In a number of countries immigrants are required to pass formal tests before they can become citizens, the most common of which assess language proficiency and knowledge of society. Responses to the implementation of these ‘citizenship tests’ have been mixed: some have regarded them as a sensible way of ensuring that those who become citizens have acquired the competences that are needed for them to integrate properly and to fulfil their responsibilities as citizens, whilst others have seen them as seriously unjust, as depriving long-term residents of their right to citizenship. This article addresses the issue of whether citizenship tests can be justified and, if so, how, in what form, under what circumstances, and subject to what conditions. It argues that citizenship tests are most plausibly defended on the grounds that they promote conditions that are either required for a reasonably just society to be created and sustained, or which are conducive to the creation and maintenance of such a society. This argument can take a number of different forms, but each version of it is vulnerable to the response that citizenship tests are nevertheless unjust because long-term residents are automatically entitled to citizenship, and requiring them to pass a test before they are granted it either delays or denies that entitlement. The article explores how a defence of citizenship tests may respond to this objection, and under what circumstances these tests might legitimately be regarded as a reasonable resolution to a conflict between, on the one hand, the just treatment of long-term residents and, on the other hand, promoting the conditions required for creating or sustaining a reasonably just society.

Publication details and link to source: Andy Mason, ‘Citizenship Tests: Can They Be a Just Compromise?’, Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 45, Issue 2, pages 137–161 (2014).