ABSTRACT
How people become citizens of a new country involves two processes. Immigrants can satisfy residency requirements, pass tests, and pay fees; or the sons and daughters of immigrants automatically become citizens in some countries by being born on native soil. The number of migrants choosing the first way, when divided by the whole foreign population, gives the naturalization rate, and the second way combines this with jus soli births, producing nationality rates. This chapter then makes three main points. First, the long tradition of individual and community studies of naturalization have sharpened and expanded their studies to the many receiving countries of the world. Second, nation-state studies include some comparisons of countries that have pointed to the long-term impacts made by culture and political economy on the laws and immigrants of various countries. Third, global studies highlight citizenship acquisition in two diverse ways: (a) looking at large numbers of countries, scholars use regime types to show how former empires and settler colonies have, ironically, had the highest naturalization and nationality rates, and more closed regimes have restricted naturalization; and (b) examining new patterns of transnationalism, immigrants develop complex attitudes toward multiple citizenship as they acquire more than one passport and citizenship in order to protect a transnational lifestyle.
