Citizenship from Paper to Practice: Perspectives on the Implementation Gap

Call  issued by the IMISCOE’s Migration, Citizenship and Political Participation Standing Committee (MIGCITPOL)

Deadline for Submissions: 10 December 2021
Workshop: 19-20 May 2022
University of Neuchâtel

The gap between citizenship law and policy practice has long been identified: from outright dissonance between legal norms and arbitrary practices to “milder” forms of deviation, as in the spaces opened for interpretation and discretion of the street-level bureaucrats. Moreover, as the field has expanded geographically to non-democratic or less affluent states, there are reasons to believe that the challenges are bigger than we had thought. Yet, the conceptualization of the implementation gap and its many nuances along the continuum is still weak.

We invite original contributions that will advance our understanding of the so-called “implementation gap” from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. The paper proposals can be inspired by any of the following questions:

1. What is an implementation gap? What are the normative issues related to it (e.g., is it inherently bad for a polity?)
2. How do we theorize the line between discretion and arbitrariness, and does this theorization travel well across polities with different political structures?
3. What are the challenges to observing and comparing the implementation of citizenship policies across countries? What are the existing measures of implementation, what are their limitations, and how could they be improved?
4. Who implements citizenship policy? Are implementation agencies comparable across countries and levels of government, and how do they impact the width of the implementation gap?
5. What are the lessons from the work on street-level bureaucracies for the study of implementation gaps and which research methods can help us to scale up the observations and compare across countries?

Aims of the Workshop

With this workshop, MIGCITPOL aims to produce an original publication, either in the form of a Special Issue or edited volume. By sending an abstract the applicants commit to present original work at the Workshop and reserve it as unpublished work for the aimed publication. The Workshop will allow for intense discussions on all papers, therefore constituting an authors’ workshop.

Deadline for abstracts (300 words): 10 December 2021.
To be sent to jean-thomas.arrighi@unine.ch
Notification of acceptance: 21 December 2021.
Delivery of first draft: 2 May 2022.

Workshop: 19-20 May 2022, in person at the University of Neuchâtel, Nccr on the move (Switzerland) and online on WEBEX. Participants are highly encouraged to attend in person, though Covid-related restrictions, which are unequally distributed across countries, should not impede participation.

Funding: The organizers offer limited funding opportunities to cover the travel and accommodation expenses of selected applicants. Priority will be given to early-career researchers and applicants enrolled in universities in lower-income countries.

Full Call (PDF)