On the Meaning of Civic Integration: A Socio-Political Analysis of the Citizenship Case Law of the Spanish Supreme Court, 2004 − 2014

Spain is still among the countries that have not introduced formal language and civic tests in its legislation on citizenship acquisition, although integration in Spanish society is compulsory evaluated by the authorities before deciding on naturalisation. This evaluation remains in the hands of the judges in charge of the civil registries through a more or less open interview with applicants, and on a set of reports by different authorities ranging from the local social services to the intelligence services of the State. This whole evaluation has been qualified as quite discretionary, which on the one hand has led to a quite open assessment of some criteria like language knowledge compared with other European countries, but on the other hand this has also involved increasing litigation regarding nationality denial on the grounds of loose interpretations of ‘lack of sufficient integration’ related to a quite varied set of circumstances. As a consequence, the interpretation of concepts such as ‘sufficient integration’ and that of ‘good civic conduct’ has been transferred from the deciding authorities on naturalisation to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which has produced in the last decade highly relevant case law on this matter following the parallel fast-increasing demands for naturalisation. The paper aims to analyse the socio-political foundations of this case law, particularly by identifying the meaning that the Supreme Court has gradually being attributing to the concept of integration in its decisions in order to accept foreigners into the national community. I will argue that all these cases build up a comprehensive logic of what Spanish institutions understand as ‘civic integration’, its extent and its limits. This case study will provide insights into a mix of ideas of integration, ranging from an entitlement-based notion of citizenship to many ethno-cultural interpretations of ethnic, linguistic and religious belonging.