IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP, AND THE NATION-STATE IN FRANCE AND GERMANY: A COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

Massive post-war migrations have posed a fundamental challenge to the nation-states of North-Western Europe. Constructing an ideal-typical model of nation-state membership, this paper begins by specifying the multiply anomalous character of the membership status of immigrants. Next, it seeks to explain the striking and persisting difference in the citizenship status and chances of immigrants in France and Germany. While birth and residence in France automatically transform second-generation immigrants into citizens, birth and residence in Germany have no bearing on citizenship. Vis-à-vis immigrants, the French citizenry is defined expansively, as a territorial community, the German citizenry restrictively, as a community of descent. These diverging definitions of the citizenry embody and express distinctive understandings of nationhood, statecentred and assimilationist in France, ethnocultural and `differentialist' in Germany. Focusing on pivotal moments in the shaping and reshaping of citizenship law - the 1880s in France, the Wilhelmine era in Germany - this paper argues that the politics of citizenship vis-à-vis immigrants has been informed by distinctive national self-under-standings, deeply rooted in political and cultural geography and powerfully reinforced at particular historical conjunctures.