Bryan Fanning

Nationals/non-nationals: immigration, citizenship and politics in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract The most significant event in the politics of immigration in the Republic of Ireland has been the 2004 Referendum that removed ‘jus soli’ constitutional rights to citizenship from Irish born children of immigrants. Constitutional definitions of Irishness narrowed at a time when the composition of Irish society had broadened significantly through immigration. The Referendum coincided with restrictions on welfare rights and entitlements upon migrants from the new EU member states. Irish citizens voted overwhelmingly in favour of government proposals for ‘commonsense citizenship’ aimed at removing ‘loopholes’ in the Constitution and the Good Friday Agreement which defined all those born on the island of Ireland as Irish. An asylum ‘crisis’ had become politicised in the late 1990s but by 2004 asylum seekers had become a very small proportion of overall immigration. The Referendum institutionalized a populist distinction repeatedly drawn by Irish politicians and media between nationals and non-nationals. At the same time racialised hostility towards asylum seekers and their Irish born children was mobilised in support of the Referendum. A government campaign in support of the Referendum emerged alongside ones by immigrant organizations aimed at promoting political responsiveness to immigrant voters and the inclusion of immigrants in Irish political parties. The Referendum coincided with the 2004 local government elections and campaigns by immigrant organisations to promote political responsiveness to immigrant non-citizens (including asylum seekers) entitled to vote in local government elections. This article draws upon a study of Irish political parties which identified an institutional inability among these to engage with immigrant communities.

Immigration and social cohesion in the Republic of Ireland

Acknowledgements List of tables List of Abbreviations and Irish Terms 1. Identities and Capabilities 2. Integration into What? 3. Social Cohesion 4. Some Numbers and Percentages 5. Some Immigrant Lives 6. Education and Segregation 7. Integration as Social Inclusion 8. Politics and Citizenship 9. Some Challenges

Immigration and Socio-spatial Segregation in Dublin, 1996-2006

Previous research on the impact of immigration on urban socio-spatial inequalities has focused on cities with long immigration histories where successive waves of new arrivals impacted on segregation patterns established by preceding waves, usually in a context where immigrants in each wave were poor and had low education. This paper focuses on Dublin as an example of a city where immigration is new and recent, is dominated by the well educated and occurs against a backdrop of a mono-ethnic existing population. In that context, it examines the impact of immigrant settlement patterns on socio-spatial inequalities in the city in the years 1996—2006, a period of economic boom. It finds that, while immigrants in Dublin were segregated to a certain degree, with a slight tendency to cluster in disadvantaged areas, clustering provided a small element of social lift to disadvantaged areas and generally contributed to a significant reduction in socio-spatial inequalities that occurred in the city in the period.

Immigrants in Irish Politics: African and East European Candidates in the 2009 Local Government Elections

Abstract High levels of immigration to Ireland have left an impact on the economy and society, but arguably less of an impact on politics. Though immigration has been an issue in party politics and the subject of a controversial referendum, the immigrants themselves have had little direct impact on parties or the political system. This article treats the immigrant as the political actor of interest, and through a series of interviews examines individual motivations for political participation, status factors (i.e. residency/citizenship) and finally, how social capital interacts and combines with other forms of capital (human and cultural capital) in impacting the political agency of immigrants.

Lessons for the Big Society: Planning, Regeneration and the Politics of Community Participation

Contents: Foreword Introduction Community participation in theory and practice Local politics in Haringey Institutional perspectives on community participation Spatial inequality and community planning elites Community activism, localism, and anti-municipalism Community capacity, regeneration and neighbourhood renewal Lessons for the Big Society Bibliography Index.

Immigrant Candidates and Politics in the Republic of Ireland: Racialization, Ethnic Nepotism, or Localism?

Recent waves of new immigration distinct from postcolonial-era migrations can be identified in many Western countries. More than 40 such “new immigrant” candidates contested the 2009 local government elections in the Republic of Ireland. This article draws on interviews with just under half of these and on official responses from each of the Republics five political parties to a study of “new immigrant” participation in Irish politics. It also draws on a specific locality case study of the border town of Dundalk where support for Sinn Féin, Irelands most distinctly ethno-nationalist political party, is relatively high. Our analysis of “new immigrant” candidate participation in Irish politics suggests that a number of factors influence responsiveness to these; this article focuses on the salience of theories of racialization, ethnic nepotism, and localism. In particular, the findings emphasize how local identities as manifested by immigrant candidates potentially mediate racial and ethnic barriers.

Tottenham after the riots: The chimera of community and the property-led regeneration of ‘broken Britain’

David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ agenda is best understood in terms of ideological and policy continuities with earlier Conservative and New Labour governments. But where previous post-1979 governments have sought to renegotiate the role of the state mostly through privatisations and marketisations of public services, the ‘Big Society’ agenda also proposed the replacement of the state by individual voluntarism and community enterprise. The accompanying political narrative portrays an atomised ‘broken Britain’ but at the same time insists that untapped community spirit can take the place of the state. This article examines the disjuncture between Big Society narratives and urban policy responses to the 2011 Tottenham riots. By comparison with previous local regeneration initiatives in Tottenham there was very little emphasis on community development. Instead explicit goals of gentrification in the Plan for Tottenham echo Thatcher-era approaches to ‘place shaping’ and exemplify a wider re-emphasis on property-led regeneration.

Immigration, integration and risks of social exclusion: the social policy case for disaggregated data in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract This article makes the case for improved small area data on socio-spatial segregation and social exclusion in Ireland that is comprehensively disaggregated by nationality and ethnicity. We argue that disaggregated data are crucial if the complex effects of immigration are to be understood and effective policy developed. This article examines two case studies of relatively deprived areas in Dublin that have disproportionately large immigrant populations. Our analysis of immigration and deprivation in the Dublin Inner City Partnership (DICP) and Blanchardstown Partnership areas highlights the shortcomings of currently available disaggregated data. In particular, our analysis identifies cohorts of immigrants at high risk of social exclusion that are largely invisible in segregation and deprivation scores. This article therefore makes the case for an improved evidence base, informed by reliable (and cross-tabulated) statistical data and argues that disaggregated data are crucial to targeted policy in...

Immigration, the Celtic Tiger and the economic crisis

Abstract This article addresses the puzzle of why Ireland has proved so open to immigration. It compares responses to immigrants in the Republic of Ireland during the Celtic Tiger era and during the post-2008 economic crisis and finds no evidence of a political backlash during the latter period even though opinion polls suggest that opposition to immigration had increased and other evidence suggested that there had been an increase in racist incidents within Irish society. Nor did the resumption of large-scale emigration trigger political hostility to immigrants. The outcome of the 2004 Referendum on Citizenship, which removed a constitutional right to Irish citizenship to the Irish-born children of immigrants, suggested that that nationalism still matters hugely and a latent tendency towards ethnic chauvinism amongst the host population. Yet, a decade after the 2004 Referendum it looked as if the old mono-ethnic sense conception of the Irish nation had been disrupted, at least a little bit.

Sociology in Ireland: legacies and challenges

Looking at the history of sociology in modern Ireland we can observe a constant oscillation between continuity and rupture. However, we are somewhat reluctant to interpret this as a kind of Irish Sonderweg or Irish exceptionalism. What remains noticeable though is a relatively late willingness to connect to the outside world – culturally and intellectually. This is partly explained by several decades of Catholic institutional dominance. The challenges since late secularisation of the field occurred in the 1970s have included epistemological dominance of the rather narrow posivitist type. Within this context university-based sociologists and sociologies have often been perceived as self-marginalised figures and paradigms. As we approach the new millennium the situation of sociology as a discipline is less precarious compared to earlier times. However, new institutional challenges, such as the metrics increasingly used to evaluate scholarship, have called more traditional notions of the discipline into question.