By Thomas Faist and Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos
From The Institute of European Studies
Abstract: In the years since unification, citizenship politics in Germany has been driven by a clash of two variants of civic republicanism. Whereas liberal egalitarian republicans view citizenship as a means of facilitating immigrants’ integration, statist communitarians argue that citizenship should only be awarded as a result of their successful integration. These divergent ideological positions have mapped onto existing party cleavages, with expansive liberal egalitarian positions on jus soli, dual citizenship, and integration being embraced by the Greens and the SPD and opposed by conservatives in the CDU/CSU. CDU moderates and the FDP have struggled to reconcile their affinity for liberal egalitarian principles with the demands of party and coalition solidarity. This politicization of intra-republican differences has led to strained solutions that awkwardly capture both sides’ positions, most notably the 1999 citizenship law’s peculiar combination of an extremely liberal jus soli provision and principled rejection of dual citizenship.
Beyond Nationhood: Citizenship Politics in Germany since Unification