-ination against test applicants from thehumanitarian migration stream. The report-ing from the Department of Immigrationand Citizenship indicates that between 1

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October 2007 and 30 June 2008, 48 713individuals sat the citizenship test and 46500 (or 95.5 per cent) passed it on theirfirst or subsequent attempt.45 The passrate (on first or subsequent attempt) forapplicants who came to Australia underthe Skilled Stream of the Migration Pro-gram was 99 per cent compared with 92per cent for those who came under theFamily Stream and 82 per cent for thoseapplicants who came under the Humanit-arian Program. Also, the average numberof tests needed to be taken before passingper applicant appears greater for humanit-arian (1.8) compared with family (1.3) andskilled migrant (1.1) applicants. The num-ber of test applicants from each migrationstream is as follows: skilled (48 per cent),family (22.2 per cent) and humanitarian(11.3 per cent).

THE IMPACT OF AUSTRALIANCITIZENSHIP LAW REFORM ONBLENDED NATIONAL IDENTITY

Below, two possible results of inappro-priate treatment of blended identities areconsidered: 1) increased identificationfollowing threat to one (national) identity;and 2) variations in identity attachment.The concept of honourable citizenship46 isalso discussed below as a guide to howsome migrants may wish their blendedidentity to be respected: needing theircountry of origin to be acknowledged andrespected, rather than demonised ortreated as if it is no longer psychologicallysignificant. This section of the article con-siders whether the Howard Government’scitizenship reforms and policies widenrather than bridge the gap between citizen-ship law and healthy psychological enjoy-

ment of blended identity in diverse societ-ies.

A single Australian identity: is keepingit simple stupid?

In the citizenship testing discussionpaper, the Howard Government definedthe desired normative content of an Aus-tralian identity:

Citizenship provides an opportun-ity for people to maximise theirparticipation in society and tomake a commitment to Australia’scommon values—which includethe respect for the freedom anddignity of the individual, oursupport for democracy, our com-mitment to the rule of law, ourcommitment to the equality of menand women and the spirit of a fairgo, or mutual respect and compas-sion to those in need.47

These values are similar though muchmore detailed and, perhaps, ideologicallydriven than the current citizenship pledge,which reads: ‘From this time forward [un-der God],48 I pledge my loyalty to Aus-tralia and its people, whose democraticbeliefs I share, whose rights and libertiesI respect, and whose laws I will upholdand obey.’49

Zevallos cites Kukathas’ warning thatconflict is likely when culturally pluralist-ic societies such as Australia attempt toendorse a strong sense of national identityvia reshaping of Australian institutions(including citizenship law) with the aimof further defining what it means to be anAustralian.50 In light of these warnings,the most troubling aspect of the HowardGovernment’s rhetoric surrounding its2007 citizenship reforms was the officialendorsement of citizenship as the celebra-

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tion of a simple, single national identityand as the best solution to inter-grouptension or personal maladjustment. As at-tractive and consensual as this focus mayat first appear, it asserts equivalencebetween a single citizenship identity andreal psychological identification that maynot exist in all cases. The government’spreferred approach in 2007 was to encour-age use of a single ‘superordinate identity’to all new Australian citizens irrespectiveof their migration history and the extentto which a blended identity was importantto them.

Instead of suggesting that true celebra-tion of blended identity could create sta-bility in a diverse society, the HowardGovernment’s Discussion Paper on citizen-ship testing suggested that sustainableunity came via a simple, single nationalidentity: ‘Australian Citizenship is thesingle most unifying force in our culturallydiverse nation. It lies at the heart of ournational identity—giving us a strong senseof who we are and our place in theworld.’51

Unlike our thesis—that true recogni-tion of blended identity may sometimesreduce social tension—the official endorse-ment of citizenship in 2007 was linkedsimply to identification as Australian;suggesting that diversity and harmonywas strengthened rather than weakenedby emphasising one Australian nationalidentity in all contexts and in response toall social comparisons within Australia.Testing English language proficiency,Australian civics knowledge and askingapplicants for an endorsement of Australi-an values were tools thought by theHoward Government to facilitate adoptionof this simple (non-blended) identity. Noother route to harmonious multicultural

relations was considered to be as effective.For example, there was minimal if anyemphasis upon unity in diversity and littlesuggestion that the celebration of blendedidentity could assist relations in some,even if not all, possible social contexts.

Identity threat

The Howard Government’s one-citizen-ship-satisfies-all approach to unity in di-versity may result in threats to some ofthe identities comprising a blended iden-tity. Much social-psychological researchconfirms that one reaction to identitythreat is increased rather than decreasedidentification with the threatened identity,especially for those who strongly identifywith the threatened identity.52 For thosewho highly identify with a threatenedidentity, and who wish to continue to self-define in those terms, rejection of a singleAustralian identity that threatens othercomponents of their blended identityseems likely. This prediction, supportedby results of designed laboratory research,has also been demonstrated in recent fieldstudies. For example, in response to assim-ilationist citizenship policies in the Neth-erlands, Islamic groups whose religiousidentity was threatened strongly identifiedwith that identity in response to publiccondemnation of continuing identificationas a Dutch Muslim.53 Such results wouldbe at odds with the Howard Government’sclaim that using (simple) notions of Aus-tralian citizenship and identity was thesingle most unifying force in our diversesociety, producing ‘a strong sense of whowe are’.54

Attachment to Australia

Attachment to Australia was important forthe Howard Government in 2007, statingthat:

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Becoming an Australian is muchmore than a ceremony. It is an op-portunity to fully embrace theAustralian way of life, to broadeneducation options and employmentopportunities, to vote and to havea voice in the country’s fu-ture…People taking up Australiancitizenship are welcomed into oneof the safest, most tolerant andpeaceful societies in the world.55

Davis, in his review of social-psychologicaltheories of national attachment and hisempirical study of Basque attachment inSpain, suggests that measuring subjectiveattachment to nation is much more com-plex than measuring values endorsement.Davis’s review suggests that values-basedattachment is important, though it can beof less importance than measures of emo-tional ties to nation or of institutional re-sponsibilities.56 Even Davis’s analysis ofBasque attachment revealed two distinctperspectives: ‘guardian nationalism’ and‘apolitical ethnicity’. Only the former ofthose attachment styles was defined cent-rally around values such as languagemaintenance, self-determination and armedseparatism. Davis also emphasised thatcareful empirical work was required tounderstand subjective attachment to na-tion for those self-defining in terms ofblended identities; rejecting the utility ofunderstanding attachment to nation interms of commonly asserted and universaldimensions of attachment.57 Arab Australi-an Waheed Aly suggests that the HowardGovernment’s policy of compulsory lan-guage testing and knowledge testing wasmooted for political reasons and cannotprovide an effective way to increase theattachment to Australia or the participa-tion in civic life:

The tests would ask pointlessquestions about Don Bradman58

and Phar Lap,59 not because thisassisted migrants with integrationin any practical way, but becauseit was intended to send a symbolicmessage to a specific constituencyin the electorate. A sector thatseeks reassurance that the onlymigrants who will make it throughare the good ones.60

Aly believes that the testing regime couldemphasise a ‘suffocating…parochial cultur-al paradigm’61 neither giving practicalhelp to migrants living in Australia norimproving social relations and attachmentto Australia.

Honourable citizenship

Ghassan Hage fears that Australians withblended national identities in diverse soci-eties such as Australia, who even haveachieved their clear entitlements to citizen-ship rights, can still feel ‘demeaned as ahuman being’62 when accessing rightsoffered to them. Hage argues that mostArab migrants to Australia are ‘reasonablylikely to end up accessing Australian cit-izenship and/or the rights that come withit or with residency status’.63 Therefore,he argues, the real social problems (socialexclusion or isolation, inequality and dis-crimination) revolve around the ways inwhich you must access these rights and howyou feel when doing so.

Hage stresses that citizenship isprimarily about a (psychological) sense ofbelonging and about ‘holding your headhigh’ as, say, an Arab Australian. Beingable to do so is, in Hage’s terms, to be ableto enjoy honourable citizenship. Such aform of citizenship in practice is determ-ined by whether the legal conceptions of

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citizenship or, ‘rule over the self’,64 deliv-er a sense of dignity, autonomy and hon-our. He claims that this goes beyond thecommon situation in diverse multiculturalsocieties where refugees or migrants areoffered a chance to belong to Australiansociety because they cannot or no longerwish to live in and identify with their coun-try of origin. According to Hage, then,honourable citizenship for dual nationalsmeans that the mode of accessing rightsand the official displays of inclusion andrecognition should emphasise and celeb-rate the continued moral worth of all ele-ments of a blended self-identity.

Hage argues that explicit and transpar-ent efforts be made to consider the impacton blended identities when the AustralianGovernment makes foreign policy or otherofficial decisions. This, in effect, wouldinvolve considering how actions taken inthe Australian interest may affect thosewith salient blended identities.65 Honour-able citizenship also means that the historyand origin of, for example, an Arab iden-tity is honoured by being given clearsupport as a legitimate identity with past,present and future moral worth. Makingsimpler calls for integration or assimilationvia citizenship and identification as (only)an Australian, who speaks good English,has good civics knowledge and who en-dorses Australian values, may sometimesbe at odds with the notion of honourablecitizenship.66

Hage concludes by encouraging ArabAustralians to treat Australia as a homeand to participate in Australian societydespite their real fears of being discrimin-ated against and of not being able to livetheir blended identities in ways theywould hope.67 In saying so, he hopes Ar-ab Australians will be encouraged not to

forget their other homes. He also notes thatthe movement of people to Australia isdynamic, continuing and less final than itmay have once been, with many migrantfamilies now going back and forth ratherthan making one-movement migrations toAustralia.68 In contemplating the futureof the citizenship test, the Rudd Govern-ment should recognise that many Australi-ans juggle two or more national identities.For blended identification to be matchedby sensitive laws on dual or multiple cit-izenship, ‘petty fears of double allegi-ance’69 must give way in law and practiceto a diverse society in which blendedidentification can truly flourish for thebenefit of all.

CONCLUSION

If one goal of Australian citizenship lawis to legally recognise the reality of blen-ded identities, governments need to createcitizenship law that allows for self-defini-tion via crossed categorisations. Outwarddisplays of attachment to and enjoymentof all aspects of a blended identity shouldnot engender undue moral panic. Instead,citizenship should be considered to oper-ate richly and dynamically in ways similarto other examples of crossed categorisa-tions unless evidence exists of uniquepsychological process and universallynegative social psychological consequencesfor citizenships lived as crossed categorisa-tions.

This article has explained that someconcerns about blended identifiers—thatthey will be more biased or are less at-tached to Australia—are not sustained byresearch evidence. These concerns arelongstanding assumptions that have beenunder-researched, even by identity psy-

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chologists.70 The way in which citizen-ship law and policy creates tensionbetween elements of blended identities isimportant:

These identities do not have tocontradict each other or get ineach other’s way because they areof different kinds: they are differ-ently defined or situated on differ-ent levels of abstraction. One canbe a member of an ethnic group aswell as a superordinate nationalcategory. There is little problemas long as these identities are notdefined on the same level of ab-straction and in contrasting orcompeting terms. Depending onthe situation the one or the otheris relevant and becomes salient.However, different identities dosometimes get in each other’sway.71

Blended identity salience is a dynamic andcontext-dependent process, and is not afanciful, postmodern, theoretical concept.It is the lived reality for many citizens.The celebration of blended identity ratherthan the ascription of an ill-fitting singularAustralian identity may be a better wayto encourage psychological attachment tothe many ways in which Australian citizen-ship can be enjoyed.

POSTSCRIPT

The Rudd Government released the reportof the Australian Citizenship Test ReviewCommittee, Moving Forward…ImprovingPathways to Citizenship, and the govern-ment response to that report after thisarticle was written (see <http://www.cit-izenshiptestreview.gov.au/index.htm>).

Kim Rubenstein was a member of thecommittee. When the government releasesthe new citizenship test and the pathwaysto taking the test as a result of its responseto the report, we will then be able to con-sider how well the changes deal with theissues raised in this paper.

ENDNOTES

1 See reforms as discussed below. Note also that on24 January 2007, the Department of Immigration andMulticultural Affairs was renamed the Departmentof Immigration and Citizenship.2 The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship es-tablished an independent committee to review theCitizenship Test in April 2008 (see < http://www.cit-izenshiptestreview.gov.au/ >).3 Dauvergne, C. 2005, Humanitarianism, Identityand Nation: Migration laws in Canada and Australia,UBC Press, Vancouver, pp. 166–221; Mamdani, M.2001, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism,nativism, and the genocide in Rwanda, PrincetonUniversity Press, Princeton, NJ, p. 22; Purvis, T. andHunt, A. 1999, ‘Identity versus citizenship: trans-formations in the discourse and practice’, Social andLegal Studies, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 457–82; Reicher, S.1986, ‘Contact, action and radicalisation: some Britishevidence’, in M. Hewstone and R. Brown (eds), Con-tact and Conflict in Intergroup Encounters, BasilBlackwell, Oxford, pp. 152–68; Ramos, E. Rivera2001, The Legal Construction of Identity: The judicialand social legacy of American colonialism in PuertoRico, American Psychological Association, Washing-ton, DC.4 Abu-Saad, I. 2006, ‘State-controlled education andidentity formation among the Palestinian Arabminority in Israel’, American Behavioral Scientist,vol. 49, no. 8, pp. 1085–100.5 Oakes, P. J. 1987, ‘The salience of social categories’,in J. C. Turner, M. A. Hogg, P. J. Oakes, S. Reicherand M. Wetherell (eds), Rediscovering the SocialGroup, Blackwell, Oxford; Oakes, P. J., Turner, J. C.and Haslam, S. A. 1991, ‘Perceiving people as groupmembers: the role of fit in the salience of social cat-egorizations’, British Journal of Social Psychology,vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 125–44.6 Where a broad range of personal aspects, includingaffiliations with groups, may help define a collectiveor blended identity: Simon, B. and Hastedt, C. 1999,‘Self-aspects as social categories: the role of personalimportance and valence’, European Journal of SocialPsychology, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 479–87. See also Simon,

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B. 1997, ‘Self and group in modern society: ten theseson the individual self and the collective self’, in R.Spears, P. J. Oakes, N. Ellemers and S. A. Haslam(eds), The Social Psychology of Stereotyping and GroupLife, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 318–35.7 Cashmore, E. 2003, ‘The impure strikes back’,British Journal of Sociology, vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 407–14,411, citing Kumar, K. 2003, The Making of EnglishNational Identity, Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge, p. 258.8 Ibid., p. 411, citing Anthias, F. 2001, ‘New blen-dedities, old concepts: the limits of “culture”’, Ethnicand Racial Studies, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 619–41, 637.9 Korac, M. 1996, ‘Understanding ethnic-nationalidentity and its meaning: questions from women’sexperience’, Women’s Studies International Forum,vol. 19, no. 1–2, pp. 133–43; Verkuyten, M. 2005,The Social Psychology of Ethnic Identity, PsychologyPress, London.10 Duany, J. 2003, ‘Nation, migration, identity: thecase of Puerto Ricans’, Latino Studies, vol. 1, no. 3,pp. 424–44; Glazer, N. 2004, ‘Assimilation today: isone identity enough?’, in T. Jacoby (ed.), Reinventingthe Melting Pot: The new immigrants and what itmeans to be American, Basic Books, New York, pp.61–73; Mahtani, M. 2002, ‘Interrogating the hyphen-nation: Canadian multicultural policy and “mixed-race” identities’, Social Identities, vol. 8, no. 1, pp.67–90.11 Mullen, M., Migdal, M. J. and Hewstone, M.2001, ‘Crossed categorization versus simple categor-ization and intergroup evaluations: a meta-analysis’,European Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 31, no. 6,pp. 721–36.12 For an early example of experimental researchwith crossed categorisations, see Brown, R. J. andTurner, J. C. 1979, ‘The criss-cross categorizationeffect in intergroup discrimination’, British Journalof Social & Clinical Psychology, vol. 18, no. 4, pp.371–83.13 Verkuyten, M. 2007, ‘Religious group identifica-tion and inter-religious relations: a study amongTurkish-Dutch Muslims’, Group Processes and Inter-group Relations, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 341–57.14 Ibid.15 Ibid., p. 343: supporting observations from H. C.Triandis (1992, ‘Comments on Hinkle, Brown andEly’, Revisita de Psicologia Social, vol. 3, pp. 113–23)that for some identifications in some cultures, one isclearly a (strongly identified) member of a group orone is not. This could mean that group identificationis a binary choice rather than a form of belongingthat can be measured on a continuum in terms of lowand high identification. Being a low identifier withthese identities is not an option.

16 Ibid., p. 347.17 Ibid., p. 351.18 Hornsey, M. and Hogg, M. 2000, ‘Subgroup rela-tions: a comparison of mutual intergroup differenti-ation and common ingroup identity models of preju-dice reduction’, Personality and Social PsychologyBulletin, vol. 26, pp. 242–56.19 Crisp, R. J., Walsh, J. and Hewstone, M. 2006,‘Crossed categorization in common ingroup identitycontexts’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,vol. 32, no. 9, pp. 1204–18.20 Purvis and Hunt, ‘Identity versus citizenship’, p.458.21 Hopkins, N., Reicher, S. and Kahani-Hopkins, V.2003, ‘Citizenship, participation and identity con-structions: political mobilization amongst BritishMuslims’, Psychologica Belgica, vol. 43, no. 1–2, pp.33–54, 34.22 Turner et al., Rediscovering the Social Group.23 Hopkins et al., ‘Citizenship, participation andidentity constructions’, pp. 42, 39.24 Ibid., p. 42.25 Ibid., p. 34.26 Zevallos, Z. 2003, ‘“That’s my Australian side”.The ethnicity, gender and sexuality of young Aus-tralian women of South and Central American origin’,Journal of Sociology, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 81–98.27 Ibid., pp. 88–9.28 Ibid., p. 85.29 For a more detailed examination of dual citizen-ship in Australia, see Rubenstein, K. 2002, AustralianCitizenship Law in Context, Law Book Company,Sydney.30 See Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia(1994, Australians All: Enhancing Australian citizen-ship, Joint Standing Committee on Migration, ch. 6),where it is stated that the issue of dual citizenshipattracted most attention throughout the inquiry.31 Parliament of Australia 1997, Aspects of Section44 of the Australian Constitution, Standing Committeeon Legal and Constitutional Affairs, July 1997.32 Introduced by Act No. 11 of 1966, s. 11 (com-menced 6 May 1966) and repealed by Act No. 70 of1986, s. 11 (commenced 28 August 1986).33 Judgment of 6 April 1955: ICJ Reports 1955, p. 4.34 (No. 2) (1992) 176 CLR 77.35 Australian Citizenship Council 2000, AustralianCitizenship for a New Century, p. 65, <http://www.cit-izenship.gov.au/law-and-policy/legislation/re-port.htm>

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36 The Readers’ Guide is available at <http://www.cit-izenship.gov.au>37 Ibid., pp. 78–81.38 See <http://www.pm.gov.au/media/re-lease/2005/media_Release 1551.cfm>. In particular,they include extending the waiting period for obtain-ing citizenship, security checking of citizenship ap-plications, so that citizenship applications can be re-fused on security grounds, and strengthening thedeprivation of citizenship provisions relating to ser-ious criminal offences to include offences committedin the period between approval of an application andacquisition of citizenship.39 It was introduced into the House of Representat-ives on 30 May 2007 (see <http://parlin-foweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/Repository/Legis/Bills-dgs/YREN60.pdf>, viewed 24 February 2008), andthe act that it was seeking to amend came into forceon 1 July 2007.40 Australian Government 2006, Australian Citizen-ship: Much more than a ceremony, September 2006,pp. 8–9.41 As a result of amendments reflected in the Aus-tralian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth), ss 21(2)(d)–(f),21(2A), 23A, 46(1A) and 53(2).42 Rimmer, S. Harris 2007, ‘Australian CitizenshipAmendment (Citizenship Testing) Bill 2007’, BillsDigest, Parliamentary Library of Australia, no. 188,19 June 2007, viewed 24 February 2008, <http://par-linfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/Repository/Legis/Bills-dgs/YREN60.pdf>43 See information about the test and a link to thebooklet at <http://www.citizenship.gov.au/test/re-source-booklet/citz-booklet-full-ver.pdf> (viewed24 February 2008).44 See <http://www.citizenship.gov.au/re-sources/facts-and-stats/citz-stats.htm> (viewed 24February 2004).45 See <http://www.citizenship.gov.au/re-sources/facts-and-stats/citz-stats.htm> (viewed 22September 2004) and the latest report available at<http://www.citizenship.gov.au/_pdf/citztest-snapshot-report-2008-june.pdf> (viewed 22September 2008).46 Hage, G. 2002, ‘Citizenship and honourability:belonging to Australia today’, in G. Hage (ed.), ArabAustralians Today: Citizenship and belonging, Mel-bourne University Press, Melbourne, p. 3.47 Australian Government, Australian Citizenship,p. 8.48 The words ‘under God’ are optional.49 Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth), Schedule1.

50 Zevallos, ‘“That’s my Australian side”’, p. 86.51 Australian Government, Australian Citizenship.52 Spears, R., Doosje, B. and Ellemers, N. 1997, ‘Self-stereotyping in the face of threats to group statusand distinctiveness: the role of group identification’,Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 23,pp. 538–53; Branscombe, N. R., Ellemers, N., Spears,R. and Doosje, B. 1999, ‘The context and content ofsocial identity threat’, in N. Ellemers, R. Spears andB. Doosje (eds), Social Identity: Context, commitment,content, Blackwell Science, Oxford, England, pp.35–58.53 Verkuyten, M. and Zaremba, K. 2005, ‘Inter-ethnicrelations in a changing political context’, Social Psy-chology Quarterly, vol. 68, pp. 375–86.54 Australian Government, Australian Citizenship.55 Ibid., p. 11.56 Davis, T. C. 1999, ‘Revisiting group attachment:ethnic and national identity’, Political Psychology,vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 25–47.57 Ibid., pp. 32–3.58 An Australian cricketer.59 An Australian racehorse and winner of the Mel-bourne Cup.60 Aly, W., ‘End of the culture wars’, viewed 14January 2008, <http://www.australi-ansall.com.au/the-end-of-the-culture-wars/>61 Ibid.62 Ibid.63 Hage, ‘Citizenship and honourability’, p. 2.64 Ibid., p. 3.65 Ibid., p. 10.66 Ibid., p. 11.67 Ibid., pp. 14–15.68 Ibid., p. 12.69 Ibid., p. 13.70 Verkuyten, ‘Religious group identification andinter-religious relations’, p. 344.71 Ibid.

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POPULATION POLITICS IN THE FASCISTERA

Austria’s 1935 population index

JULIE THORPE

Laws regulating immigration and cit-izenship in interwar Austria were part ofa European trend of population politics infascist and authoritarian states in the1930s. A new proposal in 1935 for a popu-lation index, including identity cards forevery person residing in Austria, wasmodelled on Italian legislation and sig-nalled a shift towards totalitarian modelsof population management. While Aus-tria’s population index system was neverimplemented before Austria’s annexationto Nazi Germany in 1938, it correspondednonetheless to a broader pattern of fascistand authoritarian population policy acrossEurope in the interwar era. Official andpublic debates about the proposed popula-tion index reveal the dual aims of Austrianpolicy and opinion makers: first, to facilit-ate greater surveillance of citizens andnon-citizens; and second, to reduce thenumber of Jews in Austria either throughrestricting immigration or by precludingJews already residing in Austria from be-ing naturalised. This connection betweenracism, migration and citizenship in theAustrian case illustrates the convergenceof different strands of population politicsas fascist and authoritarian states attemptto forge new citizens. Moreover, the inter-war Austrian case highlights the interplay

between exclusionary practices of nation-alism and citizenship and successive wavesof mass migration during the twentiethcentury. 1 My article places the Austriancase within these broader processes of cit-izenship and state building in early twen-tieth-century Europe, but parallels couldalso be drawn with other post-imperial orpost-colonial states.

FASCISM AND POPULATIONPOLICY

Despite dozens of specialised and compar-ative studies and definitions of fascism,scholars have yet to reach a consensusabout what fascism is, and where it tookroot and came to power in the yearsbetween 1918 and 1945 in Europe. 2 Ifscholarship on the interwar European re-gimes and movements still does not havea clear and comprehensive definition offascism, it has made virtually no headwayinto the murky hues of ‘authoritarianism’,a category scholars use loosely to charac-terise a broad range of states that appearto have some similarities with the acceptedfascist states—Italy and Germany—butlack the mass movement, charismaticleader and popular consent that character-ise the regimes in Italy and Germany. The

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Austrian dictatorship under EngelbertDollfuss and Kurt von Schuschnigg (thelatter took office as Chancellor after Doll-fuss’ assassination by Austrian Nazis inJuly 1934) typically falls into this lattercategory of authoritarian states that alsoexhibit elements of fascism. Lasting ap-proximately five years from the dissolu-tion of parliamentary democracy in March1933 to annexation to Nazi Germany inMarch 1938, the regime constitutionallyknown as the Ständestaat, or corporatestate, had a paramilitary force (the Heim-wehr or home guard), state youth groups,welfare programs promoting motherhoodas a patriotic duty and a one-party organ-isation, the Fatherland Front, of whichmembership was compulsory for teachersand public servants. Historians of theDollfuss-Schuschnigg state, seven decadesafter it ceased to exist, have been reluctantto move beyond the outdated and clumsyopposition of ‘fascist’ versus ‘authoritari-an’ in their characterisations of theState—an approach pioneered by HughSeton-Watson and John Rath, notably,and modified only slightly by others suchas Francis Carsten and Gerhard Botz. 3

More recent attempts to see fascism asa trajectory of radicalising right-wingtendencies, rather than as a fixed categoryor ‘type’, have been more successful inshifting the debate away from a fascist-authoritarian dichotomy towards a morefluid definition emphasising processesover outcomes. 4 Scholars who follow aprocess-oriented approach to the Austrianstate, for example, argue that the regimerepresents a fascistising trajectory cutshort by the country’s annexation to NaziGermany in 1938, though this is still theminority view. 5 Such a conceptual andhistoriographical shift in studies of fascist

and authoritarian regimes in Europe alsoallows us to look more closely at the radic-alisation of certain political, social andeconomic policies that seek total controlof society. Historians have questioned theextent to which such policies did in factresult in conformism by the population,especially when we consider the sphere ofeveryday life within the constraints of of-ficial ideology: the experiences of womenin particular teach us much about thelimits of popular consensus as dictator-ships attempted to rule over even the mostprivate of citizens’ choices, such aswhether to procreate for the State. 6 Butquestions remain unanswered in some re-spects: how did fascist and authoritarianstates seek to exert control over their cit-izens; and how did this function to pro-duce particular kinds of citizens or a par-ticular notion of citizenship? This articleshows the validity of the process-orientedapproach to fascism for studies of popula-tion politics in the interwar period and inthe Austro-fascist state. It does this,moreover, by demonstrating how fasciststates sought to define the relationshipbetween citizens and the State by ever-greater controls over citizens’ mobility andchoice of residence, and by ever-closersurveillance of citizens’ recorded livesfrom cradle to grave. In this way, the rela-tionship between fascism and citizenshipcan be seen as symbiotic processes of cat-egorising, counting and excluding indi-viduals in order to build and legitimisestates.

Many studies of population politicsunder fascist and authoritarian regimeshave explored the eugenics and pro-natal-ist policies of the regimes, 7 but so far an-other area of population management—mi-gration and citizenship—has received little

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attention. This oversight is surprisingsince arguably this aspect of populationcontrol reinforces the regimes’ eugenicsand pro-natalist programs. Carl Ipsen hasargued that fascist population politics inItaly were characterised by a range ofmeasures spanning nuptiality, fertility,mortality, emigration and internal migra-tion: the Italian Fascist Deputy, GaetanoZingali, explicitly referred to ‘this famousdemographic quintet’ in a 1929 speech toParliament. 8 By exploring these multiplefronts of Mussolini’s ‘demographic battle’,Ipsen extends the debate beyond Mus-solini’s ‘battle for births’ to include aspectrum of policies that the regime itselfsaw as part of a larger battle to create ‘anew Fascist society’. 9

Ipsen’s analysis of fascist populationpolicy in Italy merits further explorationhere because of his emphasis on policiesof migration and colonisation. Moreover,Italy makes for a particularly relevantcomparative case study with the Austriancase because of a number of ‘relational’elements between the two cases, as we willsee below. 10 Finally, although fascistpopulation policy in Italy, unlike in Aus-tria, did not seek to control immigrationinto the country, but rather to restrictemigration from Italy and regulate internalmigration, the Italian case neverthelesshighlights the interacting processes of cit-izenship practices, migration and otherradicalised notions of population manage-ment under fascist governments.

EARLY POPULATION POLICYIN FASCIST ITALY (1922–29)

In the years of consolidating fascist rulein Italy between 1925 and 1929, the regimeinitiated a number of measures of popula-

tion control that broke decisively with theliberal era, which had witnessed soaringemigration abroad in order to ease theeconomic burden of the overpopulatedand impoverished regions in southernItaly. 11 Whereas the first few years offascism saw the regime continue to cham-pion liberal policies on emigration, after1925, Italian migration policy shifted focusfrom external to internal migration. InNovember 1926, a Public Security Lawmade all passports held by Italians in Italyinvalid. Less than a year later, strict eligib-ility criteria for new passports were intro-duced—for example, only individualswith a work contract with an employerwho was not a direct relative of the em-ployee could be issued with a new pass-port. In 1930, fines and penalties were in-troduced for assisting or engaging inclandestine emigration. Repatriation taxeswere removed to encourage return migra-tion of Italians working abroad and termin-ology was changed to reflect the regime’snew priority of bringing Italian workershome. The formerly named General Emig-ration Commission (CGE), the governmentdepartment responsible for Italian emigra-tion, was renamed in 1927 the GeneralDirectorship of Italians Abroad (DGIE)after Mussolini declared the word ‘emig-rant’ defunct. 12 Carlo Levi describes thereturn émigrés as ‘Americans’ in hismemoir of his political exile in the southunder fascism, Christ Stopped at Eboli,written in the last years of Mussolini’srule. His use of the word was probablynot a politically inspired choice, thoughit does evoke a local experience of politicsin the south, ranging from the comic—theimages of Roosevelt in place of Mussolinion their walls—to the tragic fate of thosewhose visit home to see relatives became

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Population politics in the fascist era

their own exile after losing their Americanriches in the Great Depression and beingforced to stay and marry in the villagethey had tried to leave. 13 The fascist re-gime also sought to discourage migrationto cities by providing housing and trans-port for rural workers to work on stateprojects and subsidising charities that as-sisted state programs of internal migration.14 While these new policies were partiallya reaction to international restrictions onmigration, they cannot be seen solely interms of a pragmatic response to externalpressures since the United States—thecountry with the highest intake of Italianemigrants—introduced its immigrationquotas in 1921 and again in 1924, someyears before the laws on passports and in-ternal migration were enacted in Italy.Rather, as Ipsen states, placed in thebroader context of Italy’s ‘demographicquintet’, Italian migration policy ‘came onthe heels of—and as an integral partof—the general move towards totalitariansocial control initiated in January 1925’.15

Similarly, we can see the regime’s ef-forts to centralise demographic statisticsas part of a larger trend in European fascistand authoritarian regimes. State institu-tions for analysis of demographic statisticswere established in Hungary and Polandin the 1930s, a few years after Italy foun-ded its Central Statistics Institute of theKingdom of Italy (ISTAT) in 1926. 16 Atthe ceremonial inauguration of the newinstitute, Mussolini announced that in thefascist state, statistics would no longer bethe sterile pursuit of numbers far fromgovernment corridors. Rather, ‘the suggest-ive eloquence of figures’ demanded theircentral place not just in the governmentbut in universities as statistics entered themainstream disciplines of law and political

science to train the next generation ofstatisticians. 17 Figures could stir patrioticemotion in their viewer, just as speechesor songs could in their hearer, but whilesongs and speeches were aimed at an un-educated mass of devoted followers of IlDuce, statistics would capture the heartsand minds of university students andsenior civil servants. The Fascist Deputy,Zingali, adept at turning fascist policy intoan eloquent phrase, declared in his 1929speech that in fascist Italy ‘not only men,but also statistical data, have become dy-namic, almost as if following with the sameinsistent rhythm the course of these glori-ous times’. 18 As professor of statistics andeconomics at Catania, appointed deputyin Mussolini’s government, Zingali himselfembodied the rhythmic synthesis of num-bers and oratory.

While statisticians were being elevatedto new positions in government and aca-demia, ISTAT gained control over alldemographic statistics except for migra-tion, which were collated and publishedby the various government agencies foremigration and colonisation: the CGE/DGIEfor emigration, the Commission for Migra-tion and Colonisation (CMC) and Perman-ent Committee for Internal Migration(CPMI) for migration within Italy. 19 Themunicipal population registers, which hadcollated and stored data on internal migra-tion since 1862, formed a third body fordemographic statistics. Whenever a personarrived in a new municipality, or com-mune, he or she would be registered andwhen they left the commune this recordwas cancelled. In addition to arrivals andcancellations, the population registers alsorecorded births, deaths and marriages.Legislation introduced in Italy in 1929centralised the population registers by

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giving authority to ISTAT to collect andstore data on the population. Under thenew legislation, ISTAT could instructmunicipal authorities on record keepingand in turn municipalities were requiredto hand over their annual population re-gisters to ISTAT. Omitting to report abirth or change of residence was a punish-able offence, for example. And since mostrecords of births, deaths and marriageswere held in local parishes, the 1929 laweffectively made parish activities subjectto state surveillance and control, whichstrictly speaking was a violation of theLateran Accords regulating church–staterelations. 20

The centralising powers of ISTATwere constrained, however, by the factthat responsibility for data collection andcollation lay ultimately at the municipallevel with the mayor. Nor did ISTAT haveaccess to full data on clandestine urbanmigration, which Mussolini sought ini-tially to discourage through the colonisa-tion projects and eventually banned in1939. 21 This limitation was a bone ofcontention for Italy’s leading demographerin the fascist period, Corrado Gini, presid-ent of ISTAT from 1926 to 1932. Giniwanted to give more power to his organ-isation by employing state-trained statist-icians, rather than local authorities, tocollect data for the 1931 census. 22 Al-though his proposal was rejected by theInterior Ministry, it showed that statefunctionaries planned to extend thepowers of the State even further. The factthat Gini’s proposal stalled does not implyits lack of reception among fascist policymakers, but rather, could simply indicatea lack of financial and human resourcesduring these early years of consolidatingpower.

The above discussion sets up a broadercontext within which to evaluate Austria’spopulation policies in the 1930s. I havealready noted that the regimes in Polandand Hungary centralised their demograph-ic systems in the 1930s. These develop-ments outside Italy were entangled withthe political changes inside Italy, not onlyat the level of government but, as we haveseen, in the areas of higher education andscientific pursuits. Demographers outsideItaly would certainly have been aware ofGini’s cyclical theory of populationgrowth, which had already reached an in-ternational audience years before the fas-cist regime came to power, and Gini’s in-fluence on Italian policymakers in turninfluenced Austrian policymakers, as wewill see. 23 Aside from demographic stat-istics, Italy’s influence on the Austro-fas-cist state was evident in a number of otherways, directly and indirectly: in the mer-ging of press and propaganda bureaus intoa single ministry, for example, as wellthrough Italy’s supply of finances andweaponry to the Heimwehr. 24 Mussoliniwas also a close friend of the Dollfussfamily: the Austrian Chancellor’s wife andchildren were houseguests of Il Duce whenDollfuss was gunned down in the HofburgPalace in July 1934. Therefore, despitefascism’s inability to achieve the kind ofexpansion of state powers that functionar-ies such as Gini wished for, Italy was stilla model example of population manage-ment in the interwar years.

AUSTRIA’S POPULATIONINDEX

Italy’s influence on Austrian policymakersis demonstrated by the legislation for apopulation index drafted between 1935

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and 1938 by Austria’s Federal Council ofCulture (Bundeskulturrat). This legislationwas modelled directly on the 1929 lawsenacted in Italy. As in the case of Gini’sproposal to the Interior Ministry in 1931,the legislation in Austria was eventuallyrejected because of a lack of finances, butit illustrated, nonetheless, the State’s planto achieve greater control over the popula-tion. The Austrian case also highlights theregime’s intent to curb ‘undesirable’ im-migration and residency in Austria, spe-cifically of Jews. In the legislative andpublic discourses about the proposed legis-lation, therefore, we can trace Austria’s‘demographic battle’ on several fronts:citizenship, immigration and anti-Semit-ism.

The first ministerial discussions aboutthe proposal for a population index inAustria took place in June 1935. In itsearliest form, the scheme consisted of asystem of compulsory registration forevery adult resident in Austria whethercitizen, foreigner or stateless. The registra-tion of the entire population was intendedto lay the groundwork for further admin-istrative reforms and also for a new milit-ary service law. 25 The Federal Councilfor Culture, one of four government legis-lative councils created under the May 1934constitution that formally marked the endof parliamentary democracy in Austria andthe period of Austro-fascist rule, 26 thenmet to discuss the proposal in September1935. The Speaker, Dr Lenz, stated at theoutset of his address to council that thepopulation index was to be the first ofseveral measures aimed at reforming Aus-tria’s entire legal and administrative sys-tem of residency, immigration and welfare.He also placed the proposal for a popula-tion index in the broader European con-

text by claiming that industrial changeand the economic crisis had transformedEurope from a ‘culture of settling’ to a‘culture of migrating’. Austria was ‘per-haps the state of least resistance againstsocially undesirable elements’ and for thisreason it had been necessary to includeforeigners as well as Austrian citizens inthe population index. Just who these ‘so-cially undesirable elements’ were wasplain from his claim that the increasednumbers of stateless people had becomean ‘international affliction’ on the Austrianstate due to the reluctance or unwilling-ness of Austria’s neighbours to take informer Austrian citizens who were nowstateless. 27

The reference to stateless people inAustria was a reference to those formercitizens of the Austro-Hungarian Empirewho had been ineligible for citizenship inthe new Austrian state under laws de-signed to exclude those who had residedin territories outside the borders of thenew state before 1914. The new legislationon citizenship was promulgated on 5December 1918, less than a month afterthe declaration of the Republic of ‘German-Austria’ on 12 November 1918. 28 Thelaw restricted citizenship to those whoselegal residence (Heimatrecht) had been inthe territory of the republic before August1914. This meant that refugees from theempire’s borderlands who after 1918 foundthemselves on the territory of German-Austria were excluded from citizenship inAustria. The 1918 law directly affectedthe 70 000 Jewish refugees from Galiciawho had remained in Vienna after the warbut could not claim their place of domicilein the new Austrian state. A legal loopholefor these refugees was introduced a yearlater under Article 80 of the Treaty of

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Saint-Germain at the end of 1919. Underthe terms of Article 80, citizens of theformer Austro-Hungarian Empire couldopt for citizenship in any successor statein which they identified ‘according to raceand language’ with the majority of thestate’s population. Article 80 was adoptedinto Austrian legal practice in August 1920with the proviso that proof of one’s iden-tification with the German language byway of graduation certificates from Ger-man primary, secondary or tertiary schoolshad to be shown in citizenship claims. Thiswas an exercise in vain for many Jewishrefugees who had no such proof availableand for whom retrieval of the necessarydocuments was next to impossible and,even if they had been able to prove theirGerman language credentials, anti-Semiticbureaucrats in the interior ministry andfederal administrative court could still re-ject applications for citizenship on thegrounds of race instead of language, giventhe ambiguity of the wording of Article80. 29 Nonetheless, despite the legalobstacles to acquiring citizenship, thenumber of naturalisations including thoseof Jews did not decline significantly untilafter 1933 when a moratorium was placedon all naturalisations in Austria. Approx-imately 120 000 individuals were natural-ised between 1919 and 1936, and a further20 000 were naturalised under the termsof Article 80. 30 Thus, the move to freezecitizenship claims in 1933 came after aseries of measures that defined citizenshipin Austria according to language and eth-nicity as well as territory. After 1933, cit-izenship was defined not only in ethnicand territorial terms, but in civic terms ofideological loyalty to the State. Loyalty tothe State could be demonstrated throughcontinuous residency and work in one

place, which excluded foreign workersand refugees from becoming Austrian cit-izens.

In his comments on the draft legisla-tion, Lenz referred directly to Italy’s 1929law, on which the Austrian populationindex was modelled, and he recommendedin line with the 1929 law that state inspect-ors be appointed to oversee the registra-tion process and the various registry of-fices. And, like the Italian Interior Min-istry, the Austrian legislators stoppedshort of Gini’s recommendation that theState itself appoint professionals to carryout the registrations at the municipal level.The parallels with Italy can also be seenfrom the Austrian proposal to include inaddition to the population index a compuls-ory identification card (Erkennungskarte)to be issued to every person over the ageof eighteen, modelled on the Italian Cartad’identità. The Austrian card was to func-tion as a domestic passport and would in-clude the person’s photograph, address,date of birth, nationality, occupation andany changes of occupation. As in Italy, thepurpose of the identity cards was to helpindividuals better identify with the Stateby reminding them of their social obliga-tions to the State: work and loyalty toone’s country of birth. 31

However, there is one important differ-ence between the Italian and the Austrianmodels that highlights the racial ‘front’ inAustria’s demographic battle, one notwitnessed in Italy until after the Axis pactbetween Mussolini and Hitler in 1935 andItaly’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1936. Unlikein Italy, where individuals and familieswere registered separately, the Austrianpopulation index was to include detailsabout an individual’s family on the sameindex sheet. As Lenz pointed out in the

51


legislative discussions in the FederalCouncil for Culture, the inclusion of anindividual’s family details was deliberatelydesigned to require Austrian citizens todeclare any business and family linksoutside of Austria. 32 As we will see belowin the press discussions of the proposedlaw, the concern that some Austrians weresupporting family members who were notAustrian citizens was directed primarilyat Jews who had arrived in Vienna aswartime refugees and had been unable toprove their German linguistic and culturalcredentials in the new Austrian state afterthe war. Even if the government did notarticulate this concern directly, the implic-ation in official statements was that certainforeigners in Austria were ‘undesirable’.For example, the Interior Minister, EmilFey, said in an address to the FederalCouncil of Ministers, which appeared inthe press the next day, that the longstand-ing practice in Austria, as in Italy, thatindividuals had to register in the municip-ality where they had their legal residence,had led to many discrepancies betweenmunicipal records and also had allowedthe ‘non-Austrians’ to stay out of the au-thorities’ clutches. 33 In 1932, the InteriorMinistry had deemed Nazis and commun-ists ‘undesirable’: the Czechoslovakian-born German communist Egon Erwin Kischhad been denied entry to Austria on thegrounds that his proposed lecture on Rus-sia and China contained ‘communist pro-paganda’ that would undermine publicorder. 34 And in 1933, after the ban onthe Nazi Party stripped Austrian Naziswho had left the country of their citizen-ship, statements about unwanted foreign-ers may have been taken to mean Naziterrorists on Austrian soil. But by 1935,with the new Chancellor Schuschnigg

broaching a more conciliatory position to-wards Hitler and the underground Austri-an Nazis, the proposed requirement thatindividuals declare their non-Austrian re-latives to the authorities seemed to targeta different group of foreigners: Jews flee-ing persecution in Germany.

Moreover, the category included notonly ‘tramps’, one council member ob-served, but also performers and artistswho stayed in a particular place for onlytwo months, a comment that drew themirth of other council members. Appar-ently what struck the council as funnywere the many prominent Jewish theatredirectors, actors and other performers whohad come to Austria from Germany since1933, often staying only for the annualsummer season of the Salzburg Festivalbefore emigrating to America, and whowere the butt of many anti-Semitic jibesduring the festival. The festival season hadjust finished, but now a more sinister jokewas to be played on them as the councilmoved to stamp ‘ST’—abbreviated from‘stichtag’ or expiration date—on theiridentification cards. 35

One week after the Federal Council forCulture passed the proposed legislationfor a population index and identificationcards, the Minister of the Interior, EmilFey, addressed the State Council on theproposed bill. His address was reprintedthe next day in the Neue Freie Presse. Feyechoed the earlier claims by Lenz that thepopulation index was to be the first ofmany new measures intended to overhaulthe administration of the interior ministry,which Fey claimed had allowed ‘undesiredforeigners’ and stateless individuals toenter and reside in Austria. The necessityof clamping down on unwanted immigra-tion was also the reason why every resid-

52


ent of Austria—citizen and non-cit-izen—was to be included in the proposedindex system. He singled out the policeregistration system as an immediate areain need of reform: the longstanding prac-tice in Austria, as in Italy, was that indi-viduals had to register in the municipalitywhere they had their legal residence. But,according to Fey, that system had led tomany discrepancies between municipalrecords and also had allowed the ‘non-Austrians’ to stay out of the authorities’clutches. Minister Fey endorsed the iden-tification cards as a way to simplify thecurrent system, although he acknowledgedthe new system would be a burden in theshort term for the population who wouldbe required to register for the new cards,and for the authorities who had to imple-ment the new system. But in the long run,the benefit of the system would be seenin the permanent contact between the in-dividuals and the authorities, which wouldcultivate a ‘vibrant sense of belonging tothe state’ and thereby serve the largerpurpose of building a new state from thebottom up. 36

The next year, true to Fey’s word, theAustrian Migration Office produced thefirst draft of a new Alien Act to regulatethe status of foreigners in Austria througha foreigner index system. The scheme builton the earlier proposal for a populationindex and was based on similar lawsalready in place in neighbouring countries,including Czechoslovakia, which hadpassed an Alien Act in March 1935. Thelegislation underwent three revisions overan 18-month period but, like the legisla-tion for a population index, it was not im-plemented before Austria’s annexation toGermany in March 1938. In the final stagesof negotiation, in January 1938, the gov-

ernment administration conceded that asystem of indexing all 290 000 foreignersin Austria was too costly an exercise andsettled instead on a register for all thosewho had arrived in Austria since 1 Janu-ary 1933. 37 The Alien Act was significant,nonetheless, because it revealed the fullextent to which Austria’s politicians wereready to mobilise the State’s powers tocurb what they perceived was a wave ofuncontrolled immigration that, if left un-checked, could potentially open thefloodgates to more desperate and destituterefugees, genuine or otherwise.

PUBLIC DEBATES ONPOPULATION POLICY INAUSTRIA

By 1937, Austria’s right-wing newspa-pers were also lending their support to anew population index and immigrationlaw with the same anti-Semitic overtonesas the council chamber discussions of thebill. It must be noted here that the Austro-fascist state had banned the social demo-cratic press and the Nazi Party organs, andhad appointed commissioners over theeditorships of the German-nationalistnewspapers, which dominated the smallprovincial towns such as Linz, Graz andSalzburg. The German-nationalist newspa-pers in particular came under heavy scru-tiny by the censor for their pro-Hitlersentiments. But on other issues, such asminority politics, or the immigration de-bate, these newspapers could also becounted on to support the Austro-fascistgovernment. 38 In Graz, the Volksblattwelcomed new legislation to restrict for-eigners living and working in Austria,claiming that foreign workers in Austriawere taking jobs from unemployed Austri-

53


ans and citing Carinthia as an example,with 11 000 foreign workers and 15 000‘native’ Austrians out of work. 39 TheStyrian Tagespost also justified a more re-strictive immigration policy by inferringthat nearly all foreign workers in Austriawere Jews. An editorial on 16 February1937 claimed that as many foreigners hadgained employment in Vienna in 1936 asAustrians had been looking for work. Italleged that foreigners exploited the Aus-trian economy by taking the profits out-side the country, enabling the families ofthese foreigners to seek passage to Austriaat the expense and exploitation of Austri-an families. 40

In Vienna, the Wiener Neueste Na-chrichten ran six headline stories on the‘invasion’ of Jews from Eastern Europe ina two-month period alone. 41 In its NewYear’s Eve article in 1937, the newspapercalled for a border block against theJews:‘Austria needs an immigration law thattakes into account the changing circum-stances and protects the native populationfrom the invasion of a locust swarm fromthe east.’ 42 Two days later, the newspa-per published a letter to the editor, affirm-ing the editorial’s view that it ‘is the un-contested right of the state to ban or con-trol immigration…Austria needs neitherthe labour nor the financial ownership ofthe Eastern European Jews’. 43 A noticein the Wiener Neuste Nachrichten for apublic lecture series on ‘The foreign guestin Austria’ suggested that there were morethan a few anti-immigration activistsamong the newspapers’ readers and editorsalike. 44

The newspapers tended to conflate therefugees during World War I and thosefrom Germany after 1933 into one ostens-

ible flood of unwanted Jewish immigra-tion. The Tagespost claimed that

[t]hese foreigners belong almostentirely to a certain group ofpolitical emigrants, who have oncealready moved to Austria andabove all to Vienna in order tosettle there, albeit partly for differ-ent reasons then. During the warand immediate post-war years, thisinflux, which was by no meansalways wanted as later becamepainfully apparent, came from theEast. Now it is coming from theWest. 45

The Wiener Neueste Nachrichten alsodrew parallels between the wartime andpost-1933 immigration. A front-page edit-orial on 17 December 1937 suggested thatAustria was an attractive destination forGerman Jewish refugees because they hadrelatives in Vienna who had arrived fromPoland and Russia after the war. The edit-orial claimed that attempts by the Austrianauthorities to restrict immigration wouldbe impossible, due to the well-organised,clandestine smuggling groups who al-legedly provided false identity papers forthe refugees. The newspaper estimatedthat between 100 and 150 people arrivedwithout passports each month and foundlodging and black-market work in Austria,prompting the newspaper to sound aclarion call for tighter controls on Jewishimmigration: ‘Protect our borders and ourcountry from a new flood of EasternEuropean Jews!’ 46

Such was the vehemence of thesenewspapers’ anti-immigration lobby thateven The Times correspondent in Vienna,Douglas Reed, noted their sentiments. Hereported that Austria had ‘been flooded

54


with immigrants from Germany and Po-land, a fair proportion of whom havecriminal records’ and he predicted that ‘acloser scrutiny is inevitable sooner orlater’. He defended these sentiments ashaving ‘nothing to do with anti-Semitism’and informed his English readers that the‘bulk of opinion in Austria sympathiseswith the views of these two newspapers’.47 Reed’s broad brushstrokes painted asympathetic picture abroad that the Aus-trian authorities could scarcely have hopedfor as vindication for their brand of popu-lation politics.

Population policies in Austria, as inItaly, were ‘audacious in their aspirationsbut modest in their accomplishments’,constrained as they were by the economiccrisis in the 1930s. 48 Not only in fascistregimes, but elsewhere in Europe—inFrance, Britain, Belgium and Holland—aswell as further afield in the United Statesand Australia, attempts to regulate theentry and residency of foreigners were afeature of protectionist labour policiesagainst foreign workers. 49 But it was infascist states that the legislation rapidlyextended beyond economic protectionismto encompass the wider political and socialspheres of citizens’ everyday lives: fromone’s place of baptism and marriage toone’s position of employment, and that ofone’s relatives. Even the act of registrationwas no longer just a parochial affair, withstate-appointed inspectors poised to swoopon any inconsistencies in the paperworkand report back to the central authorities.In Austria, if we consider what was accom-plished even if just at the level of legislat-ive discussions, we can see that what tookmore than seven years for the Italian fas-cists to put in place required less thanthree in Austria. Moreover, the Austrian

legislative discussions in 1935 predatedby a few years Nazi Germany’s first popu-lation registration in 1938 and introduc-tion of a national card index in 1939. 50

Therefore an examination of Austrianpopulation politics in the interwar yearsneeds to be placed in a larger context ofEuropean right-wing efforts to remakestates and citizens on multiple levels: notjust as mothers giving birth to soldiers, orprograms for genetic breeding, which arethe more commonly known spheres ofpopulation management in fascist states,but in the creeping legislation that soughtto control society through controlling themobility of the population and by declar-ing them members of the nation by wayof a stamped piece of paper.

ENDNOTES

1 I use citizenship and nationalism in the ‘construct-ivist’ sense of practices and processes, rather thanthe outcome-oriented and ‘stages’ approach ofscholars such as Ernst Gellner and others, who ex-plain divergences between ethnic-based and civic-based nationalism (and one could add citizenship)according to the various stages of industrialisationand cultural advancement of historically distinctgroups of peoples and territories. Benedict Ander-son’s 1983 model of an imagined community is thebest-known constructivist approach to nationalism,but see also Rogers Brubaker (2004, Ethnicity WithoutGroups, Harvard University Press, New York), whichdefines nationalism as ‘a category of practice’.2 For some of the more well-known attempts atsynthesis and definition, see Payne, Stanley 1995, AHistory of Fascism, 1914–1945, UCL Press, London;Griffin, Roger (ed.) 1995, Fascism, Oxford UniversityPress, Oxford; and Paxton, Robert 2004, The Anatomyof Fascism, Knopf, New York.3 See Seton-Watson, Hugh 1966, ‘Fascism, right andleft’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 1, no. 1,pp. 183–97; Rath, John and Schum, Carolyn W. 1980,‘The Dollfuss-Schuschnigg regime: fascist or author-itarian?’, in Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Bernt Hagtvet andJan Petter Myklebust (eds), Who Were the Fascists?:Social roots of European fascism, Universitetsforlaget,Bergen. See also Rath’s essays in Volumes 27–30 and32 of Austrian History Yearbook (1996–99, 2001).

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Francis Carsten, the most eminent scholar of fascismin Austria, pioneered the two-pronged approach tofascism in Austria—that is, the view that the Heim-wehr and the Nazi Party were two distinct fascistmovements even if the regime itself was not fascist.See Carsten, F. L. 1977, Fascist Movements in Austria:From Schönerer to Hitler, Sage, London; and 1980,The Rise of Fascism, Second edition, Methuen, Lon-don. Gerhard Botz has also defined the Nazis and theHeimwehr as two ‘brands’ of fascism in Austria: theNazis, representing ‘national fascism’ akin to GermanNazism, and the Heimwehr, along with its close sib-ling, the Frontkämpfervereinigung (Front Veterans’Association), representing ‘Heimwehr fascism’. TheChristian Social Party and the Fatherland Front falloutside of the Austrian family of fascism in Botz’sassessment and, after the Heimwehr wasabsorbedinto the Fatherland Front in 1936, he concludes thatthe Heimwehr also ceased to be fascist.See Botz,Gerhard 1980, ‘Varieties of fascism in Austria: intro-duction’, in Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Bernt Hagtvet andJan Petter Myklebust (eds), Who Were the Fascists?:Social roots of European fascism, Universitetsforlaget,Bergen.4 See, notably, Kallis, Aristotle A. 2003, ‘“Fascism”,“para-fascism” and “fascistization”: on the similarit-ies of three conceptual categories’, European HistoryQuarterly, vol.33, no. 2, pp. 219–49; and Mann, Mi-chael 2004, Fascists, Cambridge University Press,New York.5 For the ‘Austro-fascist’ school of historians, seeTálos, Emmerich and Neugebauer, Wolfgang (eds)2005, ‘Austrofaschismus’: Beiträge über Politik, Öko-nomie und Kultur 1934–1938, Fifth edition, Verlagfür Gesellschaftskritik, Vienna; and Lewis, Jill 1990,‘Conservatives and fascists in Austria, 1918–34’,inMartin Blinkhorn (ed.), Fascists and Conservatives:The radical right and the establishment in twentieth-century Europe, Unwin Hyman, London, pp. 98–117;and 1991, Fascism and the Working Class in Austria,1918–1934: The failure of labour in the First Republic, Berg, New York. More recently, Tim Kirk has ar-gued that the conditions under which Austro-fascismcame to power in the early 1930s were the same asin Germany and Italy. See Kirk, Tim 1996, Nazismand the Working Class in Austria: Industrial unrestand political dissent in the ‘national community’,Cambridge University Press, New York; and his art-icle, ‘Fascism and Austro-fascism’, (2003, Contempor-ary Austrian Studies, vol. 11, pp. 10–31).6 The trend since the 1980s emerging from the‘everyday life’ school of West German historians(Alltagsgeschichte) has been to challenge to variousdegrees the thesis of top-down rule in the dictator-ships of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and Stalin’sRussia. Some, like Victoria de Grazia in The Cultureof Consent: Mass organization of leisure in fascist Italy

(1981, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) andHow Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922–1945 (1992,University of California Press, Berkeley), and, morerecently, R. J. B. Bosworth in Mussolini’s Italy: Lifeunder the dictatorship (2005, Penguin, London), havequestioned the limits of consensus in daily life underthe dictatorship. For most Italians, as Bosworthwrites, ‘everyday Mussolinism’ did not equate with‘Fascist totalitarianism’. For others, notably SheilaFitzpatrick, who coined the phrase ‘everyday Stalin-ism’ in her book Everyday Stalinism—Ordinary livesin extraordinary times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s(1999, Oxford University Press, New York), men,women and families lived their lives daily within aStalinist orbit or ‘habitat’ so much so that Stalin’sGreat Turn was less a ‘revolution from above’ thanit was a ‘revolution from below’. A new generationof historians schooled in these earlier approaches hasbegun to write the ‘second chapter’ of Alltags-geschichte in the face of its seeming irrelevance to thenew cultural history. See Steege, Paul, Bergerson,Andrew Stuart, Healy, Maureen and Swett, PamelaE. 2008, ‘The history of everyday life: a secondchapter’, The Journal of Modern History, vol. 80, no.2, pp. 358–78.7 Studies of European population policies have fo-cused mostly on Western Europe. See, for example,Quine, Maria Sophia 1996, Population Politics inTwentieth Century Europe: Fascist dictatorships andliberal democracies, Routledge, London. More re-cently, scholarship has also branched out to includeCentral and Eastern European regimes. See Turda,Marius and Weindling, Paul J. (eds) 2007, ‘Blood andHomeland’: Eugenics and racial nationalism in Centraland Southeast Europe, 1900–1940, CEU Press, Bud-apest.8 Cited in Ipsen, Carl 1996, Dictating Demography,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 88.9 See Ipsen’s review of his own book in ‘Populationpolicy in the age of fascism: observations on recentliterature’ (1998, Population and Development Review,vol. 24, no. 3, p. 591).10 On the value of ‘relational’ comparisons inEuropean history—that is, historical comparisonsthat seek to use transnational approaches to explorethe interactions and mutual influences betweencompared case studies—see Ther, Philipp 2003,‘Beyond the nation: the relational basis of a compar-ative history of Germany and Europe’, CentralEuropean History, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 45–73.11 These dates correspond with the so-called Mat-teotti crisis, after the moderate socialist deputy andcritic of the regime, Giacomo Matteotti, wasmurdered by a fascist gang in June 1924. The ensuingcrisis involved a bungled investigation of the murder(the body did not turn up for two months), theprompt retreat of the majority of liberal parliament-

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ary deputies in what was termed the ‘Aventine Seces-sion’ and finally, in early January 1925, Mussolini’sannouncement of his personal dictatorship. The year1929 marked the final consolidation of the dictator-ship’s power with the Lateran Accords restoringchurch–state relations.12 Ipsen, Dictating Demography, pp. 50–65.13 Levi, Carlo 1947, Christ Stopped at Eboli, Trans-lated by Frances Frenaye, Farrar, Straus, London,New York.14 Ipsen, Dictating Demography, pp. 50–65.15 Ibid., p. 6516 Weindling, Paul 1988, ‘Fascism and populationin comparative European perspective’, Populationand Development Review, vol. 14, p. 104.17 Ibid.18 Ibid., p. 88.19 Ibid., pp. 92–100.20 Ibid., pp. 100, 196.21 Ibid., pp. 64, 100, 118.22 Ibid., p. 197.23 Gini’s theory, first presented at an internationalconference in Trieste in 1911, built on other prewardemographic theories that emphasised environmentalfactors, rather than social Darwinian ideas, in explain-ing the rise and fall of fertility. Gini developed theidea of differential fertility by which different classesin a nation reproduced at different rates. See Ipsen,Dictating Demography, pp. 45–6, 221–8.24 On the press and propaganda merger in Austria,see El Refaie, Elisabeth 2002, ‘Keeping the truce?Austrian press politics between the “July Agree-ment” (1936) and the Anschluss (1938)’, GermanHistory, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 56. On Mussolini’s patron-age of the Heimwehr, see Kerekes, Lájos 1966,Abenddämmerung einer Demokratie: Mussolini, Göm-bös und die Heimwehr, Europa Verlag, Vienna.25 Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖstA)/Archiv derRepublik (AdR), Bundeskulturrat (BKA)/Heimatdienst(HD), Carton 6, Wiener Neueste Nachrichten, 23 June1935.26 The other three were the federal councils for thestate, provinces and the economy. Members of thesefour councils made up the Bundesrat. See Jelavich,Barbara 1987, Modern Austria: Empire to republic,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 203–4;Rath and Schum, ‘The Dollfuss-Schuschnigg regime:fascist or authoritarian?’, p. 251.27 Österreichische Staatsarchiv (ÖStA), Archiv derRepublik (AdR), 04R106/1−Bundeskulturrat, 18September 1925.

28 The republic remained officially known as ‘Ger-man-Austria’ until the Allies insisted at the ParisPeace Conference in 1919 that the prefix ‘German’be dropped.29 For a discussion of the 1918 citizenship law andamendments under the Treaty of Saint-Germain, seeTimms, Edward 1994, ‘Citizenship and “Heimatrecht”after the Treaty of Saint-Germain’, in RitchieRobertson and Edward Timms (eds), The HabsburgLegacy: National identity in historical perspective,Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 160–1.On the effects of the legislation on the Jewishrefugees in particular, see Grandner, Margarete 1995,‘Staatsbürger und Ausländer: Zum Ausgang Öster-reichs mit den jüdischen Flüchtlinge nach 1918’, inGernot Heiss and Oliver Rathkolb (eds), AsyllandWider Willen: Flüchtlinge in Österreich im EuropäischeKontext seit 1914, J. and V. Edition, Vienna; andHoffmann-Holter, Beatrix 1995, ‘Abreisendmachung’:Jüdische Kriegsflüchtlinge in Wien 1914–1923, Böhlau,Vienna, pp. 229–34.30 Illigasch, Jürgen 1999, ‘Migration aus und nachÖsterreich in der Zwischenkriegszeit: Bemerkungenzum Forschungsstand’, Zeitgeschichte, vol. 26, no. 1,p. 14; John, Michael 1999, ‘“We do not even possessourselves”: on identity and ethnicity in Austria,1880–1937’, Austrian History Yearbook, vol. 30, p.47.31 Ibid.32 Ibid.33 Neue Freie Presse, 25 September 1935, p. 4.34 Rathkolb, Oliver 1995, ‘Asyl- und Transitland1933–1938?’, in Gernot Heiss and Oliver Rathkolb(eds), Asylland Wider Willen: Flüchtlinge in Österreichim Europäische Kontext seit 1914, J. and V. Edition,Vienna, pp. 109–11; Heiss, Gernot 1995, ‘Ausländer,Flüchtlinge, Bolshewiken’, in Gernot Heiss andOliver Rathkolb (eds), Asylland Wider Willen:Flüchtlinge in Österreich im Europäische Kontext seit1914, J. and V. Edition, Vienna, pp. 96, 99.35 Ibid.36 Neue Freie Presse, 25 September 1935, p. 4.37 Rathkolb, Asyl- und Transitland 1933-1938, pp.117–19.38 On the German-nationalist press in Salzburg, forexample, see Thorpe, Julie 2006, ‘Provincials imagin-ing the nation: pan-German identity in Salzburg,1933–1938’, Zeitgeschichte, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 179–98.39 Grazer Volksblatt, 1 January 1938, p. 3; 27 Janu-ary 1938, p. 6.40 Tagespost, 16 February 1937 (Abendblatt), p. 1.41 See Wiener Neueste Nachrichten, 17 December1937, pp. 1–2; 31 December 1937, pp. 1–2; 5 January

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1938 (Abendblatt), p. 1; 7 January 1939, p. 1; 1 Feb-ruary 1938, p. 1; 8 February 1938, p. 1.42 Wiener Neueste Nachrichten, 31 December 1937,pp. 1–2.43 Wiener Neueste Nachrichten, 19 December 1937,p. 4.44 Wiener Neueste Nachrichten, 17 March 1936, p.4.45 Tagespost, 16 February 1937 (Abendblatt), p. 1.46 Wiener Neueste Nachrichten, 17 December 1937,pp. 1–2.47 Cited in Clare, George 1981, Last Waltz in Vienna:The destruction of a family 1842–1942, Macmillan,London, p. 158.48 Ipsen, Dictating Demography, p. 90.49 In France, where more than 1.5 million foreignworkers had arrived by 1928, a law for the ‘protec-tion of national manpower’ was introduced in 1926to regulate the type and duration of work permits.The law had the immediate effect of reducing thenumber of foreign workers arriving annually inFrance from 162 000 in 1926 to 64 000 in 1927. SeeSinger-Kérel, Jeanne 1991, ‘Foreign workers inFrance, 1891–1936’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol.14, no. 3, p. 287.50 Weindling, ‘Fascism and population in comparat-ive European perspective’, p. 110.

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ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP IN MULTICULTURALAUSTRALIA

The Croatian experience

VESNA DRAPAC

This article addresses the relationshipbetween multiculturalism, identity politicsand active citizenship from the exampleof the history of Croatian settlement andCroatian associational or community lifein Australia. My primary focus is on thoseCroats who arrived in the first two wavesof post-1945 immigration because theyrepresent the majority of Croatian-born inAustralia and because there is a consider-able amount of evidence (hitherto barelytouched upon either by historians or bytheorists of Australian multiculturalism)relating to this settlement experience andits impact on Australian civic life andidentity.

My case study suggested the livedexperience of Croatian association was ameans by which individuals who had littleeducation, poor English language skillsand limited economic and professionalopportunities exhibited an attachment toand an understanding of democratic pro-cesses and values in the pluralist societythey had embraced as their own. This ex-perience, in turn, contributed to their in-tegration and, at the same time, to the re-tention of elements of their cultural back-ground. In spite of arguments to the con-trary, it also contributed to their peacefulcoexistence with fellow Australians,

Yugoslav and non-Yugoslav, and to socialcohesion. 1

The example of Croatian associationallife is not exceptional and much of what Iargue may be usefully applied to otherimmigrant groups in Australia across thesame period. 2 The Croatian example,however, does stand out in some respects.It is instructive because, as this articleshows, the history of Croatian communit-ies in Australia presents us with a seriesof paradoxes that call into question someof the accepted stereotypes of Croatianbehaviour in Australia. 3 Further, thecollapse of Yugoslavia and the ensuingwars of the 1990s enabled Croats in Aus-tralia to demonstrate their capacity to or-ganise themselves and their local com-munity structures on a global scale andprovide the historian with the opportunityto observe the impact—locally, nationallyand internationally—of their practice ofactive citizenship in the course of theirdaily lives. 4 This article thus speculateson the effect of citizen engagement at thegrassroots level on an evolving Australianidentity and attempts, in part, to answerthe question posed by Geoffrey BrahmLevey: ‘How well does Australia allowimmigrants to serve Australian demo-cracy?’ 5 Finally, we will consider the ca-

59

pacity of Croats in Australia to contributeto the future development and quality ofAustralian and Croatian civic life in thecontext of returns to Croatia (permanentand temporary) of members of the firstgeneration and their Australian-born off-spring.

Methodologically, my approach restson the belief that close micro-studies ofthe history of the community engagementof immigrant groups from the inside outand from the bottom up provide an in-formed and nuanced understanding of thedebates surrounding multiculturalism andcitizenship in Australia. I will first discussbriefly the relevant points of contentionin these debates and then outline the his-tory of Croatian settlement in Australia inorder to introduce my discussion of fourparadoxes regarding Croatian communityactivism in Australia, which I believewarrant further reflection. The first ofthese paradoxes is that at a time whenCroatian identity was not recognised inAustralia and without government sup-port, Croats displayed a high degree ofinitiative and flexibility in the establish-ment of community organisations. Second,Croatian women, overwhelmingly workingclass and poorly represented in formalCroatian structures, were active and vis-ible in many aspects of associational life.Third, Croatian immigrants had low levelsof education and low socioeconomic statusbut enjoyed success in their political lob-bying for national recognition at the local,state and Commonwealth levels and at-tained a high degree of financial securityrelative to other immigrant groups andrelative to the Australian population atlarge. Finally, whereas Croatia was not asovereign state and one of the foundationaltenets of Yugoslavism was that it would

supersede or ‘accommodate’ south Slavnationalisms, Croats became known fortheir strong national identity.

IMMIGRANTS AS CITIZENS

Brian Galligan and Winsome Roberts arguethat ‘Australian citizenship is groundedin the everyday life of citizens and localcommunities’. 6 Broadly, I support thispremise, but reject their claim that multi-culturalism militates against the practiceof Australian citizenship and against socialcohesion and that it is potentially corros-ive. Galligan and Roberts argue persuas-ively against Benedict Anderson’s idea ofthe nation as an imagined construct andagainst minimalist conceptions of citizen-ship as grounded only in a set of laws orrights, universal and supranational, or‘anational’. Evoking Edmund Burke’s‘little platoons’ as the sites of the expres-sion of civic identity and nationhood inits various guises, they suggest a middleway between triumphant and partial im-ages of a monocultural Australian nationalidentity and the (anarchic) cultural di-versity of dogmatic multiculturalism,which, at its most radical, eschews thenotion of a set of overarching commonlyheld Australian values in political, socialand cultural life. Galligan and Roberts be-lieve that Australia is not multicultural inthe ‘classic’ sense and probably never was.7 Rather, they argue that the provision ofsupport for immigrant groups, especiallythose from non-English-speaking back-grounds, and the official promotion oftolerance for diversity and equal opportun-ity have facilitated a process of completeintegration or ‘transition’ whereby thesubsequent generations are ‘thoroughlyAustralianised’. 8 Referring to the various

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ways in which Australians have revealedtheir affinity with each other and with aset of political and ethical norms, Galliganand Roberts discuss voluntary association-al life spanning the provision of medicalservices to remote rural areas to local self-help or environmental groups as an expres-sion of active Australian citizenship in themicrocosm. (Curiously, associational lifealong ethnic lines does not figure in thisscenario even when the outcome is, asGalligan and Roberts argue, integration.)It would seem, then, that in opposition tothe concept of multiculturalism as a fixedalternative to (an incomplete) vision ofAustralianness as white, male and British,‘transitional multiculturalism’ is a catalystfor change. But the idea that multicultur-alism has reached its ‘use by’ date is basedon a superficial understanding of integra-tion (defined largely in terms of rates ofintermarriage in the second and thirdgenerations) and a product of the failureto acknowledge that citizen associationalong ethnic lines has contributed to themoulding of an evolving Australian iden-tity. 9 While possibly nostalgic, evenclosed at times, ethnic structures havebeen responsive to change and have as-sumed some of the (positive) characteristicsof the dominant culture to which theirmembers freely and, generally, enthusiast-ically subscribed. Further, ethnic associ-ation has provided a vehicle for immig-rants to experience the fullness of Australi-an civil society and active citizenship incommunities that are familiar to them andwhich inspire trust, one of the precondi-tions of active citizenship and the forma-tion of social capital. The earliest studiesof ethnic associational life, even if gener-ally sympathetic, labelled it as insular andthereby outside the parameters of ‘Australi-

an’ or ‘host’ associational life and irrelev-ant to the practice of active citizenship. 10

This tendency has persisted for the mostpart in the critique of multiculturalism andin general debates about citizenship andAustralian identity. I reject the glaringdouble standard that allows for association-al life emanating from ‘Australian’ circlesto be inherently open and enriching to thewider community and ethnic activism,inherently insular and without benefitsfor anyone beyond the group in question.By definition, all associational life—‘Aus-tralian’ or ‘ethnic’—is, at least initially,inward looking in the sense that it servesa prescribed set of interests.

The debate about the appropriatenessof the term ‘multicultural’ in Australianpublic life is largely semantic and, appar-ently, irrelevant to a vast proportion ofthe population who endorse its generalapplication. 11 Critics of the term, alarmistor mild, are on occasion more theoreticalor abstract than empirical in their observa-tions of Australian multicultural prac-tice.12 Alternatively, some use the conceptof multiculturalism in their armoury asthey deny the integrity of an Australiannational identity and the existence of a setof core civic values to which Australiansgenerally adhere, and as they pronouncethe end of the era of nationalism or theadvent of the ‘post-national’ world. Butthis position is just as extreme and largelyuntenable. A more reasonable position re-cognises that multiculturalism, groundedin the ideals of equity, access and socialjustice, among others, is also a vehicle forthe practice of active citizenship, which,in all its diversity, contributes to the con-tinuing evolution of an Australian iden-tity. This identity is not weakened but isnourished by the activism evident in eth-

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Active citizenship in multicultural Australia

nic association at the lowest level andamong some of the least powerful membersof the body politic.

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OFCROATIAN IMMIGRATIONPATTERNS

Croats have been arriving in Australiasince the mid nineteenth century. A largeproportion of Croatian settlers in Australiacame from areas along the Croatian coastand had lived with a long tradition of de-partures from their islands, towns or vil-lages. It could be said that emigration waspart of their historical memory and cul-ture. The number of Croats present inAustralia in the nineteenth century re-mained hidden as they were variouslyknown as Austrians, Italians and‘S(c)lavonians’. 13 In Australia, Croatsformed networks emanating from patternsof traditional family or chain migrationbut they also made connections with theirco-nationals from regions much furtherafield than their local village or town. Innineteenth-century Australia, Croatstravelled great distances to maintain con-tact with each other and celebrate import-ant milestones in their lives from cradle tograve, including events such as marriages,christenings and funerals in what were,in essence, small Croatian communities. 14

Croats arriving in Australia in the twenti-eth century continued to establish strongnetworks with each other. In the interwarperiod, they were known as and, indeed,referred to themselves as Yugoslavs. Theywere actively engaged in ethnic publishingventures, musical and folkloric ensemblesand featured prominently in labour activ-ism, especially in mining communities inWestern Australia and Broken Hill. 15

All of the history of Croats in Australiasince the end of World War I was medi-ated through the presence of a strongYugoslav state, which, as the product ofthe collapse of empires in the wake of theGreat War, became important strategicallyin international relations. The meaning ofthe word ‘Yugoslav’ was often contested.It was used differently by different people.For example, most ‘Yugoslavs’ in Mildura,Broken Hill and Kalgoorlie in the 1930sand 1940s were left-leaning or communistCroats, some of whom had left the King-dom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes becauseof its repressive politics. 16 During WorldWar II, Croats in Australia were involvedin lobbying support for the Partisans ledby Tito and complained to the AustralianGovernment about the Yugoslav Consulsin Sydney and Perth because they wereregarded as Serbian royalists and followersof the Chetnik resisters turned collaborat-ors and their leader, Draža Mihailovi . 17

After 1945, these Croats and others amongthe immediate postwar arrivals still re-ferred to themselves as ‘Yugoslavs’. Thiswas often to distinguish themselves fromthe stereotype of Croats as anti-communistand as supporters of the wartime collabor-ationists, the Ustaša, or of the political farright. 18 This distinction between ‘Croats’and Croatian Yugoslavs was constantthrough to the collapse of communistYugoslavia in the 1990s and it is importantto recognise that in the Australian Croatiancontext it related less to ideas about ethni-city and nationhood than to attitudes to-wards the Yugoslav state or simple politic-al affiliation—of the Croats and their out-side observers. 19

The post-1945 period saw a massiveincrease in the numbers of Croatian-bornsettling in Australia. They came in the first

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instance as displaced people or as refugees.Limited numbers also came on assistedpassage, some after having crossed theYugoslav borders illegally. Later, they ar-rived as ‘economic migrants’ and in accord-ance with the agreement reached betweenthe governments of Australia andYugoslavia in 1970. 20 The definition ofthose departing Yugoslavia as ‘economicmigrants’ in this second wave of post-1945immigration was problematic from at leasttwo perspectives: first, political factorsgoverned the deteriorating social andeconomic situation in Yugoslavia in gener-al; and second, those people who left oftendid so for a complex set of reasons—per-sonal, economic, political and often, in thecase of Croats, national—which made itdifficult to demarcate strictly betweeneconomic and political migrants at thattime. The numbers of Croatian immigrantsdropped significantly from the 1980s. Inspite of the fact that Australia receivedrefugees from the wars of the 1990s, thetotal number of arrivals (many of whomwere of a higher socioeconomic group) didnot alter significantly the social makeupof the Croatian-born. 21

A SERIES OF PARADOXES

One of the common ways of viewingCroatian settlement in Australia emphas-ises conflict and division. This perceptionis often then offset by a defensive and in-ward-looking story of ‘success’. Neitherapproach takes into account the range ofCroatian immigrant experiences. Both ap-proaches are one-dimensional and ahistor-ical, reinforcing stereotypes with recourseto the usual dichotomies (of class in partic-ular). Each approach, in its own way, un-dervalues aspects of Croatian association

that accommodate (rather than exclude)difference and have led to a sense of socialcohesion, the accumulation of social capitaland a strong affinity with Australiandemocratic processes. 22 (Interestingly,discussions on the link between socialcapital and active citizenship identify highsocioeconomic status as one of the signific-ant contributing variables, which may inpart explain why the relationship betweenethnic association and activism and socialcapital is largely overlooked.) 23 In orderto broaden the base of evidence on whichwe can draw to amplify our understandingof these important issues, we can identifythe examples of and reasons for the emer-gence of a Croatian civic identity in theAustralian context. An obvious way to dothis is to look more closely at some of thefeatures of association and activism thathave hitherto been treated in only a curs-ory fashion or, indeed, thought to militateagainst cooperative social action andagainst integration. The four features orpatterns of Croatian settlement I havechosen to discuss suggest ways in whichCroats have mediated a reciprocal relation-ship between the old and the new,between maintaining elements of theirethnic identity and adapting to theirchanged circumstances, thereby exhibitingthe qualities of active citizenship. Again,it is important to recognise that aspects ofthis discussion may apply to other immig-rant groups, which also displaye highlevels of engagement and voluntarism inthe same time span.

The first point or paradox of note isthat while for most of the period of Croa-tian immigration to Australia under reviewhere there was no official acknowledgmentof the settlers as ethnically or nationallydistinctive, there was a high degree of

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community activism and political lobbyingby Croats as Croats. This culminated intheir recognition by the Australian Gov-ernment as a distinct national and lan-guage group. 24 Before ethnic and multi-cultural initiatives received financialaid—that is, before Australia embracedmulticulturalism in the 1970s—Croatsdisplayed a remarkable degree of flexibil-ity, initiative and determination in settingup a range of structures to meet their so-cial, cultural and welfare needs and did sowithout material or moral assistance fromgovernmental agencies, either Australianor Yugoslav. They had no administrativeor institutional support and relied on thevoluntary work of Croats for their success.Thousands of individuals gave their timeand skills freely in fundraising for thepurchase of land on which they built halls,ethnic schools, sports centres andchurches. In many regards, the achieve-ments of the Croatian activists in SouthAustralia stand as representative examplesof the immigrants’ resourcefulness inAustralia as a whole. 25 Approximately6.9 per cent (3580) of Australia’s Croatian-born live in South Australia. 26 The firstAustralian ‘Croatian club’ was establishedin Adelaide in 1950 and others followedthereafter in capital cities and regionalcentres. Through sport, soccer in particu-lar, Croats were able to find a social outletand to have an impact on Australiansporting culture. The soccer team AdelaideCroatia, established in 1952, was the firstof its kind in Australia, enjoyed a numberof successes in the state league and stillexists today. Adelaide is also home to theoldest continuously running Croatian eth-nic school in Australia. 27 In addition,there are folk ensembles and local pro-grams in Croatian have been produced for

South Australian community radio stationssince 1976. There are activities for elderlymembers of the community (as befits theageing demographic of the Croatian-born)as well as an Australian-Croatian Chamberof Commerce. While several associationshave existed in South Australia since the1950s and 1960s, others, such as thewriters’ group, are recent initiatives andreflect the changing social landscape ofcommunity centres across the country. 28

The range and intensity of this activityover several decades attest to a desire forbroad social and cultural experiences andto the fact that these immigrants place ahigh value on participation in activitiesoutside the home and workplace andwhose benefits could not be quantified orare not measured in terms of direct (person-al) material gain. 29 David Hogan andDavid Owen argue that there is a linkbetween ‘levels of social capital and levelsof engagement in important citizenshippractices, especially “voluntarist” prac-tices within community organisations’. 30

Placing the example of immigrant volun-tarist practices, not just that of Croats butof many other equally active groups,within this broader context presents uswith a view that is different from the per-spective of ethnic activism as ‘closed’ andamplifies our understanding of active cit-izenship. Moreover, privileging associationas ostensibly more outward looking andmore ‘civic’ purely on the basis that itemanates from the ‘host’ culture is, as wehave seen, problematic on many counts.

The second point that invites reflec-tion is the fact that while Croatian womenare absent from most of the upper echelonsof Croatian organisational structures, theyhave been remarkably active in com-munity life. The Croatian women’s contri-

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bution has generally been deemed a simpleextension of traditional female pursuits ordomestic duties and as such has not beenstudied seriously. However, as historiansof gender have demonstrated, women whoseem to be publicly ‘absent’ from com-munities in the past have in fact been act-ive in many different aspects of social andcultural life through their sociability andnetworks grounded in their associationallife. For a long time, the wider import ofthis ‘hidden’ history was neither under-stood nor seen to be something from whichwe could learn and this was especially thecase for immigrant women in Australia. 31

The raw facts on Croatian-born womenin Australia would seem to confirm thefindings of general studies of migrant wo-men in the workforce that show they aregenerally unskilled and poorly paid. 32

In Victoria, for example, Croatian womenhave traditionally been employed in textileindustries, in light manufacturing plantsand, on occasion, as seasonal farm work-ers. 33 There is not much deviation fromthis pattern in other states, but Croatianworking-class women have had a broadersocial engagement and have been moreactive than statistics about their employ-ment history and levels of education mightsuggest. They established and ran ethnicschools and folkloric ensembles while alsoproviding social support and caring forthe welfare of their communities. 34 Often,as intimated above, this activism reflectedtheir traditional (gendered) role in Croatianfamilies and the population at large, butit also reflected the kind of associationallife not ordinarily identified with work-ing-class women. 35 Historians typicallydescribe these as middle-class pursuitswhereby women of a certain social stand-ing who do not work outside the home

draw on the kinds of skills gleaned inbourgeois households. 36 The inherentclass bias in analyses of Croatian women’slives needs to be redressed: their experi-ence amplifies the received wisdom aboutmigrant women in Australia and the evid-ence of women’s organisational skills ex-hibited at the time of Croatia’s war for in-dependence (1991–95), for example, in-vites closer analysis.

During this war, Croatian women su-pervised large-scale aid projects and majorfundraising events. They came to clubsand community centres after long hoursof work, bringing their sewing machineswith them. Having purchased hundredsof metres of material in bulk, they took tocutting it and sewing children’s pyjamas,tracksuits, sheets and other items for dis-patch in sea containers. They organisedthe collection of non-perishable foodstuffsfor the victims of the war and the refugees.They purchased medicines and other ne-cessities of life. They supported and con-tinue to support orphans. 37 These actionswere the product of goodwill but also ofa kind of self-actualisation made morevisible by the special circumstances, to besure, but prepared for over many yearsby the commitment to voluntarism andthe (unstated) recognition of its social andpsychic benefits. Anecdotal evidencesuggests these values are generally notshared by the waves of immigrants arriv-ing since the 1980s (especially in the wakeof the collapse of Yugoslavia), who equatevoluntarism with ‘unpaid work’. A pos-sible interpretation of this difference inattitude may be that there is no longer aneed for such intense activism and thatrecent arrivals have greater scope to pur-sue a range of professional opportunities.However, one might also consider this at-

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titude a consequence of the erosion of civiland social life under communism and traceit to the perversion of the idea of voluntar-ism from the first years of communist im-plantation. In the aftermath of the destruc-tion of World War II, brigades of youth‘volunteers’ literally built the new socialiststate through obligatory participation inconstruction programs. At the same time,the State did not tolerate ‘social’ or volun-tary activities emanating from private ini-tiatives (for example, church-run charit-able work) because they were deemed in-appropriate in a setting in which the Statefulfilled its citizens’ material needs. 38

Interestingly, the emergence of non-gov-ernmental organisations as representativeof different interests in former communiststates is often considered one of themarkers of the relative health of thedemocratising process.

The third paradox, which is telling ofthe general and evolving social and civicexperience of Croats, relates to the factthat post-1945 Croatian immigrants havea had very low socioeconomic status inAustralian society and yet have been ableto achieve a degree of fluency in politicalprocesses and lobbying combined with ahigh level of financial security. Further-more, they placed a significant value oninvesting in community infrastructure andin what I referred to above as social capit-al. Theirs is an impressive financial andcultural legacy of community centres andstructures across Australia for use by fu-ture generations. 39 This is the case inspite of the fact that Croatian-born menand women are less educated and less so-cially mobile than their counterparts inthe population at large. For example, inthe 1990s, Croatian-born immigrants livingin Victoria were less than half as likely to

be employed as professionals than theVictorian population as a whole. 40 Never-theless, Croats, along with other SouthernEuropean settlers, do have a very high percapita rate of home ownership relative tothe population at large. 41 Their earlypostwar patterns of settlement in urbancentres, common to many immigrants,whereby, for example, they moved frominner-city rented dwellings to their ownhomes either in established working-classsuburbs or in newer housing develop-ments, indicated a degree of economicstability and continuous employment. 42

The almost complete absence of a profes-sional cadre of Croatian teachers, publicservants and white-collar workers relativeto comparable immigrant groups invitesus to consider the possibility of barriersexisting to their social advancement overtime arising from the slow recognition ofCroats as an identifiable national groupwith specific needs. Significantly, whilean obvious impediment in certain areas ofsocial advancement and mobility, the ab-sence of this professional cadre did notpose a barrier to the establishment of arange of Croatian community groups. Onepossible explanation for this is that Croats,feeling they had an inferior status vis-a-vis other ‘Yugoslavs’ and other immig-rants, expended greater effort ensuringtheir community structures did well. 43

Their collective business acumen and theirrecognition of the need to plan for the longterm have remained unexplored by histor-ians who have interpreted their efforts(superficially) as narrowly nationalistic orinsular. 44 Moreover, the more recenttendency to focus on Croatian businesselites, on the obvious and highly vis-ible—the millionaire ship-builder or theowner of the three-times winner of the

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Melbourne Cup, for example—has left astory that obscures the collective and indi-vidual experiences of the less spectacularlyproductive but nonetheless socially activeAustralian Croats. The greater emphasison the outcomes rather than the processof immigrant community activism explainsthis imbalance as does the general absenceof ethnic associational life from mainstreamdiscussions about the relationship betweenactive citizenship and the generation ofsocial capital.

Finally, we had the paradox wherebyCroatia was not an independent countrybut Croats in Australia were known forhaving a strong national identity. Thepartial explanation for this is that theirhigh public profile was the product oftheir reaction against negative stereotyp-ing. 45 One of their chosen methods ofpolitical lobbying—in group demonstra-tions and, where possible, near buildingshousing Yugoslav consular staff or otherofficial Yugoslav agencies—led to theconflation of all Croatian nationalist activ-ism (anti-Yugoslavism) as potentially viol-ent and rooted in the politics of collabora-tionism in World War II. This was the in-ternational framework for the teleologicalinterpretation of all modern Croatian his-tory and for the interpretation of the his-tory of Central European and Balkan col-laboration as exceptional. It was also thestarting point for any analysis of Croatianémigré activities. This framework of inter-pretation persisted at least up to the fallof Yugoslavia, when some of the boundar-ies between Croats and Croatian‘Yugoslavs’ became more blurred or disap-peared. 46 It is also true that the YugoslavGovernment’s attempt at discreditingCroatian activism by referring to it as ‘ex-treme’, ‘fascist’ or ‘separatist’ in inspira-

tion as well as its crude attempts at ‘neut-ralising’ Croatian ‘troublemakers’ eventu-ally lost its capacity to undermine Croatiancommunities as a whole, either in Australiaor elsewhere. 47 The reality of the situ-ation meant that the media and govern-ment-manufactured Croatian ‘type’ wasno longer sustainable because it was notrooted in the lived experience of Croats inAustralia, or indeed the lived experienceof Australians who came into contact withCroatian people. Croats did not exist in avacuum nor were they simply reactive.They were contesting a negative and one-dimensional interpretation of their identityand positing another in its place. At times,this led to a certain defensiveness on theirpart. 48 On the whole, however, their re-action to the slurs against them led Croats(collectively) to be more outward looking:their behaviour was less ‘conspiratorial’and ‘nostalgic’ than it was flexible, for-ward looking and adaptable. For example,a ‘petrified’ backward-looking communitytrapped in a time capsule could not haveachieved what no other Croatian émigrécommunity had achieved: official recogni-tion of the integrity of the Croatian (asopposed to the so-called Serbo-Croatian)language, financial support for Croatianinterpreting and translating services andCroatian language teaching in ethnic andpublic schools, and the establishment ofthe Croatian Studies Centre at MacquarieUniversity in Sydney. The specific argu-ment Croats had with the official use of‘Serbo-Croat’ made their lobbying on thisscore distinctive.

CONCLUSION

It would be wrong to suggest that thestory I have told relates uniquely or

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equally to all Croats in Australia or thattheirs is a narrative of unequivocal successin terms of community relations and cit-izenship formation. However, this articlehas argued that superficial and essentialistobservations about the Croats’ predisposi-tion to a certain kind of narrow and in-ward-looking nationalism are wanting inmany respects. Events leading to the col-lapse of Yugoslavia were not precipitatedby conspiratorial émigré ‘separatists’ butby the breakdown of social, political andeconomic life, the absence of social cohe-sion, a serious deficit of social capital andthe collapse of communism in Europe. Asis well documented, the fall of Yugoslaviaoccasioned a series of terrible wars of suc-cession and great suffering. 49 Somefeared that there would be unrest and vi-olence among and between South Slavgroups in Australia, but this did noteventuate. On the contrary, in their reliefwork, Croats drew on the skills of activecitizenship they had acquired over manyyears from the model of their ‘multicultur-al practice’ in the microcosm of their clubsand social and religious centres. It couldbe said that it was understandable thatthey should embark on concerted actiongiven the circumstances of the war. But asany student of the social history of modernwarfare can testify, there is nothing inev-itable about a ‘united front’ at times ofcrisis or in war. It seems reasonable tosuggest that having negotiated their accul-turation without compromising theirmultiple (mutually compatible) identit-ies—ethnic, social, political and profession-al—Croats could now draw on their exper-ience of decades of activism. They hadpursued this activism in the face of indif-ference at best, and hostility at worst, andfor the duration of the war managed vast

shipments of aid in many forms as well asrallying moral and political support amongthe wider population for the cause ofCroatian sovereignty.

The war of succession in Croatia wastherefore a defining moment for regionaland urban Croatian community life inAustralia. It brought together, in concer-ted action, Croats from different centresincluding, for example, the Port Lincolnfishermen who donated tonnes of cannedseafood. The experience of decades of in-tense associational life and voluntaryactivity for non-material gains schooledthem and prepared them to manage aid ona substantial international scale. It was thepersistent efforts of these Croats them-selves to maintain a sense of nationalidentity through language, music, sportand welfare work that ultimately produceda community that balanced the inwardpush to preserve their heritage and theoutward pull towards integration. For ex-ample, many of the offspring of the Croa-tian-born who have successfully negoti-ated their dual national identities havefounded, and now run, structures appro-priate to the changed circumstances. Theseinclude, for example, the Australian-Croatian Chambers of Commerce. SuchAustralian Croats are also products of thesocialisation experienced in the Croatianethnic schools system. 50 The formationof social capital, as we have seen, is linkedto voluntary activity, which is ‘sociallypatterned’: family background is an import-ant variable in adult civic participation.This suggests that if we look beyond thestructures of ethnic association we mayfind a high predisposition towards activecitizenship of the Australian-born off-spring of immigrants who are engaged intheir communities. 51

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Some have depicted Croatian immig-rants arriving soon after 1945 and in the1960s and 1970s as incapable of accommod-ating multiple identities and more crudely‘nationalistic’ than a later generation ofeducated immigrants who do not seek somuch to ‘preserve’ Croatian identity oreven distinguish themselves by it but tocultivate (personal) professional satisfac-tion and success. Possibly this dichotom-ous view is compromised by a superficialunderstanding of the dynamics at work inthe established ethnic organisations andthe limited data and small sample availablein the study of recent immigrants. 52 Ihave argued that there is much of interestin the lives of the earlier waves of postwarCroatian immigrants to the historian ofAustralian multiculturalism, active citizen-ship and national identity. There is alsomuch that the current Croatian Govern-ment could learn from the example ofmembers of its most far-flung diasporiccommunity, including those returning totheir country of birth permanently ortemporarily, as it prepares for its admis-sion into the European Community. 53

We have seen that theorists of citizen-ship and multiculturalism note one import-ant way of integrating minorities into thebody politic is to foster strong ties acrossvarious social strata in a vigorous associ-ational life that allows individuals andgroups to promote their interests and par-ticipate in political life, conventionallyand less conventionally defined, for thegreater good. There is a long tradition ofdiscourse on civic life along these lines.For example, the keys to the final (success-ful) implantation of republican and demo-cratic values in France 80 years after theFrench Revolution of 1789 were a vigorouscivic life evident across different regions

and within different social groups. InFrance, women and men, separately or to-gether, involved themselves in organisa-tions ranging from those arguing for pris-on reform and agricultural progress tothose sponsoring charitable ventures forthe sick, the infirm and the outcast: therewas not uniformity but a plurality of inten-tions and identities as people demonstratedtheir attachment to the centre throughtheir intense activism at the local level. 54

The Croats to whom I refer here may, in-deed, have been ‘anti-Yugoslav’ but, pre-dominantly, they expressed this throughthe positive affirmation of their identityas Australian citizens and through theirlegitimate desire to maintain aspects oftheir Croatian heritage, which was in turntolerated and then nurtured in their newhome. Overwhelmingly, their silent andhitherto unacknowledged contribution tosocial cohesion and to the presence of arobust Australian citizenry, inside theircommunal structures and within Australiaas a whole, has remained hidden by theworn but well maintained fabric of theirassociational life.

ENDNOTES

1 One of the best examples of the way in whichCroatian immigrants were typically portrayed maybe found in Aarons, Mark 1989, Sanctuary. Nazi fu-gitives in Australia, William Heinemann Australia,Melbourne.2 Several of my propositions could be applied to theother immigrant groups arriving in large numbersafter 1945, but it is beyond the scope of this paperto embark on an extended comparative study.3 Aarons, for example, writes of the ‘massive’ and‘credible evidence’ amassed by the Australian Secur-ity Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) on (alleged)Croatian terrorist activity in Australia and routinelyrefers to faceless ‘Croatian extremists’ in Sanctuary.It was normal practice to conflate Croatian social andcultural activism with international terrorism andwartime collaboration. Possibly the lack of discrim-

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ination in the appraisal of Croatian association madeit more difficult to identify who, precisely, was re-sponsible for the series of bomb attacks on Yugoslavproperties in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s. For adiscussion of some of these issues, see Drapac, Vesna2005, ‘Perceptions of post-WWII Croatian immig-rants: the South Australian case’, Croatian StudiesReview, vols 3–4, pp. 27–39.4 David Hogan and David Owen have noted threemeasures of active citizenship as: the ‘breadth ofparticipation’ in voluntary organisations; the amountof time devoted to voluntary organisations; and‘participation in political actions’. See their ‘Socialcapital, active citizenship and political equality inAustralia’, 2000, in Ian Winter (ed.), Social Capitaland Public Policy in Australia, Australian Instituteof Family Studies, Melbourne, pp. 74–104.5 Here Levey is turning on its head the questionJames Jupp raises in his 2003 publication, How WellDoes Australian Democracy Serve Immigrant Australi-ans?. Levey, Geoffrey Brahm 2008, ‘Multiculturalismand Australian national identity’, in Geoffrey BrahmLevey (ed.), Political Theory and Australian Multicul-turalism, Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford,pp. 254–76.6 Galligan, Brian and Roberts, Winsome 2004, Aus-tralian Citizenship, Melbourne University Press,Melbourne, p. xv.7 By this they mean Australian immigrant groupsfrom non-English-speaking backgrounds are notdistinctive, mutually exclusive and self-perpetuatingor entirely separate from the ‘dominant Anglo-Aus-tralian mainstream’. They suggest that for mostAustralians multiculturalism means simply equalityof opportunity and access as well as tolerance forcultural diversity. See their Australian Citizenship,p. 14 and Chapter 4. See also Levey, ‘Multiculturalpolitical thought in the Australian perspective’; andGalligan, Brian and Roberts, Winsome 2008, ‘Multi-culturalism, national identity and pluralist demo-cracy: the Australian variant’, in Geoffrey BrahmLevey (ed.), Political Theory and Australian Multicul-turalism, Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford,pp. 1–26, 209–24.8 Galligan and Roberts, Australian Citizenship, pp.5, 14. One of their key markers of integration is thesuccessive generations’ marriage outside the immig-rant group.9 James Jupp is critical of sweeping interpretationsof integration as represented by statistics on intermar-riage and the relatively careless use of intermarriageas a marker of the transitional nature of ethnic asso-ciation and activism. He notes that there are numer-ous ways in which the second and third generationsas well as Australia as a whole continue to be influ-enced and shaped by multiculturalism. See Jupp,

James 2008, ‘A pragmatic response to a novel situ-ation: Australian multiculturalism’, in GeoffreyBrahm Levey (ed.), Political Theory and AustralianMulticulturalism, Berghahn Books, New York andOxford, pp. 225–41, 230–1.10 The pioneering work of Jean Martin, for example,set the standard for assessing group organisationalong ethnic or ‘minority’ lines in terms of its poten-tial to engage outside or ‘host’ structures: ‘Theoretic-ally, ethnic associations might take upon themselvesthe role of socialising individual immigrants into thehost society; like some therapeutic groups, theirsuccess might then be measured by their disintegra-tion. No such function formed any part of the goalsof ethnic community organisation in Adelaide.’ SeeMartin, Jean I. 1972, Community and Identity: Refugeegroups in Adelaide, The Australian National Univer-sity Press, Canberra, p. 122. This position is also thebackground to the anti-assimilationist rhetoric ofsome elements in the multicultural lobby in itsformative stages. See Lopez, Mark 2000, The Originsof Multiculturalism in Australian Politics 1945–1975,Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.11 A poll conducted in 2005 found 80 per cent ofAustralians supported or strongly supported thepolicy of multiculturalism. See Markus, Maria R.2008, ‘Is Australian multiculturalism in crisis? Acomment on Galligan and Roberts and on Jupp’, inGeoffrey Brahm Levey (ed.), Political Theory andAustralian Multiculturalism, Berghahn Books, NewYork and Oxford, pp. 242–55.12 In Australian Citizenship, for example, Galliganand Roberts do not address ethnic association andfocus largely on government policy and citizenshipdebates.13 Šutalo, Ilija 2004, Croatians in Australia: Pioneers,settlers and their descendants, Wakefield Press, SouthAustralia. Until recently, historians argued that onlya handful of Croats had arrived in colonial Australia.Šutalo has found that at least 850 Croats had livedhere before 1890. Graeme Hugo’s research revealsthat the number of returns, previously very low, isnow higher than many would have anticipated beforethe collapse of Yugoslavia and it is reasonable tosuggest that this is a consequence of Croatia becom-ing a sovereign state. Hugo, Graeme 2006, Migrationand development: an Australian perspective onCroatia, Presentation to the Colloquium on Australi-an-Croatian Relations and the Role of the Diaspora,Croatian Club, Adelaide, 24 June 2006.14 Šutalo, Croatians in Australia, passim.15 See Marin Alagich and Steven Kosovich, ‘EarlyCroatian settlement in eastern Australia’, and NevenSmoje, ‘Early Croatian settlement in Western Aus-tralia’ (2001, in James Jupp [ed.], The AustralianPeople. An encyclopedia of the nation, its people and

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their origins, Cambridge University Press, Victoria,pp. 235–7, 241–3). See also Holjevac, Veceslav 1967,Hrvati izvan domovine, Matica Hrvatska, Zagreb, pp.207–26.16 The Communist Party was banned in the Kingdomof Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1921. Croats alsoexperienced considerable economic and politicalhardship in the kingdom especially after the estab-lishment of the royal dictatorship in 1929 and thissituation often influenced their decision to emigrate.For an overview of the history of the kingdom, seeBenson, Leslie 2004, Yugoslavia: A concise history,Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Chapter 3; andRamet, Sabrina P. 2006, The Three Yugoslavias: State-building and legitimation, 1918–2005, WoodrowWilson Center Press and Indiana University Press,Washington, DC, and Bloomington, Ind., Chapters 2and 3.17 See, for example, National Archives of Australia,A989/1943, ‘Yugoslav Patriotic Fund for YugoslavForces and Refugees’.18 Dr Ante Pavelic, leader of the émigré Ustaša (‘in-surgent’) organisation, was installed by the Axispowers as the head of the so-called Independent Stateof Croatia, which was noted for its collaborationismand its exclusivist nationalist vision of an independ-ent Croatia.19 Some political divisions remained though therewas less incentive for Croats to identify themselvesas ‘Yugoslavs’ after Australia recognised Croatia asa sovereign state in 1992.20 According to the 2006 Census, there are 50 996Croatian-born residents in Australia. See AustralianBureau of Statistics, 2006 Census of Population andHousing, Persons born in Croatia. The conservativeestimate of Australians of Croatian ancestry is 105747. See Hugo, ‘Migration and development: anAustralian perspective on Croatia’.21 The total number of Croatian-born arriving before1989 was 31 126. See Australian Bureau of Statistics,2006 Census of Population and Housing, Persons Bornin Croatia. Statistics from the Department of Immig-ration and Multicultural Affairs for 2001 show thatthe Croatian-born population is ageing. They alsoshow that Croats are half as likely to have higherqualifications than the total Australian populationalthough they are slightly more likely to have certi-ficate-level qualifications and are 10 per cent morelikely to have a trade. The majority (more than 70per cent) are employed as skilled and semi-skilledlabourers and tradespeople.22 Statistics on citizenship in the 2006 Census showthat almost all Croatian-born immigrants are natural-ised: 48 271 of a total of 50 996. See Australian Bur-eau of Statistics, 2006 Census of Population andHousing, Persons Born in Croatia. Galligan and

Roberts discuss the wider significance for civic lifeand Australian identity of immigrants choosing totake up citizenship in Australian Citizenship, p. 95.23 Hogan and Owen, ‘Social capital, active citizen-ship and political equality in Australia’, pp. 95, 101.24 Official recognition of Croats as a distinct nationaland language group occurred in 1980. The Croatianlanguage was accepted as a Year 12 subject in NewSouth Wales in 1981 and in Victoria in 1984. SeeŠutalo, Croatians in Australia, p. 222. See also Izbliza,Hrvati u Australiji (2005, Zagreb, pp. 48–50), cata-logue of an exhibition curated by the Croatian Herit-age Foundation in 2005.25 Drapac, ‘Perceptions of post-WWII Croatian im-migrants’.26 Hugo, ‘Migration and development’.27 This school recently celebrated its fortieth an-niversary. See, Croatian Ethnic School Adelaide,1966–2006 (2006, Adelaide), a pamphlet producedby the Croatian Ethnic School Adelaide.28 Drapac, Vesna and Moran, Brendan 2004, Croa-tians in South Australia: History, culture, contribution,Brochure produced by the Croatian CommunityCouncil, Adelaide.29 Šutalo has identified 280 Croatian centres and as-sociations currently active in Australia. See Šutalo,Croatians in Australia, p. 217.30 Hogan and Owen, ‘Social capital, active citizen-ship and political equality in Australia’, p. 75.31 To an extent, it could be argued that the experi-ence of immigrant women reflected the relative un-der-representation of women in general in aspects ofAustralian civic and professional life but that itmagnified somewhat the gap between rights, com-munity activism and access to positions of influenceand power. See Galligan and Roberts, AustralianCitizenship, Chapter 9, ‘Women’, pp. 185–200.32 Data from the Victorian Department of Premierand Cabinet (‘Select community profiles: 1996Census’, Multicultural Affairs Unit) confirm this.33 Ibid.34 For example, in Adelaide, the first Croatian ethnicschool was established by a woman, Amalia Rutar,in the early 1960s. This school closed after a shorttime and another was established in 1966.35 Hogan and Owen note the ‘clear relationship’between ‘socio-economic status and social capitalformation’ and between levels of social capital andlevels of engagement in citizenship practices in ‘So-cial capital, active citizenship and political equalityin Australia’, p. 95. The example of Croatian womenoffers a slightly different paradigm suggesting the

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variable of socioeconomic status is less important incertain instances.36 See, for example, Perrot, Michelle (ed.) 1990, AHistory of Private Life. Volume 4. From the fires ofrevolution to the Great War, Translated by ArthurGoldhammer, Belknap Press of Harvard UniversityPress, Cambridge, Mass., and London; and Prost,Antoine and Vincent, Gérard (eds) 1991, Riddles ofIdentity in Modern Times, Translated by ArthurGoldhammer, Belknap Press of Harvard UniversityPress, Cambridge, Mass., and London, vol. 5.37 Šutalo, Croatians in Australia, pp. 235–8. See alsoIzbliza, Hrvati u Australiji, pp. 51–3; and Drapacand Moran, Croatians in South Australia.38 For a summary of the early period of communistimplantation, see Lampe, John R. 1996, Yugoslaviaas History: Twice there was a country, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, Chapter 8. There is avast literature on government-sponsored capillaryassociations introduced from above by fascist andcommunist states in twentieth-century Europe andtheir failure to generate enthusiasm for the rulingideology across different professional and socialgroups. The general consensus among historians isthat these structures promote mass conformism ratherthan self-actualisation.39 Šutalo lists 43 Croatian-owned halls, clubs andsporting venues in Croatians in Australia, pp. 267–8.40 See Note 19 for statistics on educational qualifica-tions of the Croatian-born. There are probably moreCroatian professionals in Victoria than other states.41 See Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet,‘Select community profiles: 1996 Census’, Multicul-tural Affairs Unit.42 Šutalo, Croatians in Australia, p. 211ff.43 Zlatko Skrbiš discusses aspects of the impact ofsuch community activism on a sample of first andsecond-generation Croats and Slovenes in Long-Dis-tance Nationalism: Diasporas, homelands and identities(1999, Ashgate, Aldershot).44 This was particularly the case from the 1950s on-wards, when ASIO reports routinely referred toCroatian ‘fascists’ and ‘extremists’ in an undifferen-tiated fashion. For an indication of the extent ofASIO’s interest in Croats, see McKnight, David 1994,Australia’s Spies and Their Secrets, Allen and Unwin,St Leonards, New South Wales. Commentators, in-cluding Mark Aarons, have tended to accept uncrit-ically the information about Croatian community as-sociation contained within ASIO reports. The historyof the political predilections—real and imagined—ofCroatian organisations and of prominent Croatianindividuals has yet to be written.

45 Kovacevic, Mladen and Gladovic, Mira 1990,Articles Regarding Croatians in Australia as Printedby ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’, Croatian StudentsAssociation of New South Wales for the CroatianResource Centre, Sydney; Shaw, Les 1973, Trial bySlander, Harp Books, Canberra; and Drapac, ‘Percep-tions of post-WWII Croatian immigrants’.46 See Stephen Clissold (1979, ‘Croat separatism: na-tionalism, dissidence and terrorism’, Conflict Studies,no. 103) for the classic articulation of this dichotom-ous treatment of Croatian nationalism outsideYugoslavia. Clissold served with the Military Missionto Yugoslavia during World War II and later at theBritish Embassy in Belgrade and became a prominentcommentator on Yugoslav affairs.47 Clissold discusses various attempts by Yugoslavsecret agents to silence or ‘neutralise’ Croatian émigréopposition including assassinations, kidnappings andshow trials (ibid., pp. 12–15).48 This was especially true in the 1970s when Croa-tian communities were said to be harbouring allegedterrorists, when Australian security services infilt-rated their organisations and with the wrongful arrest(in 1979) and conviction (subsequently overturned)of the so-called ‘Croatian Six’, accused of plotting tobomb the Sydney water supply.49 See, for example, Gutman, Roy 1993, A Witnessto Genocide, Element Books, Shaftesbury, Dorset.50 The Croatian Government has largely failed torecognise the importance of this socialisation and oflanguage education at the primary and secondarylevels (in comparison with its commitment to thecontinuing endeavour at Macquarie University, forexample). The lack of appropriate teaching materialsfor the rising generation of descendants of the Croa-tian-born immigrants (largely brought up in English-speaking households) remains a constant problemfor teachers of Croatian language in Australia. SeeCroatian Ethnic School Adelaide, 1966–2006.51 Hogan and Owen, ‘Social capital, active citizen-ship and political equality in Australia’, pp. 91, 101.52 See, for example, olic-Peisker, Val 2004–05,‘Australian Croatians at the beginning of the twenty-first century: a changing profile of the communityand its public representation’, Croatian Studies Re-view, vols 3–4, pp. 1–26.53 The notion of the transmission of social capitaland the idea that the ‘skills’ gained from civic engage-ment are mobile are rarely addressed in discussionsabout the relationship between Croatia and its dia-spora. The most pressing concerns relate to narrowlyeconomic questions—such as investment opportun-ities—and welfare policies touching on pensions andmedical insurance. A deeper understanding of the

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impact of the community association of ethnic groupsmay stimulate more debate on this subject.54 This process is evocatively illustrated by PhilipNord in The Republican Moment: Struggles for demo-cracy in nineteenth century France (1995, HarvardUniversity Press, Cambridge, Mass.).

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CITIZENSHIP AND INTEGRATION

A snapshot of the Polish migrant community in Australia

STEFAN MARKOWSKI

INTRODUCTION

Australia has long been regarded as acountry of immigration. In 1901, 23 percent of Australians were born overseas. 1

This share of overseas-born declined to 10per cent in 1947, but grew again to reach23 per cent in 1995. 2 Since World WarII, Australia’s population has grownquickly due to a combination of high fer-tility and high net overseas migration (im-migration less emigration). 3 In the 2006Census, 4.4 million people, more than one-fifth of the total population, stated thatthey were not born in Australia. 4 The2001 Census of Population showed that3.5 million people born in Australia (26per cent of the total population) had atleast one parent born overseas and nearlyhalf of these had both parents overseas-born. 5 If all those Australia-born with atleast one parent born overseas weredefined as second-generation immigrants,then by the end of the past century, nearlyhalf of all Australians were either first orsecond-generation immigrants.

The structure of immigration and,thus, the composition of the overseas-bornresident population have changed signific-antly over time. In the early days of Feder-ation, the White Australia Policy ensured

that immigrants were mostly of Europeanorigin and predominantly Anglo-Celtic. 6

In the aftermath of World War II, short-ages of labour prompted a change in policyand Australia accepted about 300 000 dis-placed persons (DPs) from Eastern Europe.7 Further policy relaxation was aimed atattracting settlers from other parts ofwestern and northern Europe, fromsouthern Europe (in the 1950s) and EasternEurope and the Middle East (1960s). 8 TheWhite Australia Policy was gradually re-laxed throughout the 1960s and com-pletely dismantled by the 1970s. Sincethen, the proportion of immigrants of non-European origin, especially from Asia, hasgrown.

Of the overseas-born population, theUnited Kingdom continues to be the mainmigrant source country, accounting for 24per cent of all overseas-born in 2005. NewZealanders were the second-largest group(9 per cent) and their number had trebledin the past 30 years. Italy was the thirdmigrant source country (5 per cent) fol-lowed closely by China (4 per cent). TheChina-born group has increased nearlyeightfold since 1981. 9 On the other hand,between 1996 and 2006, of the 50 mostcommon countries of birth, Poland, Hun-gary and Italy-born groups have recorded

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the largest absolute declines: on average,down 2 per cent per annum. 10

Australian citizenship is especially at-tractive for those immigrants whose inter-national mobility has been impeded byonerous entry and exit visa requirements(particularly former displaced or ‘stateless’people). Not surprisingly, DPs and immig-rants from former Soviet-bloc countries(for example, Poland) have had high ratesof take-up of Australian citizenship (seebelow). On the other hand, New Zealandand UK-born residents have been less in-clined to take up Australian citizenship(38 per cent and 66 per cent respectively)even though they account for the highestnumber of new citizens in absolute terms.11

Also, as it is difficult and costly to re-nounce previous citizenship, a large pro-portion of immigrants who became Aus-tralian citizens by naturalisation or mar-riage are likely to have retained their homecountry citizenship. However, surpris-ingly little is known about the dual citizen-ship of Australian nationals and there islittle systematic information about the ex-tent of migrant identification with ‘Aus-tralia’. 12

The Australian Bureau of Statistics(ABS) has long collected data on migrantcommunities in Australia. The Censusprovides regular snapshots of these com-munities and many of them have beenprofiled and analysed by the ABS and theresearch arm of the Department of Immig-ration and Citizenship (DIC, formerly DI-MIA). Most of this research has focusedon the extent of integration of migrantcommunities into the broader Australiansociety (for example, their English profi-ciency or propensity to take up Australiancitizenship). Some data have also beencollected on distinct ethnic and/or national

characteristics of migrant communities (forexample, their countries of birth, ances-tries and languages spoken at home). Giv-en the impact of immigration on the Aus-tralian social make-up and its significancefor the national economy, it is importantto know whether the process of immigrantabsorption into the broader Australiancommunity has been as effective as itmight have been. Such knowledge haswide-ranging implications for immigrationpolicies, in particular for the targeting ofthe most desirable migrant groups. Therehas also been much debate about condi-tions that have been and/or should be im-posed on those resident immigrants whowish to become Australian citizens andthe pros and cons of dual citizenship. Theofficial statistics are incomplete in this re-spect and additional sources of data areneeded to learn about the incidence andsignificance of dual citizenship and theextent of migrant identification with thebroader Australian society.

In 2006, this author conducted a smallsurvey of the Polish migrant communityin Victoria, New South Wales, SouthAustralia, Queensland and the AustralianCapital Territory, mostly in the capitalcities of these states, where 67 per cent ofall Australians of Polish ancestry (about110 000 people) were reported to live. Toaccess members of the Polish migrantcommunity, the study solicited the helpof the Polish Community Council of Aus-tralia and New Zealand Incorporated. Inparticular, it was assisted by the PolishCommunity Councils of New South Wales,Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory,Queensland and South Australia. 13 Thepurpose of the survey was to probe thecommunity’s links with Poland, the likelyimpact of Poland’s accession to the

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European Union on people’s attitudes toPolish citizenship and the likelihood ofreverse migration. A total of 1030 question-naires were posted to people listed onvarious ‘official’ mailing lists and 335completed questionnaires were returnedby mail and processed by the researchteam (for a brief description of the sample,see the Statistical Annex). 14 Althoughthe size of the study was limited to 335valid responses (0.003 per cent of all thosewho stated their ancestry as ‘Polish’ in thetargeted area in 2006) and its findings werebiased by exclusion of all those not connec-ted to community councils, the surveyyielded a wealth of information on variousaspects of the ‘Polishness’ of the Polishmigrant community. There also appearsto be a strong concordance between itsfindings and data drawn from the 2006Census.

This paper draws on general, census-based information to profile Australiansof Polish descent. The survey-based dataare used to complement official statisticsand, in particular, to shed some light onthe dual citizenship of Polish migrants andthe extent to which they identify with thebroader Australian community. Four ‘re-search questions’ are implicit in this exer-cise:

1. What differentiates Australians ofPolish extraction from the broaderAustralian community?

2. How well are they integrated intothat community?

3. How many members of the Polishmigrant community are dual citizensand what does it mean to be a dualcitizen of Australia and Poland?

4. To what extent do Australians ofPolish extraction identify with Aus-tralia and/or Poland?

While the absorption of Polish immig-rants into the broader Australian com-munity should not be taken as represent-ative of all such adaptive processes, it isnevertheless instructive to consider theexperience of a particular group that hasblended successfully into the host com-munity and the extent to which Polishmigrants and their descendants have re-tained their ethic distinctiveness and, inparticular, their Polish citizenship.

The paper is organised as follows. Thefirst section introduces the evolvingconcept of citizenship in Australian andthe related debate about the implicationsof citizenship policy for migrant integra-tion into the broader Australian com-munity. Next, we review ‘measures ofmigrant distinctiveness’: these are con-cepts used to differentiate migrant groupsfrom the broader Australian population(for example, country of birth, stated an-cestry and language spoken at home). Thisis followed by a description of Polish mi-gration to Australia, which examines mi-grant inflows and outflows and generalcharacteristics of Polish settlers in Aus-tralia. The next section focuses on thechanging characteristics of Australianresidents of Polish ancestry. Finally, cit-izenship and national identity are dis-cussed: this section draws extensively onthe Polish survey data. The paper con-cludes with a summary response to thefour research questions.

CITIZENSHIP ANDINTEGRATION

The concept of ‘Australian citizenship’ isa relatively recent one, having its originsin the Australian Citizenship Act 1948(Commonwealth). Before the inception of

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Citizenship and integration

the act on Australia Day in 1949, Australi-ans were British subjects. 15 And, until 1May 1987, when the Australian CitizenshipAmendment Act 1984 (Cth) came into force,‘Australia resisted the move to create adistinct Australian citizenship outside ofBritish subject status’ and Australian cit-izens continued to be both Australian na-tionals and British subjects. 16 The 1948Citizenship Act was also inequitable in thatit allowed, de facto, overseas-born peopleto retain their former citizenship whengranted Australian citizenship, while itsSection 17 mandated its loss for an Australi-an citizen who acquired a citizenship ofanother country. Consequently, dual cit-izenship was accepted as a matter of legalreality for those who had another citizen-ship before becoming Australian citizens.As many countries make it difficult fornationals to renounce their citizenship,pledging allegiance to Australia upon be-coming Australian citizens was insufficientto divest immigrants of their former citizen-ship. 17 This inequity was finally removedin 2002 when amendments to Australiancitizenship legislation made it possible forAustralian nationals to acquire citizenshipof another country, when previously itwould have meant forfeiting their Australi-an citizenship. In 2007, a new AustralianCitizenship Act was introduced, which re-pealed the contentious s. 17 and broadenedcitizenship provisions to include dual cit-izenship. Thus, the act has made it possiblefor Australian citizens to maintain theirformer citizenships or acquire a new onewithout fear of losing their Australian cit-izenship. 18

A further amendment was also intro-duced in 2007 to allow formal testing ofprospective citizens’ English languageproficiency and civic knowledge. The

amendment requires prospective Australi-an citizens to demonstrate their commit-ment to ‘Australia’s common values’ andbasic ‘knowledge of Australia’. A reviewcommissioned by the Rudd Governmentin 2008 found the test ‘flawed, intimidat-ing to some and discriminatory’ in that itresembled a general knowledge quiz thatrequired the knowledge of ‘obscure histor-ical or sporting facts’. 19 Not surprisingly,some migrant groups have contested the‘prescribed’ notion of Australian identityas an attempt to homogenise the inherentlyhybrid migrant community. 20 Neverthe-less, this uniform national identificationwill continue to be tested, albeit in amodified form, as ‘[t]he Rudd Governmentis committed to the citizenship test’ that‘encourages potential citizens to find outmore about Australia and understand theresponsibilities and privileges of citizen-ship’. 21 More importantly though, theamendment highlights the duality inherentin the concept of ‘Australian citizenship’:those born into it may have little commit-ment to Australian values and a very lim-ited knowledge of Australia, even thoughthey are obliged to vote, while thoseseeking citizenship-by-grant have todemonstrate their eligibility for the mem-bership of ‘Club Australia’. As KimRubenstein points out:

If the Government expanded itsthinking about citizenship policyfor all Australian citizens, not onlythose seeking out Australian cit-izenship and indeed consideredmoving the portfolio of citizenshipoutside of the Immigration depart-ment, it would promote a greaterattention to thinking throughwhat is meant by membership ofthe Australian community. 22

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Elsewhere in this volume, Nolan andRubenstein argue that a uniform nationalidentification implied by the amended2007 act sits uneasily with the legal accept-ance of dual citizenship in the 2007 act.They also argue that in a hybrid societysuch as Australia, people should be freeto assume a blended, complex identityrather than be expected to fit into a com-mon social mould imposed by the coun-try’s dominant ethnic group. This writeris not qualified to discuss the extent towhich the legal acceptance of dual citizen-ship is compatible with the uniform nation-al identification implicit in the admittedlyill-conceived and insensitively implemen-ted citizenship test introduced by theHoward Government in 2007. In logic, adegree of ‘uniform identity’ is implicit inlaws about Australian citizenship thatdifferentiate rights and obligations ofAustralian citizens from those of non-cit-izen residents of Australia and citizens ofother countries. And, regardless of howthis uniform identity is determined inpractice and embodied in successive piecesof legislation, the membership of ClubAustralia inevitably restricts members’freedom to assume a blended, complexidentity of their choice. 23 While the accept-ance of social ‘diversity’ and ‘hybridity’implies a broad interpretation of ‘uniformidentity’ (as opposed to a common socialmould imposed by the country’s dominantethnic group), no national ‘club’ is everdiverse and hybrid enough to satisfy allthose who demand citizenship rights butresent the notion of reciprocal social oblig-ations.

The 2007 test notwithstanding, mem-bership requirements of Club Australiahave been quite liberal by internationalstandards and barriers to entry not partic-

ularly high. 24 This is best demonstratedby the proportion of overseas-born in thetotal population (about one-fifth) and theproportion of immigrants who acquireAustralian citizenship. Since 1949, morethan three million overseas-born Australi-an residents have acquired Australian cit-izenship and, in 2001, 74 per cent ofoverseas-born Australian residents (of twoyears or more) were Australian citizens.25

Also, of 3.7 million overseas-born peoplewho responded to the ‘ancestry question’in the 2001 Census, 76 per cent stated theircitizenship as ‘Australian’ and only 23 percent as ‘Other’. 26

MEASURES OF MIGRANTDISTINCTIVENESS

Country of birth differentiates thoseborn overseas from those born in Aus-tralia. While the concept of ‘overseas-born’ population is relatively straightfor-ward—that is, it refers to those residentsof Australia who were not born in Aus-tralia 27 —that of ‘country of birth’ is of-ten ambiguous. For example, the post-World War II boundary changes in Europehave made it difficult to determine thecountry of birth of many displaced per-sons. 28 Not surprisingly, boundarychanges and the resultant population dis-placement make concepts such as ‘countryof birth’ and ‘nationality at birth’ highlycontentious. 29 The ABS approach to theseissues is to code people to the country theyname as their country of birth—that is,‘all persons who give their country ofbirth as “Poland” are coded to Poland’ and‘Birthplace responses which relate to par-ticular cities or regions which are now inone country, but which may have been inanother country at the time of birth,

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should be coded to the country, the cityor region is in at the time of collection ofthe data. For example, the response “Dan-zig” should be coded to Poland not toGermany.’ 30 Thus, a person born in thepre-1939 Polish city of Lvov who lists‘Poland’ as his/her country of birth is codedas ‘Poland-born’ while those who are eth-nically Polish but give Lvov as their cityof birth are coded ‘Ukraine-born’. Simil-arly, not all those Poland-born are ethnic-ally Polish. In 1986, 84.7 per cent of Po-land-born residents of Australia statedtheir ancestry as Polish, 7 per cent de-scribed themselves as Jewish, 1.7 per centGerman, 1.5 per cent Ukrainian and 4.2per cent ‘Other’. 31

Concepts such as ancestry and ethnicitymay also be used to identify migrantgroups within the broader Australianpopulation. In the census, ancestry is self-determined. 32 But, the concept of ‘ances-try’ is even more ambiguous than that of‘country of birth’. A person may also havemore than one ancestry. 33 The conceptof ancestry also depends on how it isprobed in terms of past generations. Forexample, the 2001 Australian Census askedrespondents to consider their ancestry asfar back as three generations. 34 Thus, aperson’s perception of ‘ancestry’ may notdepend only on where he/she was bornbut on their nationality, country (orcountries) of birth of their parents, lan-guage spoken at home, religion and numer-ous cultural factors. For example, one ofour survey respondents described his/heridentity as ‘by birth: Canadian; by citizen-ship: Australian; by parentage: Anglo-Polish; by culture: Polish; and by upbring-ing: European’. In 2001, the most com-monly stated ancestries in Australia wereAustralian (38 per cent of respondents),

English (36 per cent), Irish (11 per cent),Italian (5 per cent), German (4 per cent),Chinese (3 per cent) and Scottish (3 percent). 35 Polish ancestry was stated by 150900 respondents (0.9 per cent). 36 The‘revealed ancestry’ also depends on howthe population at large feels about variousnational groups and, thus, a person’swillingness to reveal their ancestry. Con-sequently, a person’s ‘stated ancestry’ maychange over time. 37

In the 2006 Census, nearly 164 000people stated their ancestry as Polish whilemore than 52 000 gave Poland as theircountry of birth (see Table 5.1). 38 Al-though those of Polish ancestry were thethirteenth-largest ancestry group, thiswas, to use a sporting analogy, only the‘fifth division’ in the ‘ancestry league’with the ‘first division’ English ancestrygroup numbering 6.4 million people andthe ‘fourth division’ Greek ancestry grouptotalling 376 000 people. And, while thenumber of Australians of Polish ancestryhas increased over time, the number ofPoland-born residents has declined (onaverage by 2 per cent per annum between1996 and 2006).

English proficiency and the use of anoth-er language at home are also useful meas-ures of migrant distinctiveness. The 2001Census revealed that 2.8 million people (16per cent of the Australian population)spoke a language other than English athome. 39 This represents an 8 per centincrease since 1996 and reflects the grow-ing multicultural make-up of the Australi-an population. It also reflects changes inthe prevailing social climate, as, in contrastwith the 1950s and the 1960s, migrants toAustralia have recently been encouragedto retain their distinct ethnic and culturalidentities. In 2001, the five most com-

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monly spoken second languages wereItalian, Greek, Cantonese, Arabic and Viet-namese. Polish was the twelfth-most com-mon ‘other language’, with 59 000 people(0.3 per cent of the population) speakingit at home.

The propensity to speak the ‘homecountry’ language can also be used as aproxy for the ethnic distinctiveness of amigrant group, in particular when it isspoken by those born in Australia. But, asimmigrants assimilate, successive genera-tions tend to lose their command of the‘home country’ language. For example, in2001, 51 per cent of people speaking Greekat home were born in Australia, 43 percent of those speaking Arabic and Italianwere Australia-born, 40 per cent of thosespeaking Serbian and 39 per cent Macedo-nian. But only 20 per cent of Polishspeakers were Australia-born, 15 per centDutch and 9 per cent German. 40 In com-parison with their Australian-Greek, Aus-tralian-Italian or Australian-Lebanesecompatriots, the second generation ofPolish immigrants appears to have lost agreat deal of its language-related ethnicidentity. Nevertheless, people may contin-ue to identify with a particular ancestryor ancestries even if they no longer relateto their ancestral language, religion orculture.

In migrant communities, English lan-guage proficiency tends to be age related.For example, 88 per cent of the peopleaged under twenty-five who spoke a lan-guage other than English at home de-scribed their command of spoken Englishas good or very good, compared with 60per cent of those aged sixty-five years andover. 41 And 91 per cent of those born inAustralia who spoke a language other than

English at home described their Englishas good or very good.

POLISH MIGRATION TOAUSTRALIA

Two migrant wavesWhen ‘Polish-born’ residents of Aus-

tralia were first enumerated as a separatemigrant group in 1921, the census talliedthem at 1780. Their number quadrupledby 1947 to reach 6573. 42 After WorldWar II, two distinct ‘waves’ of Poland-born immigrants arrived in Australia.

The first wave consisted of Poland-born displaced persons. Between 1947 and1954, the Poland-born population of Aus-tralia increased more than eightfold to 56594. The total population kept increasing,albeit at a decreasing rate, until the 1966Census, when it peaked at 61 641 people(see Table 5.1). It subsequently declinedto 56 051 in the 1976 Census.

The second wave of migrants startedin 1980 and ended in the early 1990s.Between 1980 and 1985, 15 570 Polishsettlers arrived in Australia. This morethan doubled the number of arrivals in theprevious 15 years. 43 In 1981–82, 5732settlers arrived from Poland (the fourth-largest group of immigrants and nearly 5per cent of all new arrivals). 44 This rateof inflow continued in the second half ofthe 1980s. In 1989–90, the number of set-tlers from Poland increased to 8052 (nearly7 per cent of all settlers and the fourth-largest group of immigrants). 45 At the1991 Census, the Poland-born populationincreased to 68 496 people—an all-timehigh. 46 The inflow of Polish settlers de-creased again in the 1990s: 3998 arrivedin 1991–95 but only 1780 followed in1996–2000. 47

81


By the first decade of this century, thestream of arrivals of new settlers from Po-land had decreased to a trickle: 2285 ar-rived in 2001–05 (0.0035 per cent of allimmigrants to Australia during that peri-od). 48 In 2005–06, only 338 settlers ar-rived from Poland while 30 407 arrivedfrom Europe as a whole and 131 593 intotal. 49 With the large decline in newarrivals and the natural rate of attrition,the number of Poland-born people de-creased to 52 256 in the 2006 Census (seeTable 5.1). Not surprisingly, then, the Po-land-born population has been one ofthose overseas-born groups that has re-cently recorded high rates of absolute de-cline: decreasing at 2 per cent a year. 50

GENERATIONAL CHANGE ANDINTEGRATION

Interestingly, this very small inflowof Polish settlers to Australia in the early2000s occurred during a period of massiveoutflow (perhaps as many as two millionpeople) of migrants from Poland. 51 Set-tlers migrating to Australia are normallydefined as those arriving with a permanentvisa regardless of the intended period ofstay. 52 Those who departed Poland afterthe country’s accession to the EuropeanUnion largely fell into the ‘grey’ area oftransnational job seekers rather thanemigrants—that is, they were taking ad-vantage of opportunities provided by theEU labour market enlargement rather thanlooking for a chance to leave Poland forgood. 53 Nevertheless, we would expectthe pull effect of ‘chain migration’ to bestronger—that is, the established com-munity of earlier immigrants normallyhelps to attract further arrivals as the costof settlement (to the settlers) is partially

reduced through access to establishedethnic networks and other intra-com-munity support mechanisms. 54 TheAustralian labour market was also quitestrong in the early and mid 2000s.

While Australia has long been per-ceived as a final destination of choice forinternational migrants, it appears to beincreasingly harder to attract highlyskilled immigrants. 55 Global competitionfor skilled and adaptable migrants intensi-fied in the 2000s, especially for the inter-nationally mobile labour force seeking jobopportunities that are not necessarily tiedto permanent resettlement. 56 Australia’straditional preference for permanent im-migration may be unattractive to thoseseeking short-term job opportunities. The‘tyranny of distance’ is also a factor likelyto deter Eastern European job seekerswhen jobs are available in WesternEuropean labour markets since the EU en-largement. Clearly, as a migrant destina-tion, Australia was not attractive enoughto divert Polish migrants away fromEurope in the early 2000s.

REVERSE MIGRATION

As G. Hugo observes, ‘For most of thetwentieth century the dominant paradigmin Australian international migration hasbeen one of permanent settlement.’ 57

Polish migrants fit well into this paradigm.By and large, the two waves of migrantsarrived in Australia to stay and reversemigration has been negligible. Between1996–97 and 2006–07, for example, per-manent departures from Australia to Po-land totalled 862 people, on average fewerthan 80 people per annum. 58 In 2005–06,135 Poland-born people permanently de-parted from Australia, a very small num-

82


ber considering that 67 853 people perman-ently departed Australia during that peri-od and only 88 of all those departing gavePoland as their intended country of resid-ence. Of Poland-bound departees, 14people were Australia-born and 74 over-seas-born (but not necessarily Poland-born). 59 In the early 2000s, the two-wayflow of permanent migrants between Po-land and Australia was negligible.

SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OFIMMIGRANTS

Polish immigrants have largely concen-trated in Victoria and New South Wales.In 1986, 36 per cent of Poland-born people(24 635) settled in Victoria (89 per cent ofwhom settled in Melbourne), 31 per cent(21 008 people) in New South Wales (80per cent of those in Sydney), 12 per cent(7934) in South Australia (92 per cent inAdelaide), 10 per cent (6534) in WesternAustralia (81 per cent in Perth), 7 per cent(4854) in Queensland (69 per cent in Bris-bane) and 2 per cent in Tasmania (1301)and the Australian Capital Territory(1275), respectively, with only 150 peoplesettling in the Northern Territory. 60 Thisbroad pattern of settlement has largelycontinued to the present day, except that,in line with movements of the broaderAustralian population, the number ofthose living in Queensland has increased.With the decline of the Poland-born pop-ulation, ‘Polish ancestry’ provides a bettermeasure of the dispersion of Australiansof Polish descent. At the 2006 Census, 32per cent of Australians of Polish ancestrylived in Victoria (27 per cent in Mel-bourne), 28 per cent in New South Wales(21 per cent in Sydney), 13 per cent inQueensland (8 per cent in Brisbane), 11

per cent in South Australia (10 per cent inAdelaide), 11 per cent in Western Aus-tralia, 2 per cent in the Australian CapitalTerritory, 2 per cent in Tasmania and lessthan 0.5 per cent in the Northern Territ-ory. 61 In sum, Australians of Polish ances-try tend to be big-city dwellers withnearly half of the group living in Mel-bourne and Sydney conurbations.

MIGRANT GENERATIONS

Table 5.1 also includes estimates ofdifferent generations of Polish migrants.62

The first generation are Poland-born mi-grants (column a); the second generationcomprises Australia-born people with oneor both Poland-born parents; the third andsubsequent generations are those withboth parents Australia-born. The Polishidentity of the second and subsequentgenerations of Polish migrants depends onthe extent to which their members areprepared to state their ancestry as Polish.The second and third generations areshown in columns c and d in the table (nodata are available for years before 1986).

As migrant streams age, the first gen-eration of settlers decreases, mostly dueto deaths, while the second and sub-sequent generations are normally expectedto increase. In the early 2000s, the secondgeneration of Polish migrants out-numbered the first generation. With thegrowing third, and soon fourth, generationof Australians of Polish ancestry, and nonew arrivals from Poland to replace theloss of Poland-born settlers, the share ofPoland-born in all those who claim Polishancestry has declined and will continueto decline in the years to come (see Table5.1, column f).

83


POLISH ANCESTRY

About one-third of people of Polishancestry also stated another ancestry,which suggests the relative ‘openness’ ofthe Polish settler community. 63 The cor-responding figures for Greek and Croatiancommunities are 21 per cent, Chinese 15per cent, Macedonian 10 per cent and Vi-etnamese 6 per cent. 64

Intermarriages provide another meas-ure of the ability and willingness to meltinto the broader host society. In 2001, 41per cent of men and 38 per cent of womenof the first generation of Polish migrantshad a spouse of different ancestry. For thesecond generation, the corresponding fig-ures were 83 per cent for men and 81 percent for women, and for the third genera-tion, 95 per cent for men and 94 per centfor women. 65 In comparison, only 68 percent of third-generation Greek men and26 per cent of women marry someone ofdifferent ancestry. Intermarriages betweenthose of Polish and Australian ancestry arealso indicative of the extent to which dif-ferent generations of Polish settlers have‘gone native’. In 2001, 8 per cent of menand 10 per cent of women of the first Pol-ish generation married partners of Australi-an ancestry. For the second generation,the corresponding figures were 22 per centand 19 per cent; and for the third, 13 percent and 16 per cent. 66

LANGUAGE SPOKEN AT HOME

English proficiencyIn 1996, the Bureau of Immigration,

Multicultural and Population Research(BIMPR) introduced the concept of EnglishProficiency (EP) Country Groups. 67 TheEP index is defined in terms of migrants’

(self-assessed) ability to speak English. EP1is the highest level of deemed Englishproficiency (migrants from countries suchas the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Ire-land, Canada or South Africa) and EP4 isthe lowest. In the 2001 Census, 57 450Poland-born people who answered theEnglish proficiency question scored 87.6per cent on the English proficiency scale,which ranked them as EP2. In five yearsbefore the census date, arrivals from Po-land numbered 2038, and 1487 peoplespoke good English. This gave the recentarrivals the score of EP3—that is, 73 percent of them met the ‘good English’ cri-terion. 68

Overall, Poland-born Australiansspeak English relatively well. In the 2006Census, 18 per cent of Poland-born peoplerevealed that they speak ‘English only’ athome, 64 per cent speak ‘other language’(mostly Polish) and very good or goodEnglish, and only 11 per cent stated thatwhile they speak another language athome their English is poor. 69 Proficiencyin English appears to be more of a problemfor the older Poland-born people who ar-rived in Australia relatively recently. Forexample, at the 1996 Census, of those agedsixty-five and above who arrived in Aus-tralia before 1986, 84 per cent claimed tobe proficient in English. For those in thesame age group who arrived between 1986and 1996, only 34 per cent claimed to beproficient in English. 70

The census-based findings are suppor-ted by the results of the Polish survey: 17per cent of survey respondents describedthemselves as ‘native English speakers’.Of these, 60 per cent were agedtwenty–twenty-nine, 24 per cent agedthirty–fifty-four and, somewhat surpris-ingly, 18 per cent aged over fifty-five.

84


Australia-born native English speakersaccounted for 66 per cent of the group,Poland-born for 18 per cent and else-where-born for 16 per cent. Further, 47per cent of respondents described them-selves as very proficient in English, 28 percent as proficient, 5 per cent as not veryproficient and 1 per cent as not at all pro-ficient. 71 Of those not proficient in Eng-lish, 94 per cent were aged over fifty-fiveand all those with no English at all wereover sixty-five. These numbers are similarto those drawn from ‘official’ statistics andconfirm the relatively high level of Englishproficiency in the Polish migrant com-munity. Of the 6 per cent of respondentswhose English was poor, half consideredthemselves to be native Polish speakersand another quarter to be very proficientin Polish. And of the 17 per cent who arenative English speakers, 63 per cent arealso proficient or very proficient in Polishwhile 7 per cent claim to be native Polishspeakers (completely bilingual).

Polish proficiencyNot surprisingly, given the tendency

of Polish migrants to assimilate more easilythan many other migrant groups, theability to speak Polish as the ‘second lan-guage’ has declined in the second andsubsequent generations. At the time of the2001 Census, 40 per cent of those statingPolish ancestry spoke Polish at home butonly 20 per cent of those born in Australiacontinued to speak it at home. 72 This isa much smaller proportion than that forGreek, Italian or Arabic-speaking groups.Overall, the number of those speakingPolish at home peaked in the early 1990s,and has been declining since (see Table5.1, column g).

The census does not probe the profi-ciency of those who speak Polish at home:

59 per cent of Polish survey respondentsdescribed themselves as ‘native Polishspeakers’, 19 per cent stated they were‘very proficient’ and 13 per cent were‘proficient’ in Polish. Only 8 per cent de-scribed their command of Polish languageas poor and 1 per cent as no Polish at all.Of those who stated their national identityas Polish (see below), nearly three-quartersconsidered themselves to be native Polishspeakers, 22 per cent were very proficientPolish speakers and 4 per cent were profi-cient. Of those who stated their nationalidentity as Australian, 27 per cent con-sidered themselves as native Polishspeakers, 16 per cent were very proficientin Polish, 22 per cent were proficient, 30per cent were not proficient and only 5per cent had no Polish at all. Some 89 percent of native Polish speakers had parentsspeaking Polish at home, 95 per cent wereborn in Poland and 90 per cent spokeeither Polish only or Polish and English athome. Also, 53 per cent of those who havelived in Australia for at least 20 yearsconsidered themselves to be native Polishspeakers and another 21 per cent werevery proficient in Polish. These survey-based figures suggest that regardless oftheir actual, as opposed to stated, com-mand of the Polish language, Polish mi-grants appear to be very confident abouttheir Polish language proficiency.

RELIGION

We have left out ‘religion’ as a factordifferentiating the Polish community inAustralia. While Poland is predominantlyCatholic and Catholicism is the dominantreligion of the Polish immigrant com-munity in Australia, Poland-born Catholicsaccounted for less than 1 per cent of all

85


those who stated their religion as ‘Catholi-cism’ in the 2001 Census. 73

CITIZENSHIP AND NATIONALIDENTITY

Australian citizenshipIn 1981, 85 per cent of Poland-born

Australian permanent residents wereAustralian citizens. The proportion wasabout the same in 1986, although thenumber of Poland-born increased (seeTable 5.1, columns a and h). In comparisonwith other overseas-born groups, thesenumbers are above average. 74 With therecent slowdown in arrivals from Poland,relatively few Poland-born residents haveacquired Australian citizenship in the pastdecade. 75

In 1981, 14 per cent of those who werePoland-born had ‘other’ (that is, non-Australian) citizenship and a similar pro-portion had no Australian citizenship in1986. 76 In 2001, only 4171 (7 per cent)of Poland-born people had ‘other’ citizen-ship. 77 However, it is very likely thatmany Poland-born people who have ac-quired Australian citizenship by marriageor naturalisation have also retained theirPolish citizenship (see below). 78 In Polishlaw, those born in Poland who have notrenounced or been deprived of Polish na-tionality are deemed to be Polish nationalsregardless of whether they are Polishpassport-holders or not.

Some 323 Polish survey respondents(96 per cent of all) were Australian cit-izens, 10 were not (3 per cent) and two didnot describe their citizenship. The propor-tion of Australian citizens in this sampleis somewhat larger than that for the Polishcommunity in Australia while the propor-tion of non-citizens is smaller. Of those

respondents who were Australian citizens,82 per cent acquired it through naturalisa-tion, 12 per cent at birth and 2 per centby marriage. 79 Again, these figures arebroadly consistent with the ‘official’ cit-izenship data that show high rates ofAustralian citizenship-by-naturalisationin the Polish migrant community.

Polish citizenshipThe Polish survey complements official

statistics in that it provides data on dualcitizenship, in particular the dual Australi-an-Polish citizenship of respondents.

As expected, a large proportion ofPolish survey respondents (66 per cent)has retained their Polish nationality andof these 94 per cent are Poland-born (seeTable 5.2). Since 96 per cent of all respond-ents have Australian nationality, most ofthose who are Polish nationals are alsodual Australian-Polish nationals. Only 3per cent of Australia-born respondents arePolish nationals. And of those who are notPolish nationals (one-third of all respond-ents), 8 per cent have a third-country na-tionality (for example, British).

Polish passport-holders tend to includemany of those dual nationals who arelikely to travel to Poland. 80 In the five-year period immediately preceding thesurvey, 80 per cent of Polish passport-holders travelled to Poland at least once.Of those, 59 per cent of Polish passport-holders visited Poland once or twice, 16per cent three or four times and 5 per centat least five times. After Poland’s accessionto the European Union, we expect a largerproportion of Polish nationals to acquirePolish passports as the possession of avalid Polish passport will make it easier totravel to, reside and work in all EU mem-ber states.

86


Of those who are Polish nationals, 68per cent are also Polish passport-holders(see Table 5.3) and 29 per cent are not. 81

Polish passport-holders can be describedas the de facto dual citizens as opposed tothose who are dual citizens but who haveno active involvement with Poland. Some93 per cent of Polish passport-holders arePoland-born and only 4 per cent are Aus-tralia-born. However, only 21 per cent ofPolish nationals vote in the Polish elec-tions. 82

NATIONAL IDENTITY

Polish survey respondents were alsoasked to state their ‘national identity’ (seeTable 5.4), and 11 per cent of them de-scribed their identity as ‘Australian’, 33per cent as ‘Australian-Polish’, 7 per centas ‘Polish’, 44 per cent as ‘Polish-Australi-an’ and 4 per cent as ‘Other’. 83 Interest-ingly, half of those who described them-selves as ‘Australian’ and 70 per cent ofthose ‘Australian-Polish’ were Poland-born. Nearly all (96 per cent) of those whoconsidered themselves to be ‘Polish’ werePoland-born and only 4 per cent wereborn in Australia. Of those who statedthey were ‘Polish-Australian’, 93 per centwere born in Poland and only 3 per centin Australia. Surprisingly, of those agedtwenty-nine or less, only one-fifth de-scribed themselves as ‘Australian’, nearlyone-third as ‘Australian-Polish’, 11 percent as ‘Polish’ and 26 per cent as ‘Polish-Australian’. Those over thirty are moreevenly spread across all identity groupscompared with those over sixty-five.

CONCLUSION

Four ‘research questions’ were posedin the introduction to provide focus forthis paper. I conclude by briefly respond-ing to each of these questions.

Although the number of Poland-bornAustralian residents has been decliningwith deaths of first-generation migrantsand insufficient new arrivals to replacethem, ancestry data help to differentiateAustralians of Polish extraction from thebroader Australian community. The totalnumber of those of Polish ancestry is in-creasing slowly as the second and thirdgenerations of Polish migrants replace Po-land-born arrivals (see Table 5.1). Therehas been very little reverse migration, butthe number of people speaking Polish athome peaked in the mid 1990s and onlyone-fifth of those born in Australia contin-ue to speak Polish at home. Unless a newmigrant wave arrives from Poland, thoseof Polish extraction will increasingly blendwith the broader Australian community.Descriptors such ‘country of birth’ or‘language spoken at home’ are less usefulas a means of differentiating second andsubsequent generations of migrants asethnic groups intermarry and people re-veal multiple ancestries.

Overall, Polish migrants have integ-rated well into the broader migrant com-munity and appear to represent the typeof migrant stream that Australian policy-makers have tried to attract. This is reflec-ted in particular in the ability of first-generation migrants to speak English asthe second (and in some cases first) lan-guage. But, as is evident from the declinein new arrivals of permanent migrantsfrom Poland in the 2000s, this type of mi-grant stream is becoming increasingly

87


difficult to attract away from other hostnations. This has major policy implicationsas the emphasis shifts from permanentimmigration to policies aimed at attractingmore mobile international job seekers.

The 2006 Polish survey provides newinsights into the nature and incidence ofdual citizenship. As expected, a largeproportion of new Australian citizens haveretained their previous (mostly Polish)citizenship. With Polish accession to theEuropean Union, the propensity to retainor seek Polish citizenship is likely to in-crease for the second and third generationsof Australians of Polish extraction. But,for many dual Australian-Polish citizens,the retention of Polish citizenship appearsto be a matter of convenience (for example,the ease of travel to Poland and theEuropean Union) rather than a commit-ment to Poland as a home country. Forexample, only one-fifth of Polish passport-holders voted in Polish elections.

The latter point is further emphasisedby the extent to which Australians ofPolish extraction identify with Australia.Even though nearly 80 per cent of oursurvey respondents were Poland-born, 44per cent of them described their nationalidentity as ‘Australian’ or ‘Australian-Polish’ rather than ‘Polish’ or ‘Polish-Australian’. Relative to some other migrantgroups, Polish migrants have been moreready to embrace the uniform nationalidentity of the host community.

STATISTICAL ANNEX—POLISHCOMMUNITY SURVEY

Of 335 respondents in the Polish sur-vey, 47 per cent were male, 50 per centfemale and 3 per cent did not state theirgender. One respondent was under nine-

teen years of age, 19 (6 per cent) were agedtwenty–twenty-nine years, 115 (34 percent) were aged thrity–fifty-four, 92 (28per cent) were aged fifty-five–sixty-fourand 97 (29 per cent) were aged sixty-fiveand over. 84 This age distribution wasbroadly similar to the age profile for thePoland-born community in the 2006Census, of whom 5 per cent were undertwenty-five, 42 per cent were agedtwenty-five–fifty-four, 16 per cent wereaged fifty-five–sixty-four and 37 per centwere over sixty-five. 85

A total of 263 people in the samplewere Poland-born (79 per cent), 41 (12 percent) were born in Australia and 27 (8 percent) were born in another country. 86

Table 5.A1shows the age distribution ofrespondents by their country of birth. Thesample is more representative of the Po-land-born population of Australia than ofthose of Polish ancestry, as only 32 percent of Australians of Polish ancestry wereborn in Poland (see Table 5.1).

A majority (92 per cent) of respondentshad their mother born in Poland and 90per cent had a Poland-born father. Only 2per cent had an Australia-born mother and1 per cent an Australia-born father; 4 percent had their mother and 6 per cent theirfather born in another country. Less than1 per cent of the respondents had bothparents born in Australia and 85 per centhad both parents born in Poland.

Three-quarters of the respondents hadlived in Australia for at least 20 years and18 per cent for between 10 and 19 years.This reflects the ‘vintage’ structure ofPolish migrant inflows: the two majorwaves of Poland-born arrivals (1947–66and 1980–91), with a very small inflowsince the 1990s. Table 5.A2 shows thelength of residence by the country of birth

88


of respondents. Interestingly, 17 per centof those who lived in Australia betweenonly five and nine years were born incountries other than Poland or Australia.

Table 5.A3 shows the distribution ofrespondents by language spoken at home,their country of birth and age. Only 21per cent of respondents speak ‘Englishonly’ at home, 22 per cent speak ‘Polishonly’ and 56 per cent are bilingual Eng-lish-Polish speakers. Of those who speakonly Polish, 93 per cent are Poland-born.However, those who speak only Englishare more likely to be born in Poland (54per cent) than Australia (36 per cent).Polish-only speakers are concentrated intwo age groups: thirty–fifty-four (32 percent) and over sixty-five5 (35 per cent).English-only speakers are predominantlyaged thirty–sixty-four and the bilingualgroup is spread quite evenly across all agegroups. Of those who speak English only,79 per cent have lived in Australia for atleast 20 years and 10 per cent for 10–19years. Also, broadly similar proportionscharacterise Polish-only speakers (69 percent and 22 per cent, respectively). Of thebilingual group, 76 per cent have lived inAustralia for at least 20 years and 20 percent for 10–19 years.

Not surprisingly though, of those bornin Poland, 82 per cent grew up in house-holds where parents spoke Polish at homeand only 9 per cent in households whereboth English and Polish were spoken byparents. Another 9 per cent had theirparents speak a language other than Polishor English. Of those born in Australia, 5per cent grew up in households whereparents spoke only English and 51 per centwhere they spoke only Polish. Some 44per cent of Australia-born respondents

had parents that spoke both English andPolish at home.

89



90


Table 5.1 Australian residents of Polish ancestryPo

land

-bor

n pe

rson

s (n

o.)

1st

gene

ration

a

1st

gene

ration

:+

/- c

hang

e si

nce

prev

ious

ce

nsus

dat

e

b

Polis

h an

cest

ry:

Aus

tral

ia-

born

with

at lea

st o

ne

Pola

nd-

born

par

ent

(no.

)2

nd

gene

ration

c

Polis

h an

cest

ry:

Aus

tral

ia-

born

with

Aus

tral

ia-

born

pa

rent

s3

(no.

)3

rd

gene

ration

d

Polis

h an

cest

ry

tota

l(n

o.)

e

Pers

ons

spea

king

Po

lish

lang

uage

at

hom

e4

(no.

)

g

Aus

tral

ian

citize

nshi

p:

num

ber

and

perc

enta

ge o

f al

l Po

land

-bor

n ci

tize

nsno

.(%

) h

1921

1780

-n/

an/

an/

an/

a-

-

1933

3239

1459

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

--

1947

6573

3334

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

--

1954

56 5

94

50 0

21

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

--

1961

60 0

49

3455

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

--

1966

61 6

41

1592

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

--

1971

59 7

00

-1941

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

--

1976

56 0

51

-3649

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

--

1981

59 4

42

3391

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

-49 6

15 (

83%

)

1986

67 6

91

8249

49 6

36

-142 1

73

47.6

48 5

94

56 6

43 (

84%

)

1991

68 4

96

805

53 1

61

n/a

n/a1

n/a1

c.67 0

00

-

1996

65 1

13

-3383

n/a1

n/a1

n/a1

n/a1

62 7

71

-

2001

58 1

10

-7003

57 9

46

18 5

82

150 9

00

38.5

59 0

56

53 9

39 (

93%

)5

2006

52 2

56

-5854

79 0

05

227 1

19

163 8

02

31.9

53 3

89

-

Humanities Research Vol XV. No. 1. 2009 Citizenship and integration

91

1 The ‘ancestry’ question was first asked in the 1986 Census but no ancestry data were collected in the 1991 and 1996 Censuses.

2 For 2006, the second-generation estimate was obtained by subtracting Poland-born persons from all persons of Polish ancestry who had at least one parent born in Poland (that is, 133 972 less 52 256 less 2711; country of birth of either/both parents not stated). This is likely to be an overestimate of the second-generation total.

3 This category represents third and subsequent generations of persons of stated Polish ancestry. Also, Polish ancestry means that at least one parent had Polish ancestry.

4 These figures may be overstated as some Poland-born people who speak another language at home are not Polish speakers. However, changes over time—that is, the first increasing and then declining numbers of Polish speakers—reflect the declining proportion of first generation immigrants in all those claiming Polish ancestry. Figure for 1991 from Jupp, op. cit., Table 1.

5 This figure has been calculated by subtracting those of Polish ancestry who stated their citizenship as ‘Other’ at the 2001 Census (4171 persons) from those who described themselves as Poland-born (column a).

Sources: For 1921–86: Bureau of Immigration Research 1991, Community Profiles Poland Born, Statistics Section, Bureau of Immigration Research, Canberra, Tables 1, 4 and 17; for 1991: Jupp, J. 1995, ‘Ethnic and cultural diversity in Australia’, Year Book Australia, 1995, 1301.0–1/01/1995, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, Table 1; for 1996–2006: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2007, 2006 Community Profile Series, Cat. no. 2003.0, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, Tables T08–10; Australian Bureau of Statistics 2003, Australian Social Trends, 2003, 4102.0–03/06/2003, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, for second generation in 2001; and Australian Bureau of Statistics 2004, Year Book Australia, 2004, 1301.0–27/01/2004, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, Table A.2, p. 92.


92


Table 5.2 Polish nationality by country of birth and age

Polish nationality

Born in RespondentsPoland(%)

Australia(%)

Other (%)

Not stated (%)

Count(no)

Per cent of respondents (%)

No 48 32 19 1 109 33Yes 94 3 2 1 220 66Not stated 75 0 0 25 6 1Total 79 12 8 1 335 100

Polish nationality

Age groups (years) Respondents<29(%)

30–54(%)

55–64(%)

<65(%)

Counta

(no.)Per cent of respondents (%)

No 9 23 31 34 109 33Yes 5 41 26 26 220 66Not stated 0 25 25 50 6 1Total 6 34 28 29 335 100

a This count also includes all those who did not state their age (11 people or 3 per cent of the sample). Thus, percentages in rows may not add up to 100 per cent.

Source: Polish survey.

Table 5.3 Polish nationality, Polish passport-holders and voters

Polish nationality

Polish passport-holders (%) RespondentsNo(%)

Yes(%)

Not stated(%)

Count(no.)


No 100 0 0 109 33Yes 29 68 3 220 66Not stated 0 0 100 6 1Total 52 44 4 335 100

Polish nationality

Vote in Polish elections (%) RespondentsNo(%)

Yes(%)

Not stated (%)

Count(no.)


No 100 0 0 109 33Yes 65 21 14 220 66Not stated 0 0 100a 6 1Total 76 14 10 335 100

a One person was a Polish voter but did not state his/her Polish nationality and has therefore been excluded from the group of Polish voters.



93

Sta

ted

nation

al

iden

tity

Bor

n in

(%

)R

espo

nden

ts

Pola

nd (

%)

Aus

tral

ia (

%)

Oth

er (

%)

Not

sta

ted

(%)

Cou

nt (

no.)

Pe

r ce

nt o

f re

spon

dent

s (

%)

Aus

tral

ian

54

27

16

337

11

Aus

tral

ian-

Polis

h70

19

11

0110

33

Polis

h96

40

023

7Po

lish-

Aus

tral

ian

93

33

1146

44

Oth

er40

27

27

615

4N

ot s

tate

d75

025

04

1Tot

al79

12

81

335

100

Sta

ted

nation

al

iden

tity

Age

gro

ups

(yea

rs)

Res

pond

ents

<29 (

%)

30–54 (

%)

55–64 (

%)

<65 (

%)

Cou

nta

(no.

)Pe

r ce

nt o

f re

spon

dent

s (

%)

Aus

tral

ian

11

27

32

30

37

11

Aus

tral

ian-

Polis

h6

40

31

21

110

33

Polis

h9

44

935

23

7Po

lish-

Aus

tral

ian

432

25

34

146

44

Oth

er13

27

33

27

15

4N

ot s

tate

d0

050

50

41

Tot

al6

34

28

29

335

100

a Thi

s co

unt

also

incl

udes

all

thos

e w

ho d

id n

ot s

tate

the

ir ag

e (1

1 p

eopl

e or

3 p

er c

ent

of t

he s

ampl

e). Thu

s, p

erce

ntag

es

in r

ows

may

not

add

up

to 1

00 p

er c

ent.

Sou

rce:

Pol

ish

surv

ey.

Table 5.4 National identity by country of birth and age


94


Table 5.A1 Country of birth by age group of sample respondents and country of birth of their parents

Age group(years)

Survey respondent born in (%) RespondentsPoland(%)

Australia(%)

Other(%)

Not stated(%)

Count(no.)

Per cent of all responses (%)

20–29 53 37 5 5 19 630–54 77 19 3 1 115 3455–64 72 11 16 1 92 2865 and over 93 1 6 0 97 29Not stated 82 - 9 9 11 3Total 79 12 8 1 334a 100

ParentRespondent’s parent born in (%) RespondentsPoland(%)

Australia(%)

Other(%)

Not stated(%)

Count(no)

Per cent of all responses (%)

Mother 92 2 4 3 335 100Father 90 1 6 3 335 100

a As there was only one respondent in the ‘age under 20’ group, this age group has been excluded from the table.


Table 5.A2 Length of residence in Australia by country of birth

Length of residence in years

Born in (%) Respondents

Poland(%)

Australia(%)

Other(%)

Not stated(%)

Count(no.)


Less than 5 0 0 0 0 1 05–9 75 8 17 0 12 410–19 93 2 3 2 60 1820 and over 76 15 9 0 252 75Not stated 60 20 10 10 10 3Total 79 12 8 1 335 100



95

Table 5.A3 Language spoken at home by country of birth and age

Language spoken at home

Born in (%) Respondents

Poland(%)

Australia(%)

Other(%)

Not stated(%)

Count(no.)


English only 54 36 10 0 70 21Polish only 93 3 4 0 74 22English and Polish

82 7 9 2 186 56

Other 60 20 20 0 5 2Total 79 12 8 1 335 100b

Language spoken at home

Age groups (years) Respondents

<29 (%)

30–54 (%)

55–64 (%)

<65(%)

Counta

(no.)Per cent of respondents (%)

English only 7 40 33 19 70 21Polish only 10 32 19 35 74 22English and Polish

4 33 29 30 186 56

Other 0 20 40 40 5 2Total 6 34 28 29 335 100b

a This count also includes all those who did not state their age (11 people or 3 per cent of the sample). Thus, percentages in rows may not add up to 100 per cent.

b Percentages of respondents do not add to 100 per cent due to rounding errors.


ENDNOTES

1 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2007, YearBook Australia, 2007, 1301.0–24/01/2007, AustralianBureau of Statistics, Canberra.2 Ibid.3 In the 1980s and 1990s, the annual contributionof net migration to population growth in Australiavaried between 17 per cent (1992–93) and 56 per cent(1987–88 and 1988–89). This strong inflow has con-tinued in the 2000s. Between 1996 and 2006, thenumber of Australians born overseas increased, onaverage, by 1.5 per cent per annum while the Aus-tralia-born population increased by 1.1 per cent andtotal population by 1.2 per cent (ABS, Migration,Australia, 2005–06).4 ABS, 2006 Community Profile Series, Cat. no.2003.0, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra,Table T01.5 ABS, Year Book Australia, 2007.6 Jupp, J. 1995, ‘Ethnic and cultural diversity inAustralia’, Year Book Australia, 1995,1301.0–1/01/1995, Australian Bureau of Statistics,Canberra.7 Hugo, J. G. 2002, ‘Centenary article—a century ofpopulation change in Australia’, Year Book Australia2002, 1301.0–2002, Australian Bureau of Statistics,Canberra, p. 11.8 Ibid.9 ABS, Year Book Australia, 2007, Table 5.40.10 ABS 2007, Migration, Australia, 2005–06,3412.0–29/03/2007, Australian Bureau of Statistics,Canberra.11 ABS 2004, Year Book Australia, 2004,1301.0–27/01/2004, Australian Bureau of Statistics,Canberra.12 The third longitudinal survey of immigrants toAustralia, for example, has focused mainly on recentmigrant employment, qualifications, earnings, assettransfers, location, housing and command of English.However, it also reports the degree of migrant satis-faction with ‘Australian life’ (for example, the extentof feeling welcome and the ease of settling into Aus-tralian society). The survey shows very high levelsof satisfaction (96–98 per cent) (2007, New MigrantOutcomes, Results from the Third Longitudinal Surveyof Immigrants to Australia, Commonwealth of Aus-tralia, Canberra, August 2007).13 This study was funded by a special research grantprovided by the University of New South Wales.Detailed (10 pages, 63 variables) postal questionnaireswere circulated through the Polish Community

Councils. All responses were anonymous and ques-tionnaires were designed to be completed in Englishin about 20 minutes. Of the many people who helpedto circulate the questionnaire, this author would liketo acknowledge special assistance of Messrs Arkad-jusz Fabjanowski (ACT), Jerzy Krajewski (NSW),Krzysztof Lancucki (VIC), Leszek Wikarjusz (QLD),Krzysztof Balcerzak (SA), Aleksander Gancarz (ACT)and Dr Halina Zobel-Zubrzycka (ACT). He also wishesto acknowledge the assistance of Ms Rissa Raymundoand Ms Nives Klesnik, who coded the responses,checked the consistency of the main data matrix andtransformed it into the SPSS format, and Dr SandraBurchill, who used the SPPS Win PC V14 package tocross-tabulate the data. Professor Marek Okolski ofthe University of Warsaw and Dr Terri Joiner of LaTrobe University offered many useful comments onthe format and content of the questionnaire and dataprocessing.14 A further 25 questionnaires were received, mostof which were returned blank either because of beingwrongly addressed or because addressees declinedto complete them but nevertheless sent them back.Descriptive responses were in part post-coded toenter into the main database and in part recorded ontheir original format in a separate database. Whilethe rate of response was high (nearly 33 per cent),given the nature of questionnaire distribution, thesample was biased in that the majority of respondentswere either Poland-born, first-generation immigrantsor those members of the Australia-born second gen-eration who had strong enough ‘Polish identity’ tobe included in the councils’ mailing lists. In particu-lar, the sample excluded all those second and third-generation Australians of Polish ancestry who hadno direct involvement with the Polish CommunityCouncils.15 ABS, Year Book Australia, 2004.16 Rubenstein, K. 2008, ‘From supranational to dualalien citizen: Australia’s ambivalent journey’, in S.Bronitt and K. Rubenstein (eds), Citizenship in a post-national world: Australia and Europe compared, Lawand Policy Paper, no. 29, Centre for Internationaland Public Policy, The Federation Press, Canberra,p. 40.17 See Nolan and Rubenstein elsewhere in thisvolume .18 However, as the concept of ‘Australian citizen-ship’ is not included in the Australian Constitution,the power of the Commonwealth to enact laws aboutAustralian citizenship derives primarily from the‘alien’s power’. It is thus possible for those who aredefined as ‘aliens’ (that is, those who owe an obliga-tion to a sovereign power other than Australia) to becitizens and aliens at the same time. This applies toall dual citizens (Rubenstein, ‘From supranational todual alien citizen’).

96


19 Berkovic, N. 2008, ‘Howard’s migrant test to bedumped’, The Weekend Australian, 22–23 November2008.20 See Nolan and Rubenstein elsewhere in thisvolume.21 Senator Evans, Immigration Minister, cited inBerkovic, ‘Howard’s migrant test to be dumped’.22 Rubenstein, ‘From supranational to dual åliencitizen’, p. 49.23 Indeed, the extent to which migrant communitieshave been able to voice their particular concernsabout ‘national common values’ is itself a measureof Australia’s openness as a host country, as suchgroups have no voice in less tolerant societies.24 Hugo, ‘Centenary article’.25 Children born in Australia acquire Australiancitizenship at birth, if at least one parent is an Aus-tralian citizen or a permanent resident of Australia,while those born overseas may be registered as Aus-tralian citizens by descent if at least one of theirparents is an Australian citizen (ABS, Year BookAustralia, 2004). The propensity to acquire Australi-an citizenship increases, ceteris paribus, with the ageof immigrants and the length of their residence inAustralia. For example, in 2001, Greece-born resid-ents had a 97 per cent citizenship rate as 83 per centof them arrived in Australia before 1971 and 75 percent were at least fifty years old (ibid., Table 5.52).26 Ibid.,Table A2, p. 94.27 However, this simple concept becomes somewhatblurred when an overseas-born person is registeredat birth as an Australian citizen. In this paper, as inmost census-based publications, the concept of‘overseas-born’ residents of Australia tends to implythe first-generation immigrants rather than foreign-born, ‘returned’ Australians.28 For example, Poland lost a large part of its territ-ory to its eastern neighbours but expanded westwardby taking over some former German lands. An ethnicPole born in the pre-World War II Polish city ofLvov, which is now a part of Ukraine, is likely todescribe himself/herself as a Polish person born inPoland. However, an ethnic Ukrainian born in thepre-1939 Lvov is likely to describe himself/herselfas a Ukrainian person born in Ukraine. On the otherhand, an ethnically Jewish person born in Lvov, whomay resent the notion of being referred to as either‘Polish’ or ‘Ukrainian’, may be indifferent betweenbeing labelled ‘Poland-’ or ‘Ukraine-born’. For ex-ample, of the 22 600 people who stated their ancestryas Jewish in the 2001 Census, 7 per cent gave theirplace of birth as Poland and 8 per cent as Ukraine(ABS 2003, Australian Social Trends, 2003,4102.0–03/06/2003, Australian Bureau of Statistics,

Canberra). Ukraine became an independent nationonly after the collapse of the USSR.29 The chosen self-description may also depend onthe prevailing ‘sentiment’ and social climate in thedestination country. For example, some ethnicallyGerman DPs who arrived in Australia in the late1940s were reluctant to declare Germany as theircountry of birth as they did not wish to be identifiedwith the country’s Nazi past—that is, a Danzig orBreslau-born ethnically German person could easilydescribe his/her country of birth as Poland.30 ABS 1999, Standards for Statistics on Cultural andLanguage Diversity, 1999, 1289.0–22/11/1999, Aus-tralian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra.31 Bureau of Immigration Research (BIR) 1991,Community Profiles Poland Born, Statistics Section,Bureau of Immigration Research, Canberra, Table 16,p. 35.32 A question on ‘ancestry’ was first asked in the1986 Census (Jupp, ‘Ethnic and cultural diversity inAustralia’). This question had not been included inthe census until 2001 when 93 per cent of the popu-lation responded to the ‘What is the person’s ances-try?’ question (ABS, Australian Social Trends, 2003).33 The proportion of the Australian population whoreported more than one ancestry increased from 12per cent in 1986 to 22 per cent in 2001 (ABS, YearBook Australia, 2007). In 2001, nearly one-quarterof those who declared their ancestry as Australianalso stated another ancestry (for example, English,13per cent, and Irish, 3 per cent, of all Australianancestry groups).34 ABS, Australian Social Trends, 2003.35 Ibid.36 Of those who stated their ancestry as ‘Polish’ inthe 2001 Census, 49.8 per cent were Australia-born,34.1 per cent were Poland-born, 5.8 per cent wereGermany-born, 2.1 per cent were UK-born, with 0.7per cent born in New Zealand, 0.7 per cent in theUnited States, 0.5 per cent in Israel, 0.4 per cent inFrance, 0.4 per cent in South Africa, 0.3 per cent inAustria and 0.3 per cent in ‘Other’ countries.37 For example, in the 1986 Census, only 6 per cent(900 000) of respondents described their ancestry as‘Irish’. But the Irish ancestry group increased to 1920 000 people (more than 11 per cent) in the 2001Census.38 However, the Poland-born population also in-cludes small groups that describe their ancestry asJewish, German and Ukrainian.39 ABS, Year Book Australia, 2007, Table 12.35.40 Ibid.41 Ibid., Table 12.36.

97


42 BIR, Community Profiles Poland Born.43 Ibid. , p. vi.44 ABS 1991, ‘Recent trends in overseas migration’,Australian Economic Indicators, Oct 1991,1350.0–18/11/1991, Australian Bureau of Statistics,Canberra, Table 2.45 Ibid.46 The age distribution of this population reflectsthe influence of the two migrant waves: nearly 37per cent of Poland-born in 2006 were aged sixty-fourand over, 37 per cent were aged forty-five–sixty-four, 20 per cent were aged twenty-five–forty-four,and 6 per cent were aged twenty-four or younger(ABS, 2006 Census of Population and Housing, CensusTables, Table ‘Country of Birth of Person by Age bySex’).47 ABS 2007, 2006 Census of Population and Housing,Census Tables, Cat. no. 2068.0, Australian Bureau ofStatistics, Canberra, Table ‘Country of Birth of Personby Year of Arrival in Australia’.48 Ibid.49 Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIC)2007, Immigration Update, July–December 2006, Re-search and Statistics Section, Department of Immig-ration and Citizenship, Canberra, Table 1.7, pp. 20–1.50 ABS, Migration, Australia, 2005–06.51 Bunda, M. 2006, ‘Wielki odjazd [Big departure]’,Polityka, vol. 8, 2006.52 DIC, Immigration Update, July–December 2006.53 However, there was also a more modest outflowof temporary job seekers to North America (ibid.).54 See Carrington, K., McIntosh, A. and Walmsley,J. (eds) 2007, The Social Costs and Benefits of Migra-tion into Australia, Centre for Applied Research inSocial Sciences, University of New England, Ar-midale.55 Productivity Commission 2006, Economic impactsof migration and population growth, ProductivityCommission Research Report, Productivity Commis-sion, Australian Government, Melbourne, 24 April2006.56 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Devel-opment (OECD) 2002, International Mobility of theHighly Skilled, Organisation for Economic Coopera-tion and Development, Paris.57 Hugo, ‘Centenary article’, p. 14.58 DIC 2007, Emigration 2006–07 Australia, Pro-gramme Statistics and Monitoring Section, Depart-ment of Immigration and Citizenship, Canberra, Table6.59 Ibid., Tables 1.10 and 1.13, pp. 24–5, 29.

60 BIR, Community Profiles Poland Born, Tables 1–2,pp. 1–2.61 ABS 2008, 2006 Census Data by Location, 2006Census Tables, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Can-berra, Table 20680.62 ‘A normal immigration pattern is for arrivals tobe in their mid-twenties and to produce most of theirchildren after arrival’ (Jupp, ‘Ethnic and culturaldiversity in Australia’). For example, in 1959, 68 percent of settlers were twenty-nine or younger and, in1990, 59 per cent were (ABS, ‘Recent trends inoverseas migration’, Australian Economic Indicators,Oct. 1991).63 For example, of those who stated their ancestryas Polish in 2001, nearly 7.5 per cent gave ‘Australi-an’ as their other ancestry.64 ABS, Year Book Australia, 2004, Tables 2.6 and2.7, pp. 22–3.65 Ibid., Table 4.1, p. 46.66 Ibid., Table 4.2, p. 50.67 Department of Immigration and Multicultural andIndigenous Affairs (DIMIA) 2003, Statistical Focus,2001: Classification of countries into English proficiencygroups, C01.2.0, Department of Immigration andMulticultural and Indigenous Affairs, Canberra, July2003.68 Ibid, Tables 1 and 2, pp. 16, 19.69 ABS, 2006 Census of Population and Housing,Census Tables, Table ‘Country of Birth of Person byProficiency in Spoken English/Language by Sex’.70 ABS 2002, Australian Social Trends, 2002,4102.0–09/05/2002, Australian Bureau of Statistics,Canberra.71 Some 2 per cent did not state their proficiency.72 ABS, Australian Social Trends, 2002, Table A.1:90;and ABS, Year Book Australia, 2007, Table 12.35.73 There were more than 3.7 million Catholics inAustralia in 2001, of whom 74 per cent were Aus-tralia-born (DIMIA 2003, The People of Australia,Statistics from the 2001 Census, Department of Immig-ration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs,Canberra, July 2003, Table 10, p. 48).74 BIR, Community Profiles Poland Born.75 For example, in 2001–02, only 328 Poland-bornpeople acquired Australian citizenship (ABS, YearBook Australia, 2004, Table 5.53).76 Ibid., Table 1.1.77 Ibid., Table A.2, p. 92.

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78 Also, as some of those Poland-born people are notPolish, they may hold dual citizenship with countriesother than Poland.79 Some 3 per cent did not state how they becameAustralian citizens.80 Travelling to Poland on a Polish passport simpli-fies entry requirements while the use of an Australianpassport is advantageous on re-entry to Australia.81 Some 44 per cent of Polish passport-holders areaged thirty–fifty-four, 29 per cent are fifty-five–sixty-four and 20 per cent are over sixty-five.82 During parliamentary elections in Poland, pollingstations are open at Polish consular offices overseas.83 The ‘Other’ category included self-descriptionssuch as: ‘I am an Australian of Polish descent’, ‘I amprimarily Australian but proud of my Polish herit-age’, ‘Of Polish descent, born in England, now livingin Europe’, ‘Australian-Polish-Latvian’, ‘Australianwith Polish parents’, ‘Australian with dual national-ity and Polish background’, and the aforementioned,‘By birth: Canadian, by citizenship: Australian, byparentage: Anglo-Polish, by culture: Polish, by up-bringing: European’.84 Some 11 people or 3 per cent of the sample didnot state their age.85 ABS, 2006 Census of Population and Housing,Census Tables, Table ‘Country of Birth of Persons byAge by Sex’.86 Four people did not state their country of birth.

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Humanities Research Vol XV. No. 1. 2009

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