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Citizenship, Nationality and Immigration in Germany

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Citizenship, Nationality and Immigration in Germany Citizenship, Nationality and Immigration in Germany Jan Dobbernack | University of Lincoln, UK April 2017 I. INTRODUCTION Despite promising signals, the German case reveals numerous contradictions as well as both exclusionary and inclusionary tendencies. Advances Twenty-five years after the reunification of the towards equality as well as challenges to racism and country divided into two parts after the Second normalized practices of discrimination are often World War, Germany faces a number of challenges half-hearted and distributed unevenly across levels related to immigration, integration and asylum of government and among regions. “Integration” that preoccupy the political class and provoke is the preferred term for addressing challenges mobilization in the streets. It is no longer possible of diversity, but it is loosely defined and qualified to deny that migration and the resulting diversity of by far-ranging expectations of desirable conduct, religions and cultural backgrounds are permanent which are variously justified with reference to liberal facts of life for the country. The prospect of perfectionism, constitutional patriotism or cultural demographic decline, coupled with a still-growing sameness. Thus, being “integrated” frequently economy, strengthens the labour-market case for amounts to an expectation of assimilation into a immigration. In the area of citizenship, exclusionary tightly monitored system of normative and cultural patterns have been challenged and new discourses belonging, burdening newcomers and “post- of nationality promise the possibility of belonging migrants” with the need to meet undefined, moving to “New Germans” that were previously excluded. or unattainable targets.2 While there is evidence of In response to claims for equality and inclusion, more expansive understandings of national identity, some state actors seek to make space for pluralism “New Germans” continue to encounter exclusions within the country’s federal-corporatist system. In that are not just residual but deeply ingrained, 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcoming stance widely held and rarely challenged.3 towards refugees distinguished Germany from less hospitable practices in neighbouring countries.1 This paper is part of a new publication series from the Global Centre for Pluralism called Accounting for Change in Diverse Societies. Focused on six world regions, each “change case” examines a specific moment in time when a country altered its approach to diversity, either expanding or eroding the foundations of inclusive citizenship. The aim of the series – which also features thematic overviews by leading global scholars – is to build global understanding of the sources of inclusion and exclusion in diverse societies and the pathways to pluralism. Citizenship, Nationality and Immigration in Germany The circumstances of cultural diversity in Germany people had moved to Germany with the intention today reflect significant changes over a short to remain. Yet, even a 2015 law that made dual period of time. In the early 1990s, the lasting citizenship more widely available still retained impact of the labour migration that had facilitated the principle that children born of non-German post-1945 reconstruction was still scarcely parents would have to abandon parental citizenship acknowledged. The mantra that “Germany is not (unless they could demonstrate special ties and a country of immigration” (Deutschland ist kein commitment). Symbolically, then, the revision of Einwanderungsland) demonstrated historical exclusionary citizenship laws only represents a denial and blindness to new constellations of partial acceptance of claims by “New Germans” to religious and cultural diversity. Citizenship was belong to Germany. often inaccessible to long-term residents and their children, and an Alien Act (Ausländergesetz) As in other European countries, right-wing regulated the residency of non-citizens, including populist parties have been increasingly successful, those who had been living in the country for and there have been significant street-based decades. Ausländerpolitik—the combination of mobilizations against policies recognizing cultural immigration, residency, citizenship and other diversity and they attract a combination of far- policies concerned with the entry, presence and right and moderate participants. The Alternative removal of “foreigners”—was still dominated by the for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) paradigm of “return,” and the belief that migrants Party and the extra-parliamentary PEGIDA and their descendants were temporary and would (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung return to their countries of origin.4 des Abendlandes/Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident) movement combine More recently, symbolic shifts and material policy hostility towards immigrants, Muslims, and cultural changes have complicated this picture. The principle and political elites. The response to the arrival of of jus soli (birthright citizenship) was added to refugees in 2015–16 revealed tensions at the highest citizenship law, thereby enabling some persons political levels and significant potentials for popular born in Germany to immigrant parents to claim contention. Numerous attacks on refugee reception citizenship. The reform of German citizenship centres have been repeatedly condemned, but law (Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht) in 2000 moved public authorities have also been criticized for their partially away from the predominant principle of inadequate preparation for reception of migrants ethno-cultural exclusion, which envisaged that and the lenient policing of far-right protest. The citizenship could be claimed only by descendants New Year’s Eve 2016 incidents in Cologne have been of German parents. It introduced the possibility of widely debated, even if the link between the sexual jus soli, although its effect was limited, not least assaults of women, the policies of Angela Merkel’s due to continued restrictions on dual citizenship. In government and the reception of refugees from 2005, the Alien Act was replaced by an Immigration Syria and Iraq are tenuous.5 The reporting of the Act (Zuwanderungsgesetz), acknowledging that Cologne incidents has reinforced the perception that 2 Accounting for Change in Diverse Societies Global Centre for Pluralism Citizenship, Nationality and Immigration in Germany new arrivals stand outside Germany’s value-based consequences for minority and migrant populations, consensus. requires particular attention here. Post-1945 nationhood was open to different interpretations, As this paper argues, parochial understandings motivated by the goal to emphasize discontinuity of German citizenship and nationality have been with National Socialist rule (1933–45) and to challenged, but progress is neither seamless nor align the Federal Republic with Western allies, complete. There have been significant changes as well as for the purpose of post-war nation- to law and policies, altering state objectives for building. As a result, a preoccupation with the governing diversity and reflecting a new willingness national image acted as an ambiguous influence in to accept, or at least acquiesce to, cultural diversity. policy-making about immigration and citizenship. Yet such changes do not erase legacies of exclusion The crucial decision to forego the mandatory and a desire to control or regulate “difference” rotation back to the country of origin of “guest that is deeply ingrained in political institutions. worker” migrants in the 1950s and early 1960s, for Moreover, the liberalization of German citizenship example, reflected a concern with international reinforces exclusions that are now predominantly perceptions and a desire for liberal-democratic justified with reference to constitutional values and normality. As Phil Triadafilopoulos and Karen liberal civilization. Schönwälder summarize: “West Germany was not only determined to rebuild its economy; it was also With an interest in these contradictions, this paper keenly interested in presenting a new face to the examines: citizenship policies and the symbolic world—an avowedly liberal democratic persona that negotiation of national identity; changes to the distanced the Federal Republic from its past.”6 Yet German corporatist framework and its suitability the desire to retain a deliberately unfinished version for multi-religious diversity; and the inclusion of nationality in anticipation of reunification with of newcomers and settled populations in labour the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) markets. It considers novelty and continuity in this also allowed for, and justified, exclusionary policies change experience and comments on pivot points towards “guest workers” and their descendants. available for progress towards pluralism. The main point of the historical sketch presented here is to remind us that political circumstances of national image-making matter and have II. ORIGINS AND RESPONSES shaped discourses of nationality in Germany. This is certainly the case for the departure from TO DIVERSITY: STATE, ethno-culturally exclusive understandings of PEOPLE, NATION national identity and the emergence of a “civic definition,” which have both been circulating in The self-conscious adaptation of German national political discourse and civil society over the last identity to new circumstances, often with profound two decades. The promise of this “civic turn” in the Global Centre for Pluralism Accounting for Change
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