Respecting the Values of the Constitution: Integrationism and Boundary Liberalism in Switzerland

Recent research has problematised the civic integration paradigm and aggressive integrationism, referring to (immigrant) integration as to be achieved by coercing, testing, penalising and, ultimately, excluding. This paper studies integration as a category of practice in Switzerland, where naturalisation and residency permits are increasingly predicated on integration requirements such as ‘respecting the values of the Federal Constitution’. Building on critical approaches to integration governance and what has been conceptualized as boundary liberalism, the paper enquires into the social imaginaries re/produced by integration policies and discourses. In line with Hadj Abdou, integration is understood and approached as a phenomenon that reveals more about those who articulate ideas about integration and decide on integration measures than it does about those who are the target of integration. Based on a qualitative approach, the empirical data consists of official documents and legislative processes, fieldwork and qualitative interviews among public authorities and street-level bureaucrats (both in the domain of naturalisation and foreigners’ law), and case law. The analysis reveals how everyday practices and the knowledge produced on integration and especially its value dimension presuppose and reproduce the social imaginary of society as a community of value (Anderson). As has been shown for other contexts especially in Europe, the extent to which those expected to integrate are believed to have acceptably liberal values has become a site of boundary making. The paper elaborates how, in the Swiss context, the value dimension of integration draws a bright, gendered, and nativist boundary against an imagined Swiss or European community of value. Analysing integration regimes and administrative practices in Switzerland, the paper shows how ideations of integration policies and regimes are re/produced and shape everyday practices, discourses and policy-making. On the basis of these empirical and theoretical perspectives on the Swiss context, the paper thus attempts to contribute to the ongoing and highly contested transnational debates on integration/ism. Above all, the paper concludes with a plea to leave behind integration imaginaries that picture society in terms of either social fragmentation and collapse, or complete harmony, stability, and cohesion.