ABSTRACT
One of the major immigrant democracies alongside Canada and the USA, Australia nevertheless followed the lead of European countries rather than its North American cousins on the matter of citizenship tests. Such tests have been a feature of the immigration process in the USA since the early twentieth century and in Canada since 1994 (Etzioni 2007). Australia introduced its first citizenship test only in 2007 after Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany had done so or flagged their intention of doing so. As in the European cases, the immediate spur to this Australian policy innovation was a series of local and international controversies involving Muslim immigration and militancy. Australia’s citizenship tests also unsurprisingly reflect its general approach to citizenship. But how best to characterize or interpret that approach?
