Demarcated by growing austerity, economic uncertainty, and EU-exits, the past decade witnessed monumental shifts across the political and economic landscapes of Europe. Citizenship is a stabilising force in this era of crisis, particularly for intra-EU migrants. In this contribution, I examine how the Euro crisis impacted citizenship acquisition among these migrants. Building upon the model proposed by John Graeber’s article [2016. ‘Citizenship in the shadow of the Euro crisis: explaining changing patterns in naturalisation among intra-EU migrants.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (10): 1670–1692], I discuss the relative importance of citizenship in times of crisis from global and regional perspectives. I argue Graeber’s theory presents a strong model for citizenship acquisitions during the crisis, yet leaves the core dyadic structure and several inconsistent findings unexamined. I replicate these models and introduce a dyadic model using bilateral data from 21 receiving and 23 sending states in Europe between 2007 and 2013. Contrary to Graeber’s theory, I find citizenship acquisitions among intra-EU migrants primarily coincide with increased in-migration, rather than influences of the Euro crisis. I conclude that while economic sending and receiving contexts matter, the Euro crisis did not appear to restructure intra-EU migrant citizenship incentives.

Publication details and link to source: Hannah M. Alarian, Citizenship in hard times: intra-EU naturalisation and the Euro crisis, JEMS, 2017