Karen Schönwälder

Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Representation in Europe: Conceptual Challenges and Theoretical Approaches

This article introduces the symposium on the representation of immigrant-origin and ethnic minorities in Europe. It argues for the importance of research on this topic, noting the large, established populations of immigrant-origin citizens and their descendants across Western European countries and these minorities’ underrepresentation in elected bodies. Current research gaps concern both empirical knowledge and the theoretical conceptualisation of immigrant and ethnic minority political involvement. The article argues that existing research on representation needs to be extended to suit the cases of immigrants and ethnic minorities. It ends by providing a brief overview of each contribution to the symposium.

Immigrant Settlement Structures in Germany: General Patterns and Urban Levels of Concentration of Major Groups

This article investigates the settlement structures of foreigners and, specifically, of Turks, ex-Yugoslavs, Italians, Greeks and ex-Soviets in Germany. The main data source is the as yet unexploited dataset of the Inner-city Spatial Observatory, complemented by data from the 2005 sample census and city statistics. Immigrant settlement is shown to be widely dispersed across west German cities. Within cities, ethnic neighbourhoods are rare. Immigrants typically live in multi-ethnic environments. Although differences exist between national groups, the level of ethnic residential concentration is relatively low in Germany. Hypotheses on the reasons for these findings are developed, focusing on the historical circumstances of migration, the structure of the German housing market, immigrant-specific state intervention as well as ethnic group differences regarding financial resources, discrimination and ethnic preferences.

Immigration-related diversity and trust in German cities: the role of intergroup contact

This article investigates the relationship between neighbourhood diversity, various forms of intergroup contact and trust in a sample of native Germans clustered in 50 neighbourhoods in several German cities. The authors argue that the consideration and direct measurement of intergroup contact is essential for fully comprehending the consequences of rising ethno-cultural diversity in Western democracies. Our results show that neighbourhood immigration-related diversity in itself does not exert the same negative effects on generalized and outgroup trust as found in the North American context. Instead, intergroup contact moderates the effects of neighbourhood diversity. The results add to our understanding of the different socio-political consequences of immigration-related diversity and immigrant contact in social networks.

Immigrant Representation in Germany’s Regional States: The Puzzle of Uneven Dynamics

Immigrants and their descendants are becoming increasingly visible in Germany’s political life. What determines immigrant political incorporation into parliamentary positions over time and in specific contexts? The article focuses on the regional parliaments of Germany’s 16 states. A comparative analysis enables us to specify whether, how and under what conditions factors thought to impact levels of immigrant representation are indeed influential and how they interact with local and situational conditions. The article first outlines immigrant representation in Germany’s states over time. It then discusses several possible explanations for the striking variation between states. Rather than one key factor, it is found that interactions between demographic, institutional, cultural and political conditions account for different levels of immigrant representation in Germany’s state parliaments.

Why Germany’s guestworkers were largely Europeans: The selective principles of post-war labour recruitment policy

Abstract The article demonstrates that West Germany in the 1950s to 1970s not only recruited millions of foreign workers but also systematically excluded potential migrants of African and Asian origins. Like many other countries in the post-war decades, West Germany practised a migration policy that entailed exclusion on the basis of national origins. But unlike other countries, it never officially lifted these restrictions, and there was never a wide-ranging public debate about the principles of an at least partly racially motivated selection underlying West Germany’s guestworker policy.

‘Persons persecuted on political grounds shall enjoy the right of asylum — but not in our country’: asylum policy and debates about refugees in the Federal Republic of Germany

‘There is the so-called “right of asylum” but it is much more a right on the part of the Government to grant asylum than a right on the part of the alien to have it.’ This is how David Renton explained the position of the British government to the House of Commons in 1961 (15 November 1961, Hansard, col. 431). Until 1993 the situation in the Federal Republic of Germany was different. In West Germany’s de facto constitution of 1949, the Basic Law, Article 16 states that ‘Persons persecuted on political grounds shall enjoy the right of asylum.’ (Politisch Verfolgte geniesen Asylrecht). This generous and internationally exceptional provision gave refugees the right to enter West Germany and to have their applications for asylum considered. If they were found to be victims of political persecution, they had the right to stay. If their application was rejected, they had the right to challenge this decision before a board and then the courts. Clearly the politicians who drafted this clause were motivated by the experiences of persecution and exile after 1933. Article 16 also states that no German may be deprived of his or her citizenship — as practised by the Nazi regime with many of its opponents.

The New Differentialism: Responses to Immigrant Diversity in Germany

There is widespread agreement among scholars that the 1990s and 2000s witnessed a re-orientation of immigrant policies across western European countries. According to the literature, this re-orientation featured a new and strong focus on encouraging the adjustment of immigrants to the mainstream cultures and political norms of receiving societies. Our article looks back on the developments in Germany since the mid-1990s to examine these assumptions. We maintain that immigrant and immigration policy has shifted since the 1990s but that this shift is not as clear cut as many academic discussions would suggest. While there were good reasons to diagnose a (re) turn to assimilationism in the first half of the 2000s, we overestimated the strength and persistence of such trends. We draw on Rogers Brubakers terminology in referring to current policies as a ‘new differentialism’. The new differentialism represents a novel trend in policy, reflective of broader societal transformations. These developments may complicate the place of the ‘German case’ in cross-national research – it has outgrown its status as Europes maligned ethno-exclusionary pariah and does not easily conform to models focusing on the departure from, or transformation of, multiculturalism.

Immigration and social interaction: Do diverse environments matter?

ABSTRACT The article investigates to what extent the presence of immigrants in urban environments is reflected in the personal social interactions of their residents. Starting from the assumption that social interactions are complex products of contextual conditions, individual characteristics and personal preferences, we examine potentially varying effects of the presence of immigrants in a neighbourhood and city on different forms of social interaction, i.e., on neighbourhood contacts as well as on weak and strong ties. The article contributes to the literatures on social interactions and on consequences of immigration. The analysis is based on a unique data set for a random sample of German urban neighbourhoods. We can show that, in German cities, interaction between the long-term residents and those of immigrant background is frequent and common – in the neighbourhoods and in the social networks more generally. However, evidence regarding the impact of the neighbourhood as opportunity context for encounters and ensuing closer interactions is mixed. While a higher immigration-related diversity of the residential environment increases the frequency of inter-group contact in these environments, effects of differing opportunities for interaction in the residential environment on network ties could not be demonstrated. We suggest that this may be explained by a possibly limited importance of neighbourhood, as compared with other social contexts, and by the relative recency of immigration.

Public organisations and diversity: approaches to an under-researched topic

In research on migration and ethnicity, institutions and organisations have traditionally played an important role. Citizenship law and institutional discrimination, to name just two examples, have been key research topics. And yet, we maintain that, first, ongoing processes of diversification present new challenges to the existing institutional structures of major countries of immigration. Second, the specifics of organisations are understudied in this field of research. In this issue, we present examples of research that looks into responses of organisations to diversity, hoping to thus stimulate further debate. As different types of organisations may respond in different ways, we focus on public organisations in order to make a contribution to a better understanding of their specific characteristics. All articles in this collection investigate developments in west European states with longerterm democratic and welfare-state traditions, features that shape the structure and culture of public organisations and thus impact on their responses to diversity.

Germany: Reluctant steps towards a system of selective immigration

Fachkraftemangel, the shortage of skilled labour, is a much debated issue in Germany. Nevertheless, resistance to any large-scale liberalization of immigration remains strong. The chapter discusses why this is the case but also suggests that the introduction of a selective immgration scheme is likely.