Nationalism, Citizenship and Immigration in Social Science Research - Editorial Introduction

Citizenship, immigration and integration policies, as well as attitudes toward migrants, are some of the topics that currently receive most attention from social scientists. This reflects the scholarly community’s concern not only for the rights of thousands of immigrants to Western countries, but also for the quality of liberal democracy in these countries. Indeed, the dominant model of citizenship, and more specifically, the ease with which immigrants can become citizens, reflects the quality of democracy in a given state. The current thematic issue of UNESCO’s International Journal on Multicultural Societies (IJMS) takes up these concerns by focusing on popular attitudes to immigrants in industrial countries. As we argue in this thematic introduction, such an approach is crucial in order to move beyond existing research about the impact of models of nationhood on immigration and integration policies. The contributions to this issue adopt such an approach by drawing on recent statistical data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP); analysing attitudes towards migrants in three multinational states – Israel, Spain and the United Kingdom – they provide preliminary evidence that challenges established wisdom on the difference between civic and ethnic models of nationhood.