The Politics of Immigration. Is Germany moving towards a Multicultural Society?
The Politics of Immigration. Is Germany moving towards a Multicultural Society?

Author: Samuel Skipper

Publisher: Anchor Academic Publishing

Published: 2016-11-17

Total Pages: 47

ISBN-13: 3960676026

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The topic of immigration is never simple. Questions such as ‘who belongs to society?’ and ‘how do you define national identity?’, or ‘what values are needed to maintain a coexisting society?’ are extremely difficult to answer. Global migration introduces unprecedented challenges for conceptualising the integration of immigrants. On a European scale, Germany can be said to represent the first destination for immigrants since its unification in 1989. On a global level, Germany is the second largest immigrant receiving country after the United States. Nevertheless, only recently has Germany recognised and admitted that it is an ethnically and culturally diverse society. Before the 1998 elections, successive governments have always stuck to the maxim that Germany is ‘not a country of immigration’. The infamous phrase came under increased pressure with the electoral victory of the Red-Green coalition in 1998. New laws regarding immigration, integration and citizenship were on the agenda with the aim of replacing the traditional ethnocultural model of German nationhood with a more liberal and modern model by moving away from the concepts of Volk and ius sanguinis. The conservative CDU, however, accused the Schroder government of trying to jeopardize German cultural identity, causing a fierce debate known as the Leitkultur (Guiding culture) debate. On the one side of this debate there were the conservative CDU politicians who viewed Germany in ethno-nationalist terms, while on the other members of the Green Party and the SPD, who attempted substituting the ‘volkish’ tradition with a multicultural model of citizenship that guaranteed universal human rights. The aim of this study is to assess which of these two models are currently prevailing in moulding immigration and integration policy. Has the progressive left achieved its objective of moving away from the traditional ethnocultural and assimilationalist model defining citizenship towards a more inclusive multicultural model?

The Politics of Immigration. Is Germany Moving Towards a Multicultural Society?
The Politics of Immigration. Is Germany Moving Towards a Multicultural Society?

Author: Samuel Skipper

Publisher: Anchor Academic Publishing

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 53

ISBN-13: 3960671024

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The topic of immigration is never simple. Questions such as ‘who belongs to society?’ and ‘how do you define national identity?’, or ‘what values are needed to maintain a coexisting society?’ are extremely difficult to answer. Global migration introduces unprecedented challenges for conceptualising the integration of immigrants. On a European scale, Germany can be said to represent the first destination for immigrants since its unification in 1989. On a global level, Germany is the second largest immigrant receiving country after the United States. Nevertheless, only recently has Germany recognised and admitted that it is an ethnically and culturally diverse society. Before the 1998 elections, successive governments have always stuck to the maxim that Germany is ‘not a country of immigration’. The infamous phrase came under increased pressure with the electoral victory of the Red-Green coalition in 1998. New laws regarding immigration, integration and citizenship were on the agenda with the aim of replacing the traditional ethnocultural model of German nationhood with a more liberal and modern model by moving away from the concepts of Volk and ius sanguinis. The conservative CDU, however, accused the Schroder government of trying to jeopardize German cultural identity, causing a fierce debate known as the Leitkultur (Guiding culture) debate. On the one side of this debate there were the conservative CDU politicians who viewed Germany in ethno-nationalist terms, while on the other members of the Green Party and the SPD, who attempted substituting the ‘volkish’ tradition with a multicultural model of citizenship that guaranteed universal human rights. The aim of this study is to assess which of these two models are currently prevailing in moulding immigration and integration policy. Has the progressive left achieved its objective of moving away from the traditional ethnocultural and assimilationalist model defining citizenship towards a more inclusive multicultural model?

The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe
The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe

Author: Andrew Geddes

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2003-03-26

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1473914183

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This text fulfills a major gap by comprehensively reviewing one of the most salient policy issues in Europe today, migration and immigration. It is the first book to address the question of whether we can legitimately speak of a European politics of migration that links states in terms of their policy response to each other and to an evolving EU policy. The book carefully differentiates between different types of migration, introduces the main concepts and debates, and provides a broad comparative framework from which to assess the role and impact of individual states and the European Union (EU) and European integration to this key contemporary issue. Topical and up-to-date, the author fully reviews the politics and policies of immigration across the breadth and depth of Europe including the `older' immigration countries of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the `newer' southern European countries, and the enlargement states of East and Central Europe. The Politics of Immigration and Migration in Europe is essential reading for all undergraduate and post-graduate students of European politics, political science and the social sciences more generally. Andrew Geddes lectures at the School of Politics and Communications Studies, University of Liverpool. `This book will be essential reading for students of migration and European integration, but will also be important for decision-makers, and, indeed, anyone who wants to understand one of the burning issues of our times' - Stephen Castles, Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies, Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford

Work in Transition
Work in Transition

Author: Arnd-Michael Nohl

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2014-11-21

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 1442668741

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Despite the fact that many countries target highly skilled migrants for recruitment in the global labour market, few of those migrants are able to take full advantage of their educational and professional qualifications in their new homes. Work in Transition examines this paradox, using extended narrative interviews that focus on the role that cultural capital plays in the labour market. Comparing the migrant experience in Germany, Canada, and Turkey, Work in Transition shows how migrants develop their cultural capital in order to enter the workforce, as well as how failure to leverage that capital can lead to permanent exclusion from professional positions. Exposing the mechanisms that drive inclusion and exclusion for migrants from a transatlantic comparative perspective, this book provides a unique analytical approach to an increasingly important global issue.

The Crisis of Multiculturalism in Europe
The Crisis of Multiculturalism in Europe

Author: Rita Chin

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-06-11

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 0691192774

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"From the influx of immigrants in the 1950s to contemporary worries about refugees and terrorism, The Crisis of Multiculturalism in Europe examines the historical development of multiculturalism on the Continent. Rita Chin argues that there were few efforts to institute state-sponsored policies of multiculturalism, and those that emerged were pronounced failures virtually from their inception. She shows that today's crisis of support for cultural pluralism isn't new but actually has its roots in the 1980s. Chin looks at the touchstones of European multiculturalism, from the urgent need for laborers after World War II to the public furor over the publication of The Satanic Verses and the question of French girls wearing headscarves to school. While many Muslim immigrants had lived in Europe for decades, in the 1980s they came to be defined by their religion and the public's preoccupation with gender relations. Acceptance of sexual equality became the critical gauge of Muslims' compatibility with Western values. The convergence of left and right around the defense of such personal freedoms against a putatively illiberal Islam has threatened to undermine commitment to pluralism as a core ideal. Chin contends that renouncing the principles of diversity brings social costs, particularly for the left, and she considers how Europe might construct an effective political engagement with its varied population."--Publisher web site

Migration, Memory, and Diversity
Migration, Memory, and Diversity

Author: Cornelia Wilhelm

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2018-06-11

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1785338382

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Within Germany, policies and cultural attitudes toward migrants have been profoundly shaped by the difficult legacies of the Second World War and its aftermath. This wide-ranging volume explores the complex history of migration and diversity in Germany from 1945 to today, showing how conceptions of “otherness” developed while memories of the Nazi era were still fresh, and identifying the continuities and transformations they exhibited through the Cold War and reunification. It provides invaluable context for understanding contemporary Germany’s unique role within regional politics at a time when an unprecedented influx of immigrants and refugees present the European community with a significant challenge.

The Politicisation of Migration
The Politicisation of Migration

Author: Wouter van der Brug

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-03-27

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1317527569

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Why are migration policies sometimes heavily contested and high on the political agenda? And why do they, at other moments and in other countries, hardly lead to much public debate? The entrance and settlement of migrants in Western Europe has prompted various political reactions. In some countries anti-immigration parties have gained substantial public support while in others migration policies have been hardly controversial. The Politicisation of Migration examines the differences between seven Western European countries by developing a conceptual framework to empirically explain patterns of politicisation and de-politicisation. The analyses show that over the past decade immigration has been increasingly defined in socio-cultural terms and that it has been receiving less political attention since the economic crisis started in 2007. This book also looks at the role of mainstream parties and political actors in the process of politicisation, and demonstrates how the role of ‘challengers’ is more limited than often assumed. Contributing to literatures on migration, party politics and agenda-setting, the book will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of politics and migration studies.

Challenging Multiculturalism
Challenging Multiculturalism

Author: Raymond Taras

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2012-12-17

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 0748664599

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Tackles the challenge of dismantling the multicultural model without destroying diversity in European society* Have Europeans become hostile to multiculturalism? * When people vote for anti-immigration parties, do they also support their anti-multiculturalism policies? * And are right-wing extremists becoming the storm troopers of the struggle against diversity?In recent years, European political leaders from Angela Merkel to David Cameron have discarded the term 'multiculturalism' and now express scepticism, criticism and even hostility towards multicultural ways of organising their societies. Yet they are unprepared to reverse the diversity existing in their states. These contradictory choices have different political consequences in the countries examined in this book. The future of European liberalism is being played out as multicultural notions of belonging, inclusion, tolerance and the national home are brought into question.

German Multiculturalism
German Multiculturalism

Author: Brett Klopp

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 2002-10-30

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13:

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Migration, asylum, and citizenship have become unavoidable topics in contemporary European politics. Klopp examines the issues of immigration, integration, and multiculturalism in Germany, Europe's premier immigration country, through the perspectives of both immigrants and local institutions (unions, employers, schools, neighborhoods, and city government). Klopp addresses the potential for immigration patterns and increasing heterogeneity to produce the conditions for social transformation, and specifically he shows how these factors are challenging and gradually transforming the boundaries of citizenship and the nation in Germany. Theoretically he argues against recent models of postnational and transnational membership that claim that the nationstate model of citizenship has been superseded by a new type of membership, one that guarantees individual rights via international human rights norms. Given the claims of these models, we should expect that long-term resident aliens will be satisfied with the partial citizenshp rights (civil and social) extended to them by liberal European welfare states, and that they will not identify with, or seek political rights from, their state of residence. On the contrary, Klopps suggests that national-state citizenship remains the essential form of formal social and political inclusion for the majority of immigrants. In the past Germany has represented an extreme case of ethnocultural exclusion, and it is therefore something of a natural laboratory in which to examine the reciprocal measures and mechanisms of political and social change currently underway in Europe. Lessons learned from qualitative empirical examination of immigration and integration processes in Germany could prove instructive when compared to similar processes of transformation underway in the other tranditonal nation-states of Western Europe and in the efforts to define a common European identity. Provocative reading for scholars, students, and other researchers as well as policy makers involved with migration issues, comparative politics and citizenship, and contemporary German studies.

Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism

Author:

Publisher: Syed Ali Raza

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 9699757019

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Has multiculturalism failed? Is it time to move on? What is the alternative? Ali Rattansi explores the issues, from national identity and social cohesion to cultural fragmentation and 'political correctness'. Providing a balanced assessment of the truth and falsity of the charges against multiculturalism, he explores new ideas for the future. Multiculturalism appears to be in terminal crisis. It has been blamed for undermining national identity, diluting social cohesion, creating ethnic ghettos and cultural fragmentation, providing fertile ground for Islamic radicalism, encouraging perverse 'political correctness', and restricting liberal freedoms of expression, amongst other things. The public debate over multiculturalism has polarised opinion amongst the general public, policy makers, and politicians. But how much real evidence, beyond tabloid headlines and anecdotes, exists for these claims? In this Very Short Introduction, Ali Rattansi considers the actual evidence from social science research to provide a balanced assessment of the truth and falsity of the charges against multiculturalism. Dispelling many myths in the process, he also warns about the dangers that lurk in an uncritical endorsement of multiculturalism, and concludes by arguing that it is time to move on to a form of 'interculturalism'. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.