Due to the sheer scale and scope of West Germany’s post-war guest worker program and its long-term socio-political consequences to the country, the literature on international labour migration usually presents Germany as the feature example for state organized labour migration programs (Samers, 2010; Castles and Miller, 2009; Caviedes, 2010; Meyers, 2004).37 Since Germany did not actively encourage or enable labour migration for over three decades, empirical studies on post-1973 skilled labour migration in Germany are somewhat rare and not policy relevant. On the other hand, Germany is prominently featured within the literature on immigration and citizenship issues due to the peculiar nature of Germany’s legal citizenship laws and its perceived effect on social
35 The Christian Democrats faced mounting criticism for their “Germany is not a country of immigration” attitude from employers, industry, churches and other NGO’s, the former being their traditional political supporters (Borkert & Bosswock, 2007).
36 2010 saw the Minaret ban in Switzerland, Burka bans in France, and the rise of anti-Islamic parties in Scandinavia and the Low Countries.
37 Germany is a perfect example to support the Gap Hypothesis of Cornelius et al. (1992) where policy intention (temporary labour recruitment) and policy outcome (permanent settlement of migrants) differ significantly.
integration and naturalization of migrants in the country (Bauder & Semmelroggen, 2009; Halfman, 1997; Brubaker, 1996; Leitner, 1995; Brubaker, 1992)
Scholarly debates and academic research on immigration issues in modern
Germany have for the longest time been shaped by and linked to the country’s conception of nationhood and associated citizenship legislation. Prominent social science scholars on subject of nationalism and citizenship such as Christian Joppke (1999), Liah Greenfeld (1993) and Rogers Brubaker (1992) have argued that Germany’s delayed development towards becoming a nation-state in the nineteenth and twentieth century led to an ethno- cultural understanding of nationhood, which subsequently resulted in legal citizenship laws based on descent.38 Brubaker’s (1992) comparative study on the historical
development of citizenship laws in Germany and France has been particularly influential within scholarly research on immigration and citizenship in the FRG (Miller-Idiss, 2006; Preuss, 2003; Koopmans & Statham, 1999; Halfmann, 1997; Fahrmeier, 1997).
According to Brubaker (1992), Germany lacked central state authority during most of the nineteenth century, which fostered an ethno-cultural understanding of nationhood and ultimately resulted in jus sanguinis citizenship laws where parental lineage determined legal citizenship and national belonging (Halfmann, 1997). France and other western European countries developed a civic territorial principle of nationhood and associated identity by institutionalizing jus soli based citizenship laws in which place of birth determined legal citizenship (Brubaker, 1992, Preuss, 2003). In France citizenship developed as a political construct linked to territory while in Germany citizenship laws institutionalized ethnic belonging. According to Preuss (2003, p.37) ‘German citizenship
law,’ … is characterized by the separation of citizenship from nationality, the distinction between nationality and ethnic belonging and the emphasis on the cultural and social dimensions of citizenship rather than its political significance’. Within the literature, jus soli citizenship regimes are generally characterized as more inclusive towards migrants
and their descendants whereas jus sanguinis citizenship legislations are considered exclusionary towards second-generation migrants (Castles & Miller, 2009; Samers, 2010).
38 Their assumptions about German nationalism were influenced by the historical theories on nationalism based on the works of Hobsbawm (1990) and Gellner (1983).
During the 1990s Brubaker’s theories dominated the literature on immigration in Germany. Germany had failed to socially and politically integrate large segments of its migrant community because of the restrictive nature of it citizenship laws (Borker & Bosswick, 2007; Koopmans & Statham, 1999). Table VII below shows the relative low naturalization rates for migrants in Germany as compared to other developed countries in 2009.
Table VII: Naturalization Rates of Migrants (OECD, 2010)
The traditional immigration countries in North America and those European countries with jus soli based citizenship laws appear more successful in socially
integrating and politically incorporating their migrant communities. Citizenship laws and their embodied national identity seemed a plausible explanation as to why certain
countries failed or succeeded in accommodating migrants and their descendants.
Brubaker’s work on Germany and France seemed to confirm the theory that the ethos of ethno-cultural German nationhood was socially reproduced through Germany’s
constitution (article 116) and corresponding citizenship laws (Brubaker, 1992).39 The country’s ethno-cultural understanding of nationhood and associated legal practice effectively barred migrants and their descendants from legal and social membership in the German national community. Within the scholarship, Germany’s citizenship laws
39 During the 1990s Germany experienced widespread xenophobic violence while France won the FIFA World Cup with a national team largely consisting of players with a migratory background.
were perceived as the main obstacle to successful migrant integration (Samers, 2010; Preuss, 2003, Halfmann, 1997; Brubaker, 1992).
While there is little doubt that the state’s legal definition of citizenship is linked to and shaped by the nation’s history and culture, it is disputable as to whether legal
citizenship laws exert a significant imprint on popular understandings of nationhood and citizenship. Müller-Iddris (2006) believes that popular understandings of citizenship are poorly understood and do not necessarily reflect legal citizenship regimes. According to Müller-Iddris (2006, p.531) ‘… the trouble with research on German citizenship is that
it assigns Germans a static and uniform notion of citizenship that is rooted in a blood- based conceptions of national belonging…’ and she believes that the meaning of
citizenship for individuals cannot be entirely understood by examining citizenship and naturalization laws but must also must include how these policies are interpreted and reacted upon by ordinary citizens. In the German example, the FRG’s citizenship laws were based upon the Reichs und Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz (citizenship law) of 1913, which was adopted into the West-German Basic Law after World War II. Müller-Iddris (2006) points out that there is no empirical evidence to support the notion that the popular understanding of nationhood among ordinary Germans is still determined by a century old law40.
Another methodological problem in relying on citizenship policies in defining national identity and national belonging is that citizenship laws are not static. When Brubaker published his research findings on Germany and France in early 1990s,
Germany’s citizenship laws had been in place since 1913, surviving the collapse of three successive German states over the course of the twentieth century (Preuss, 2003).
However, in 1999 the unified Federal Republic amended its citizenship legislation and included a jus soli principle followed up by legal provisions that enabled dual citizenship for migrants and streamlined the naturalization process (Klusmeyer & Papademetrious, 2009; Meyers, 2004, Miller-Idriss, 2006). Yet, despite these far-reaching and significant legislative changes to its citizenship laws, the literature still describes Germany as the quintessential jus sanguinis nation-state and retains the assumption that jus soli
40 Legal scholars will confirm that it is far easier to write a new law than to reform an old one, which explains why some laws remain in place despite being seriously out of touch with present circumstances.
citizenship regimes are naturally more inclusive towards migrants than jus sanguinis citizenship regimes (Samers, 2010, Castles &Miller, 2009).
Aside from Miller-Idriss’s (2006) criticism about the lack of theoretical
knowledge on popular understandings of nationhood and citizenship, there is also a lack of theoretical knowledge about to what extent citizenship legislation affects the social integration of migrants into the national community or migrant workers’ labour market outcomes. As Green (2004) points out, ethnic German migrants from the former Soviet Union have had automatic access to German citizenship but nonetheless experienced great difficulties integrating themselves into German society and the German labour market despite legal citizenship. Moreover, as mentioned in the previous section, migrant workers in the FRG have always enjoyed full social and economic incorporation into German labour market notwithstanding their respective citizenship. At the same time, some European countries with seemingly inclusive citizenship laws and more civic- territorial conceptions of nationhood such as France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have experienced widespread social and political discontent within their migrant community, resulting in urban riots, increased xenophobia or home grown Islamic terrorism as well as poor labour market outcomes second generation migrants (Geis, 2011; Fleischman et al, 2010; Koopmans, 2010; Joppke, 2009). Despite significant variations in citizenship legislation and naturalization procedures throughout Europe, almost all European countries are currently experiencing significant problems with the social and labour market integration of their resident Muslim citizens (Koopmans, 2010; Joppke, 2009; Caldwell, 2009; Koopmans & Stratham, 1999). Returning to Brubaker’s (1992) study on the traditions of citizenship in Germany and France, both countries experienced widespread social discontent, poor labour market performance, and cultural alienation within their Muslim migrant community, especially second and third
generation migrants, despite having fundamentally different legal traditions of citizenship and naturalization procedures (Fleischmann et al, 2010; Geis et al, 2011; Caldwell, 2009). This suggests that the impact of citizenship legislation on the social, economic and
political integration of migrants and their descendants as well as migrant’s labour market participation may actually not be that significant. Scholarly research on contemporary
skilled labour migration in Germany should therefore not be limited to or constrained by the theories of national identity and citizenship policies.