Citizenship Studies

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Citizenship policies and ideas of nationhood in

Scandinavia

Grete Brochmann & Idunn Seland

To cite this article: Grete Brochmann & Idunn Seland (2010) Citizenship policies
and ideas of nationhood in Scandinavia, Citizenship Studies, 14:4, 429-443, DOI:
10.1080/13621025.2010.490037

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2010.490037

Published online: 18 Aug 2010.

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Citizenship Studies
Vol. 14, No. 4, August 2010, 429–443

Citizenship policies and ideas of nationhood in Scandinavia

Grete Brochmanna* and Idunn Selandb
a
Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; bInstitute for
Social Research, Oslo
(Received 16 March 2009; final version received 12 June 2009)

This article analyzes the recent changes in naturalization policies in three Nordic
countries, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Considering the homogeneity of the region
in terms of culture, social structure and polity, the discrepancy in current citizenship
regulation is remarkable. Similar problem definitions have generated diametrical
opposite solutions. This is even more striking as the three countries, hailing on
perceived ideas of common interests and various experiences of shared rule in different
political constellations for the best part of the last 500 years, also cooperated closely in
forging their national citizenship legislation from the 1880s up till 1979. The article
gives perspective to this novel variation, analyzing the interplay between aims and
means in the naturalization policies. Basic questions like citizenship rights, the social
and cultural cohesion of the nation state, national ideology and questions of identity
will be addressed.
Keywords: citizenship; immigration; integration policies; Nordic region

Thirty to 40 years after the introduction of varieties of integration policies (and/or

multiculturalism) in Europe, many states have started a critical scrutiny of practices in the
past. The multicultural policy, emphasizing the right of immigrants/ethnic minorities to
retain their cultural inheritance, is in many places summed up as problematic. Some
immigrant groups are clearly marginalized economically and socially, and the problems
occasionally seem to be reproduced in second generation. The evaluation has generated
new policies that tend to take a similar direction: integration problems are highly focused,
and the public has turned more critical towards immigration. The translation into policy
making has taken various paths, but by and large, access-control has dominated the scene.
A common denominator in the European context has been a more selective approach.
Apart from the EU internal liberal labour migration policy, a recent liberalization of access
policy towards high skilled workers from third countries has taken place, in combination
with steadily more restrictions on all immigration categories justified on humanitarian
grounds. Besides, efforts to curb illegal immigration have been intensified. Intended
selection of the desirable ‘others’ is seen as a first precondition for a more successful
integration of newcomers in the immigration countries – a policy that was explicitly
formulated after the oil crisis in the early 1970s (Brochmann and Hammar 1999). Later on,
unintended consequences of the selective policies have spurred serious concern over
insufficient and mistaken incorporation of immigrants in most European immigration

*Corresponding author. Email: grete.brochmann@sosgeo.uio.no

ISSN 1362-1025 print/ISSN 1469-3593 online

q 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13621025.2010.490037
http://www.informaworld.com
430 G. Brochmann and I. Seland

countries. These emerging problems have again generated a series of policy revisions in
the field of welfare policies, in which retrenchment and the so-called work-line has
dominated.
Concern over the development of parallel societies in the wake of increased
immigration and inadequate integration has in turn induced awareness of the basic
cohesive forces in society, which preconditions liberal democratic welfare states rest upon
in order to ensure the continued welfare for all its members. Although being a more
general concern in today’s Europe, the issue has crystallized through multicultural
immigration. How are states to forge a new or renewed societal foundation to uphold
treasured liberal democratic values, universal welfare and possibly a sense of bounded
belonging, in a context increasingly featured by people’s diverse loyalties and life style
preferences? States have a limited number of policy options to deal with this complicated
and nebulous challenge. Naturalization policies have since the 1990s been revitalized as
one of the instruments in this field, being located in the intersection between the cultural-
(nationhood) and the socio-political field (rights to vote and the final full range of social
citizenship rights). Although the connection between citizenship legislation and the
questions of cohesion, identity and belonging is indistinct and controversial – ‘identity
cannot be legislated’, as Christian Joppke (2008, p. 536) formulates it – a number of states
in practice act as if it is worth while to give it a try. A perceptible dividing line among the
policy approaches to this legislation is its relationship to the sphere of integration; whether
the extension of citizenship to newcomers should serve as a motor in the inclusion process,
or opposite, as a reward for the effort. The three Scandinavian countries can serve as units
for comparison in this regard, being placed along a scale signified by the traditional
ethnos/demos-division, both in terms of what it takes to become a national, and as to the
conceptions of national identity.
This article analyzes the recent changes in naturalization policies in three Nordic
countries, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Considering the homogeneity of the region
in terms of culture, social structure and polity, the discrepancy in current citizenship
regulation is remarkable. Similar problem definitions have generated diametrical opposite
solutions. This is even more striking as the three countries, hailing on perceived ideas
of common interests and various experiences of shared rule in different political
constellations for the best part of the last 500 years, also cooperated closely in forging their
national citizenship legislation from the 1880s up till 1979. The article gives perspective to
this novel variation, analyzing the interplay between aims and means in the naturalization
policies.

Citizenship as a changing institution

The early works of Rogers Brubaker (1989, 1992) have held a seminal position in studies of
citizenship and nationhood in Europe. His major thesis was that citizenship policies of
nation states had a tendency to be stable constructs, due to the close relationship between
historically generated conceptions of nationhood and institutional arrangements as to the
extension of membership to newcomers. The strength of the assumed path dependency was
explained by the high degree of institutionalization in terms of citizenship laws combined
with the normative power of cultural tradition as well as national self conceptions. The
relative openness or restrictiveness of the citizenship institution for immigrants was seen to
reflect stable cultural understandings of nationhood, either ‘ethnic’ or ‘civic’. Brubaker’s
ideal type representations of France and Germany has been widely quoted and used in
citizenship studies more generally. Since these early works a high number of scholars have
 Citizenship Studies 431

entered the field of citizenship studies, challenging the stability thesis from – broadly
speaking – two different angles.1 During the 1990s, Brubaker’s thesis was challenged by
firstly the ‘post national’ protagonists, claiming that the whole citizenship institution was
on the wane, as international human rights slowly would make national citizenship
redundant. Individual ‘personhood’ was replacing nationhood (Soysal 1994). Secondly, the
school of multiculturalism questioned the robustness (and the legitimacy) of the state –
nation relationship, as several ‘nationhoods’ presented themselves, claiming recognition in
nationally pluralized societies – in the wake of extensive and multicultural immigration.2
Even other more pragmatic positions would support a devaluation thesis, asserting that
liberal democratic welfare states granted newcomers civic and social citizenship way
ahead of the naturalization proper, therefore stripping the fully fledged citizenship of
content and significance.3
Then around the turn of the century, and maybe particularly after the events of 9/11 in
2001, another dialectical turn appeared in the form of the new concern over national
cohesion.4 After some decades of multicultural immigration and concomitant attempts
to use welfare state mechanisms and tools for cultural recognition to integrate the
newcomers, meager results in many places triggered a political reaction. Among a series of
measures to deal with the alleged flaws, attempted revaluation of the citizenship institution
has taken place in a number of contexts, reaffirming single citizenship as the dominant
membership principle, and along with it, new claims on prospective citizens in terms of
language skills, knowledge of polity and society as well as the introduction of pledges or
oaths in relation to the naturalization procedure. In other contexts, naturalization policies
went through a liberalization process, e.g. by allowing dual citizenship. The first position is
usually seen as a reemphasis of the ethnos-dimension – the second as a leaning towards
demos (Faist 2007). In Scandinavia both positions are represented, but we will argue that
the positions are not as clear cut as they may seem.
Nationhood questions are apparently not the first to be raised in the wake of
multicultural immigration. In the Scandinavian context, integration into the labour market
and the welfare state for a long time strongly dominated the field, at least through what
surfaced in the media and at the universities. It took some years of rather comprehensive
inflow, not least associated with social and economic problems, until discussions on lack
of cultural integration, threats to social cohesion and the fate of nationhood came to the
fore. By the end of the twentieth century this stage was reached in Scandinavia, influenced
by an international more general discourse on citizenship and integration. But the
nationhood discourse has hit the three countries in different ways, and the consequences in
terms of legislative reforms have taken different paths, reflecting a varying articulation of
the civic/ethnic divide.
In the following section we examine the roots of Scandinavian legislative cooperation
in this field before turning to the cross-national comparison of three central juridical
elements concerning the idea of nationhood springing from general principles on
international citizenship legislation.

The historical account

When the first formal Scandinavian juridical cooperation on citizenship took place during
the 1880s, these issues had for some time been considered with renewed interest in
Western Europe. For Scandinavian concerns, they were particularly inspired by the
German constitution of 1870. The French Revolution (1789) had by several means
modernized the concept of citizenship, an institute that had mainly been treated as a
432 G. Brochmann and I. Seland

question of subjects’ tax and military duties towards their king since the fall of the Roman
Empire in Europe. In the wake of the revolution, the nineteenth century political unrest in
Europe sought to revitalize the civil and non-fiscal aspects of citizenship, demanding
political rights for the greater part of the population. As ideological tendencies, these
political battles went on parallel with popular ideas of cultural nationhood. These ideas
served to constitute the different European countries as nation states, thereby reinforcing a
sense of natural identity among the inhabitants (Nordhaug 2000).

Scandinavian legislative cooperation on citizenship 1880– 1950

By the turn of the nineteenth century, a new legislative definition of a country’s population
and a more guarded admittance over the borders were thus recognized as pressing demands.
The first Citizenship Act of Norway (1888), Sweden (1894) and Denmark (1898) replaced
the former institute of innfødsrett (native right), originally embedded in the respective
constitutions. Danish – Norwegian law from 1776 instituted innfødsrett to prevent
foreigners from gaining influential positions at the royal court. Still, the institute of
innfødsrett remains by a margin in Norwegian law, reserving a very limited number of
offices for citizens holding this native right. In Danish law the institute of innfødsrett
has changed its original meaning over the years, now referring to the biannual
Acts of naturalization in the parliament. In both national juridical contexts, the term
‘naturalization’ still refers strictly to this constitutional procedure of granting a foreigner
this ‘native right’ (Nordhaug 2000, Kleis and Beckmann 2004). We make this distinction
clear, but in this article the word naturalization will be used according to international law,
describing the act of giving a foreigner the formal right of citizenship.
A renewed process on an intergovernmental Scandinavian level started in 1916,
working through a series of setbacks into the 1920s due to the contemporary debate on
women’s rights. Finally, new and closely interrelated bills on citizenship were passed in
1924 (Norway and Sweden), and in 1925 (Denmark). After World War II, a revived
interest in Scandinavian cooperation led to a revision of the national legislation in this
field, resulting in a common draft incorporated as national law in all three states during
1950 (Nordhaug 2000, NOU 2000).

Developments in post-war legislation

Since 1950, the national legislation has been partly or completely revised in all three
countries. After 1979, this has been conducted on a national level without the overall
Scandinavian perspective, resulting in distinct differences among the Scandinavian
countries. Sweden began a total revision in 1997, completing the work by passing a new
bill in 2001. Norway followed suit in 1999, passing the final bill in the fall of 2005.
Denmark has had no complete revision of the 1950 Act, but a succession of alterations and
supplements has changed the original content to a considerable degree. In addition, a legal
body of intergovernmental treaties between the Nordic countries concerning the treatment
of Nordic citizens supplements and supersedes national laws on naturalization.

Citizenship and national identity

According to international law (i.e. the 1930 UN Hague convention), every state is to
decide whom to regard as its citizens. However, these principles are not left to
arbitrariness, as the body of international law firmly states that there has to be certain
formal ties between the state and its citizens. These ties are internationally recognized as
 Citizenship Studies 433

jus sanguinis (right by descent), jus soli (right by territory), and jus domicilis (right by
residence). The two latter principles are closely interrelated.
By jus sanguinis citizenship is granted or claimed because one or both parents are
citizens of that state. Citizenship is thus passed on from parent to child. Historically, this
principle has dominated Scandinavian law and is still the primary mark of indigenous
citizens. As will be demonstrated below, rights granted on the grounds of territorial
principles have increased their influence on recent legislation in this field.
By jus soli citizenship is granted or claimed because a person has been born on the
territory of a certain state. This principle dominates the legislation of the main immigrant
countries in the West, i.e. the US and Canada. Recent international law (the 1989 UN
Convention of the Child) appeals for states formerly guided by citizenship by jus sanguinis
to apply the principle of jus soli to children being born on the state’s territory by parents
without formal citizenship.
By jus domicilis citizenship is granted or claimed because a foreigner has set up a
permanent home and takes up work in a country – provided the stay is permitted by
national authorities. Jus domicilis provides a more recent basis for naturalization in the
Scandinavian countries, and is regulated by a process of formal application.
These general principles on citizenship legislation constitute the juridical backdrop
against which the ideas of national identity expressed through the three countries’ national
legislation are set. In Scandinavia, immigration before World War II was limited, thus
keeping the much-underlined equality of the Scandinavian states relatively unchallenged
(Brochmann and Kjeldstadli 2008). Since the 1950s, the three countries have let a growing
number of newcomers into their society, the figures escalating significantly since the 1970s.
This fact obviously gives reason for the law revisions in the first place. Notwithstanding,
it would be reasonable to expect some reflections on challenges for national identity
questions in the motivations for the law revisions, considering the centrality of the issue,
regardless of normative position. The citizenship law can in many ways be seen as a
national presentation of self; what it takes to become naturalized, indirectly indicates what
it means to be a member of the national community. In what ways can such reflections be
detected in the central documents in the three countries? We have chosen three pivotal
points for our discussion of this, namely (1) dual citizenship, (2) required time of residence,
and (3) required skills.

1. Dual citizenship
The different and conflicting general principles on citizenship, protected by international
conventions, can result in dual or even multiple citizenships when a person migrates or
takes up residence in another country. The 1950 Scandinavian legislation strictly required
foreigners to denounce their former citizenship when applying for naturalization in a
Scandinavian country. All three countries later ratified the 1963 EC Convention on
Reduction on Cases of Multiple Nationalities. The 1997 EC Convention on Nationality,
seeking to coordinate different national legislation, holds a neutral position on dual
citizenship. The recent amendments in Sweden and Norway were partly initiated to enable
ratification of the 1997 EC convention (NOU 2000, Kleis and Beckmann 2004, Sandesjö
and Björk 2005).
Danish law, true to the principles of the 1950 legislation, requires single
citizenship. Accordingly, a foreigner must agree to denounce his original citizenship
when applying for naturalization. Like in Sweden and Norway, a foreigner can also be
granted permission to stay in the country without ever becoming naturalized, which means
434 G. Brochmann and I. Seland

that his original citizenship can be sustained. The denunciation of former citizenship(s)
must take place within two years from the act of naturalization, or the Danish citizenship
will be withdrawn. Nevertheless, the control on this regulation is somewhat inconsistent,
and sometimes the conflicting principles of national legislation prove it impossible to
cancel the original citizenship. As a result, dual citizenship exits de facto in Denmark
(Kleis and Beckmann 2004).
The Norwegian 2005 Act reinforced the principle of single citizenship. Due to the
aforementioned international development, an increasing rate of dual or even multiple
citizenships has been observed in Norway. The government committee preparing the
draft could not agree on this point. Strongly influenced by the recent Swedish draft (1999)
and liberal European legislation backed by the 1997 EC Convention on Nationality,
the preparatory committee’s majority recommended legalization of dual citizenship.
Interestingly, the government contradicted this majority, not only demanding that foreigners
denounce their former citizenship(s) when naturalization takes place, but also instituting
that Norwegian citizenship will be withdrawn if this denunciation does not occur. However,
like in Denmark, international conditions will still cause cases of dual citizenship in Norway
(NOU 32 2000, p. 32, Ot.prp.nr. 41, 2004– 2005).
The preparatory committee for the Swedish bill, passed in 2001, pointed out that the
principle of single citizenship has been strongly challenged. Drawing on the 1997 EC
Convention on Nationality and assessments of international conditions, the committee’s
advice was to change the law accordingly (SOU 34 1999, p. 34, Sandesjö and Björk 2005).

2. Required time of residence

Danish law requires legal residence in Denmark without significant gaps in time for the
last nine years. Holidays and visits of a few weeks duration to home country are allowed.
The nine-year rule was introduced into Danish legislation in 2002, replacing the former
regulation of seven years’ residence. ‘Residence’ in Danish law equals ‘permission to
stay’, which means the required period may last from when the foreigner first entered the
country – in reality, no permanent home is necessary. Foreigners of refugee status must
have had legal residence in Denmark for eight years to obtain Danish citizenship (Kleis
and Beckmann 2004).
Norwegian law requires legal residence for seven years during a period spanning the
last 10 years. This allows for longer breaks or study, visits or work abroad. The seven-year
rule was upheld in the 2005 bill, and was not discussed in depth neither by the preparatory
committee nor the government. ‘Residence’ in Norwegian law equals ‘actual stay’, which
means that all kinds of legal residence can be summed up to obtain the required period of
seven years. Nevertheless, this seven-year period must include three years of permission to
set up a permanent home, regulated by Norwegian Alien Law (NOU32 2000, Ot.prp.nr. 41
2004 –2005).
Swedish law requires residence under the juridical institute of hemvist for the last five
years. The principle of hemvist is specific to Sweden, and implies that the individual has a
strict subjective purpose of continuous residence, seeking regular employment and setting
up a permanent home. Consequently, hemvist cannot solely be defined by the stretch of
time a person has spent in the country, as this stay may be of restricted and even incidental
character (like short visits to relatives or vacations). Still, the five-year residence under the
hemvist institute can be obtained from when the foreigner first entered the country, also if
the foreigner lacks the required permissions. This does not mean that hemvist can be
obtained by illegal residence, but an asylum seeker may during interview convey a formal
 Citizenship Studies 435

wish to make Sweden his new home, thereby installing his hemvist period provided asylum
is granted at a later point (Sandesjö and Björk 2005).

3. Required skills
In the 1950 legislation, mandatory language skills were a central part of the preparatory
work, but this criterion was not instituted in the actual draft. Nevertheless, in all three
countries, questions concerning or assessing command of the national language were
introduced in the official application forms during the following decades. This requirement
thus became part of the legal body of regulations and guiding principles governing the
practice of citizenship laws. Sweden abandoned this principle in the 1980s, Norway
followed the example. Later, Norway reinstituted this criterion in national legislation
concerning integration of foreigners, the most recent integration bill passed in 2005. The
Norwegian Citizenship Act of 2005 partly institutionalized required language skills by
linking legislation on citizenship to the Integration Act, stating that all applicants must
follow a mandatory 300-hour language course authorized by the latter. The course includes
50 hours of information about the Norwegian society including, for example, the political
system. However, the exam is voluntary (NOU32 2000, Ot.prp.nr. 41, 2004 – 2005).
Danish law institutionalized this principle in national citizenship law at an earlier
stage. A bill on citizenship tests (infødsretsprøve) was passed in June 2006. The tests in
Danish language, culture, history, and political system are given specific standards, and
exams must be passed (Kleis and Beckmann 2004, Aftale om indfødsret af 8. desember
2005, Lov nr. 487 af 07.06.06). The Danish weekly Weekendavisen reported in 2008 that
six out of 10 applicants fail the tests, mostly due to language requirements.

Ethnos and demos aspects of national identity in Scandinavian citizenship legislation

According to the ethnos idea of national identity, national belonging requires borders
and guarding principles drawing clear distinctions towards people who do not share
this identity. This naturalization principle of jus sanguinis, the traditional origin
of Scandinavian citizenship law, points towards this strict understanding of whom to
acknowledge as one’s equal. This concept can be very emotionally charged, as the
Swedish government committee preparing the 2001 draft admitted: a survey revealed that
indigenous Swedes expected a ‘Swede’ to appear exactly like themselves. Swedish
citizenship does not make up for the fact that a person is not born to Swedish parents, does
not look like an indigenous Scandinavian, has a foreign name or speaks Swedish with an
accent (SOU 34 1999, p. 134). This mostly unspoken, required ‘blood relationship’ causes
tremendous complications to the integration of newcomers, and cannot be overcome by
formal citizenship legislation alone.
A demos approach to national identity, on the other hand, argues that a relatively free
access to equal treatment including political rights could spur the individual’s political
interest, forming a somewhat different idea of national identity. Equipped with this
political identity, the individual can partake in societal processes, fortifying the means and
goals of the community, i.e. the nation. This notion can be said to underlie both the
principles of naturalization by jus soli and jus domicilis, challenging the historically
reigning jus sanguinis in Scandinavia and fortifying the reasons for inclusion of foreigners
after at certain period’s residence.
As the principles of jus sanguinis and jus domicilis coexist in Scandinavian legislation,
no singular idea of what constitutes the national identity is discernible from the documents
436 G. Brochmann and I. Seland

we have investigated for this article. Therefore, the nuances in legislation have to be
discussed, most prominently what a foreigner must accomplish to become naturalized. At
first glance, the respective legislation of Sweden and Denmark seem opposing in this
regard, the first aiming to ease a newcomer’s way into society as a new citizen, the other to
restrict it. By strengthening some central mandates for new citizens to become naturalized,
Norwegian law can be seen as a middle position between Denmark and Sweden. On the
other hand, the Norwegian 2005 Act served to utterly formalize and thereby perhaps
liberalize the act of naturalization to a certain extent: Norwegian citizenship is now
obtained solely by law. This means that an applicant fulfilling certain criteria has a right to
Norwegian citizenship – no additional juridical assessments of the application should be
made. Among the Scandinavian states, this statute is unique to Norway, and serves to
reduce the extensive body of regulations that has emerged in this field of law since the
1880s (Ot.prp.nr. 41, 2004– 2005).

The Swedish/Norwegian debate on dual citizenship

The relevance of Brubaker’s (1992) dual argument on national identity is perhaps best
illustrated by the Swedish/Norwegian discussion on dual citizenship, carried out by
respective national government committees in 1999 and 2000. The Swedish committee,
finishing its work with the document SOU 34 (1999), pointed to the fact that an increasing
number of Swedish citizens live, work, and study abroad, and that foreigners taking up
work and residence in Sweden still hold strong connections to family and friends back
home. Not only does this situation invite people to form new ties and identities across
national borders, but is also implies an increase in dual citizenships held by a new
generation of children, inheriting their citizenship from mother and father alike. The
committee did not wish to hamper this development, thus finishing a political and
parliamentary discourse taking place in Sweden since 1983. Since then, several proposals
had been promoted to solve the 1950 regulation on single citizenship in Swedish law.
None of the proposals led to any actual revisions of the law, and the government
committee preparing the 2001 revision was entrusted with the growing problem.
The Swedish debate on dual citizenship in 1983 centred on immigrants’ right to vote in
national elections. The overall argument for letting the immigrants into the electorate was
the need to include a greater part of an increasing population in decisions concerning the
community, thereby giving newcomers a new sense of belonging. The argument was
rephrased several times during the 1990s, at last concluding that there was no strong
reason to uphold the 1950 regulation on this point. Legally bound by the 1963 EC
Convention on Reduction of Cases of Multiple Nationalities, Swedish authorities did not
want to alter the national legislation immediately, seeking to influence the international
debate on this issue. Subsequently, the 1997 EC Conventions on Nationality’s neutral
position on double citizenship was then used to back the Swedish 1999 government
committee’s decision.
Even though arguments about emotional ties and newcomer’s sense of national
identity fill the pages of SOU 34 (1999), the committee stated that the only valid reason
for the 1950 principle on single citizenship to be altered would be that there were no
weighty arguments against such revision. The historically valid arguments hailing from
the 1963 EC convention, i.e. the right to vote, military duty, the institute of diplomatic
protection and several aspects of national security, were then discussed. The committee
concluded that these arguments no longer held a decisive position on the issue. Even
though the right to vote in national elections in two countries was seen as an unwanted
 Citizenship Studies 437

consequence of dual citizenship, the principle of single citizenship was unanimously left
in favour of liberalizations.
More or less the same conclusion was reached by the majority of the Norwegian
committee one year later, discussing the principles of the 1963 EC convention. Following
the Swedish draft, the Norwegian committee’s majority then argued that residence now
provides for the individual’s social rights as a citizen, regardless of formal citizenship. The
committee’s minority (actually being one person), on the other hand, dissented strongly on
this central issue. By presenting arguments promoting the citizen as a political being, this
member underlined the alternative idea of national identity. The importance of the welfare
state in forging trust, social equality, and a feeling of communality was underlined both in
political and cultural terms (NOU32 2000).
Both the Swedish and the Norwegian preparatory committees argued that citizenship
and naturalization of immigrants are a strong means for integration in a new society. The
argument occurs repeatedly in SOU 34 (1999), and is rephrased in the Norwegian
committee’s document. Interestingly, the Norwegian government, a few years later
presenting its bill in Ot.prp.nr. 41 (2004 – 2005), stated that no such integrative results had
been explicitly proven through research. Consequently, the Norwegian 2005 Act in
practice disregards this frequently hypothesized connection, and reinforces the principle of
single citizenship, drawing on the arguments presented by the preparatory committee’s
minority.
What in the end counted in the Norwegian context as not to encourage dual citizenship
was a combination of pragmatic and ideological reasons. Partly the government was afraid
that dual citizenship would weaken the sovereignty of the Norwegian state to intervene on
behalf of citizens in trouble in another country, if the person also were a citizen of
that country. Concrete examples from cases of forced marriages were used as illustrations.
Yet probably the most important reason was more historical and constitutional in
character. The government wanted to emphasize the traditional polity of Norway, with one
indivisible juridical affiliation, based on equality among citizens. If someone would have
the right to more than one such affiliation, this time-honoured tradition would be
eradicated. The government asserted that the community was not served by a situation
where individuals had juridical attachments to more than one state, and it assumed that an
increasing number of dual citizens would weaken the commitments to Norway (Ot.prp.nr.
41 2004– 2005).
No discussion of the matter is discernible from the Danish material at hand. Kleis and
Beckmann (2004) firmly states that Danish legislation builds on the principle of single
citizenship, in accordance with the 1950 law.

The Danish/Norwegian issue of language courses and citizenship tests

The immigrant’s acquired language skills can be viewed as means of adapting to a new
society. Along with the required period of residence, this criterion is perhaps the most
distinct outcome of national identity in the traditional sense, expressed in formal citizenship
legislation. At the same time, both criteria can be said to ease a newcomer’s way into
political processes, thus underlining the political content of citizenship. Denmark’s
position on this point is by far the most notable one, barring foreigners from naturalization
until after nine years of legal residence and a formal test on language, history, culture, and
political system has been passed. Foreigners passing these criteria will in all likelihood
distinguish themselves less from Danes than the majority of non-naturalized foreigners do.
On one hand, these regulations can therefore be said to reinforce the traditional idea of
438 G. Brochmann and I. Seland

national identity, as the borders between different groups residing in the country grow more
severe. On the other hand, the strict requirements can also be said to serve as social
equalizers, when the new citizenship is secured. This idea of equality is clearly different
from the Swedish position on the issue, where no language requirements are formally made,
and foreigners can become naturalized after five years’ residence.
Sweden is actually unique in its undemanding attitude. ‘A foreigner can get permanent
residency, even citizenship without knowing anything about Swedish history and society,
without taking an oath, without comprehending or speaking any Swedish, even without
being able to document his or her identity’ (Björkman et al. 2005, p. 130, authors’
translation). The glue or the social cohesion in Sweden was explicitly formulated in strict
demos-fashion in the central document produced before the important reform of the
integration policy in 1997: ‘In multicultural Sweden, the uniting features are not a
common historical background, but the contemporary belonging in Sweden, with its polity
and basic valuations of democracy and the equal rights and worth of humans. In Sweden
the constitution, the laws and politics constitute the frame of reference in society’ (Den
innvandringspolitiska betänkande SOU 55 1996, p. 55, authors’ translation).
At the end of 2008, when the Norwegian regulations on naturalization linked with the
2005 Integration Act were coming into force, it became clear that only one-third of the
immigrants completed the mandatory 300-hour language course. As a consequence, these
people are not eligible for Norwegian citizenship or permission to set up permanent home,
until the course is completed. The right to residence, however, is not affected by this.
The Norwegian daily Aftenposten suggests that immigrants prioritize work over language
training (Johansen 2009).

Legal citizenship as a means of nation-building in Scandinavian countries

It is in itself interesting that revival of legal citizenship policy comes at a time when the scale
of substantial rights attached to the institution is largely reduced. The revaluation approach
should most likely be seen as a dialectical answer to the very process of stripping the
citizenship institute of substantive rights, or rather transferring them to denizenship
arrangements and the sphere of universal human rights. The insufficiency of the social
rights policy undertaken in many receiving countries has left governments with frustrations.
And besides, minority claims for cultural protection as a bulwark against majority
domination, has, paradoxically, opened for allegations on behalf of the majority culture: if
minority cultures are to be protected, why should not the same apply to the majority
cultures? When comparing the national legislation on citizenship and naturalization in
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, cross-national similarities in structure and phrasing of texts
are expected. The recent developments represented by the Swedish Act of 2001, the
Norwegian Act of 2005 and the Danish amendments from 2002 and 2005 show that this
expected similarity has to be qualified. The formal principles of naturalization by either jus
sanguinis or jus domicilis are shared and respected by all three Scandinavian countries.
With exception of the mandate of language skills (and, in Denmark, knowledge of Danish
society and history), the overall kinds of requirements necessary for obtaining citizenship
are more or less the same between the states. The national adaptation and understanding of
the same requirements, however, hail on different ideals of what it takes to become a
member of the national group. These ideals are, however, clearly and directly formulated
only in the Swedish case.
From forming their national legislation on citizenship on identical drafts, as the three
countries did in 1950, the current laws now assume positions on a sliding scale,
 Citizenship Studies 439

characterized by different reactions to national as well as international conditions. From

the Swedish preparatory committee it is possible to discern traditional liberal arguments
proposing individual freedom and a broad-based inclusion into society. The recent Danish
amendments on naturalization represent a very different view, although the overall Danish
body of legislation, like its Swedish and Norwegian counterparts, fully provide for
foreigners with legal residence regardless of nationality. The majority of the Norwegian
preparatory committee found its position close to Sweden, pursuing liberalization on dual
citizenship and arguing against mandatory language training. However, the final
Norwegian bill, contradicting the majority’s draft on these issues, pushed the legislation
notably closer to Danish law.
Equal treatment and equal behaviour can provide for reduced frictions in a community.
By opening up the institute of formal citizenship, Swedish authorities hope to spur
integration of newcomers. In contrast, Norwegian and Danish law alike require a well-
developed level of integration before granting foreigners the rights of formal citizenship. It
is interesting to note that the presumed cause-and-effect of this process has led to such
different results in the three countries. This conflicting reasoning, constituting the
underlying thinking of each separate national law, is also perhaps the most important
difference between the documents. Nevertheless, a well-functioning overarching national
community is the aim of all three countries.
The Norwegian debate, accentuated by the opposing views of the preparatory
committee’s majority and minority, is still worth considering when asking what the
institute of citizenship represents to a nation. The dissenting vote on NOU 32 (2000) drew
renewed attention to the core of the concept, contradicting the majority’s statement that
formal citizenship appeared almost drained of its original meaning. The fact that the
majority position was presented in a very pragmatic and minimalist form (‘few arguments
against dual citizenship’) made it easier for the Conservative – Centre coalition
government to buy the more substantive and constitutionally argued minority position
in favour of a single citizenship institution. But even if the government landed on a single
citizenship decision, they did not want to elaborate on ‘what it takes to become a member
of the nation’, i.e. the relation between polity and national culture, as forcefully argued by
the minority. The government states that ‘social scientists usually have used “living
standards” as a measurement of “integration” in the Norwegian context, hereby not
relating to the cultural aspects as well as the identity of the individual’ (Ot.prp.nr. 41
2004 –2005, p. 23, authors’ translation). From this statement it moves on to define
participation as the most relevant concept as to requirements for achieved citizenship,
hereby abdicating from the whole discussion at stake. It simply removes both ‘nation’ and
‘culture’ from the whole discussion on premises for naturalization, thus ending up in a
hybrid position between Denmark and Sweden; wanting more of ethnos without saying
why (Ot.prp.nr. 41 2004 –2005, p. 21). In other words, it bought the minority conclusion
without the argument.
The Norwegian committee minority’s view was constituted by the notion of political
identity, on the surface a reminiscence of the Swedish statement. However, in the
statement of the Norwegian committee minority, this political identity is formed on the
basis on familiarized Norwegian values, traditions, and knowledge of democratic
institutions, public debate, and ‘welfare-stately nationhood’.
The Swedish committee, building on a national debate on public inclusion, integration,
and participation spanning two decades, forewent the Norwegian committee’s majority on
their conclusion. When advising liberalization in favour of dual citizenship, the reduced
formal meaning of the institution permeated the Swedish committee’s discussion.
440 G. Brochmann and I. Seland

The personal benefits and identity-forming elements of citizenship, on the other hand,
were strongly underlined. This understanding differs from the strictly liberal tradition
dominating the Swedish discourse, where these principles are disconnected from its
national context.
In Sweden, more foreigners are now expected to apply for naturalization as they no
longer have to denounce their former citizenship. But citizenship is still a valuable
institution – an argument for integration and presumably identity, now only in a dual
sense. Even in the Swedish context, we would agree with Rogers Brubaker (2004, p. 61)
that it is impossible to define civic nationalism without involving ‘a crucial cultural
component . . . a strong sense of separate peoplehood’. Peoplehood is thus understood in
terms of a common language, and a specific political culture, necessary to hold the civic
nation together. The Swedish position is also supposed to create a national feeling in the
population – the one of an open and liberal multicultural state, and besides, the
subscription to the dual citizenship approach is also a recognition of the existing ethnos
affiliation of the immigrants.

Concluding remarks
Differences in historical nationhood traditions within Scandinavia, for close to 100 years,
did not hinder cooperation in order to achieve harmonization of the citizenship laws. In the
spirit of Rogers Brubaker, the formal termination of this tradition in 1979 is then what
needs to be explained. Why was it no longer possible to keep up harmonizing the laws of
these three countries? Have differences in institutional legacies and conceptions of
nationhood all of a sudden come to the fore, and in case why did it not matter before 1979?
It is our hypothesis, which needs to be substantiated more thoroughly through
historical research, that differences in nationhood traditions have been there all along,
but that the political context is changed, not least due to a much stronger international
influence on matters of central importance beyond the citizenship institution. In other
words, until 1979 cooperation between the three countries was estimated as more
important than possible national idiosyncrasies in relation to the institution. This
importance was incited by a wish to facilitate intraregional (Nordic) migration, i.e. a very
practical motivation. Immigration was fairly low, and hence naturalization rates did not
propel discussions on the meaning of the nation. Nationhood was not under pressure.
It is adjacent to interpret this move away from coordinated policy making among the
Nordic countries as an upgrading of the citizenship law in the respective countries.
National interests are apparently conceived as so important in the area that no one wants to
be subordinated to a possible Nordic norm anymore. In other words, the weight of national
sovereignty has been reinforced, or otherwise, national vested interests have increased in
line with a more differentiated immigration policy making within the Nordic area over the
last decades. Thus, within this apparently homogeneous region, both in terms of culture
and polity, differences in recent citizenship law making most likely reflect divergence in
approach to immigration. And this divergence again most likely reflect a basically
different view when it comes to conceptions of the nation – for a while subdued in the
spirit of post-war cooperation, as well as economic interests in stimulating intra Nordic
migration.
Denmark has – during the last decade – parted from the two other Scandinavian
countries in formulating a more restrictive immigration policy – both in terms of access
control and as concerns welfare policies. For Denmark to be forced into a liberal Swedish
citizenship model would simply not match their overall endeavour in relation to the
 Citizenship Studies 441

immigration challenge. In fact, the Danish naturalization law is in the process of being
tightened even further as a result of the so-called Metock ruling of the European Court of
Justice. Denmark has, through this ruling, been forced to revise parts of its restrictive
Aliens Act in relation to rights applied to mixed married couples. One of the few
instruments still available to the government on these matters is the citizenship institute.
Sweden, on the other hand, having pushed the humanitarian ideology some steps
further than most other nations, would have had problems harmonizing their citizenship
law in the Danish direction. Instead, Denmark has served as a negative soundboard in the
public discourse on immigration and plural society. Sweden has, unlike Denmark and
Norway, not had a far rightist party present in parliament, which may have left the more
clear-cut humanitarian ideals basically unchallenged so far.
Norway has placed itself in the middle of this schism, wanting both a reinforced
nationhood and a retained humanitarian image. The Norwegian government is strongly
pressured from both sides politically on immigration matters, and tends to go for vague
compromises whenever possible.
Overall, all three countries want integration of their immigrant population in
functional terms: they want well accustomed, working, good parenting and participating
new members of society, and eventually it seems that they also want new naturalized
nationals, although what it takes differ significantly. Besides, the rationale of the
instruments varies. Social cohesion is necessarily a concern in all three countries, but it is
spelled out differently.
One does probably not hit the target if labelling the process of revitalizing nationhood
in Denmark and Norway as reactionary or nationalistic in the sense that it represents a
relapse to the forceful assimilation policies of earlier eras. Advances within the field of
human rights have most likely come to stay, and the upgrading of the citizenship
institution may as well be taken to mean public responsibility in relation to cultural
pluralism: an indication of a commitment to meet new challenges with (intentionally)
adequate tools, to avoid a development where the majority starts acting like a threatened
minority. If the majority continue accepting substantial immigration, it is necessary that
there is trust in the system to the effect that there is a stable and coherent polity present to
take care of newcomers in constructive ways. In other words, the societal ‘glue’ can be
seen as a precondition for solidarity with immigrants and their offspring – a precondition
for actions against discrimination, marginalization and rightist moves. Two discourses
meet in this; internationalism; and a focus on the fact that ‘we in this country’ have a
responsibility for the conditions presented to newcomers framed in by the unit the nation
state de facto still represents.
A germane question is, nevertheless, whether the tools related to citizenship law are
the adequate ones, if the goal is forging ‘societal glue’ in the meaning of ‘generalized
trust’. We contend that as long as the denizenship institution takes care of most substantial
social rights for legal newcomers, the legal citizenship proper will most importantly be of
political and symbolic significance. Naturalization as a means to build trust – either as in
the Swedish case as a stimuli for immigrants in the process of integration, or in the Danish
and Norwegian case by means of reinforcing a national ‘we-feeling’ in an extended and
more plural majority – is likely to be but a part of a much wider screen. Trust is build
through slow and complex processes, where a wide range of indecisive factors interact.
Naturalization policy may play a part in trust building under specific political
circumstances, and the respective Scandinavian governments have probably had their
individual understanding of this connection under the current conditions. The more
material aspects of citizenship are neither decided once and for all. The relative
442 G. Brochmann and I. Seland

importance of legal citizenship may increase in the years to come, if rights attached to the
denizenship institution are rolled back. The renewed importance of national sovereignty
in relation to citizenship law in Scandinavia may signal more individual revisions also in
the equal treatment policy and hereby in the generous denizenship policy of the 1980s
and 1990s.

Notes
1. Brubaker (2004) himself has renewed and developed the original dichotomy, underlining the
problems attached to characterizing any state as a clear case in terms of the civic/ethnic divide,
as well as opposing the often normative approach of scholars using the dichotomy in relation to
questions of inclusion/exclusion.
2. A large number of scholars can be said to belong in this academic tradition, among them
Bauböck (1994), Kymlicka (1995), Parekh (2000) and Young (2000).
3. Tomas Hammar (1990) had elaborated on this phenomenon already in 1990 by introducing the
concept denizenship, for legal residents without political citizenship.
4. A number of European governments introduced measures to address this new concern in the
form of requirements to qualify for naturalization and ‘integration exams’ to get access to their
territory (e.g. the Netherlands) or achieve permanent residency (e.g. Norway and Denmark). In
academia the importance of the nation was scholarly readdressed by, among others, Calhoun
(2007) and Pickus (2005).

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