This paper has been submitted as term paper for a course at Harvard GSAS in May 1996. Gov 2037, Graduate Seminar "Pluralism and Citizenship", Prof. B.Honig.

The Road to Citizenship: "Guest-Workers"-Denizens-Citizens?

by Michael Jandl


 


[T]he principle of political justice is this: that the process of self-determination through which a democratic state shapes its internal life, must be open, and equally open, to all those men and women who live within its territory, work in the local economy and are subject to local law. Hence, second admissions (naturalization) depend on first admissions (immigration) and are subject only to certain constraints of time and qualification, never to the ultimate constraint of closure."
        Michael Walzer (1)

Michael Walzer analysis of the "tyranny" (p.59) of guest-worker programs in certain Western European states, from which the above quote is taken, is perhaps the most forceful statement of what is wrong with this particular kind of immigration (or, rather, immigrant) policy, but by no means the only one. In the last couple of years several authors have voiced strong normative arguments against a prolonged exclusion of long-term resident aliens in European states by simply categorizing them as "guest-workers".  (2)
Since I do not have much to add to the moral force of their arguments, I will develop my own set of moral arguments from a "realist" perspective. To do so I will concentrate on the political and socio-economic causes and consequences of the specific way the so-called "guest-worker systems" have been set up in three Western European states over the past three decades and contrast these with the moral claims inherent in the agendas of liberal democratic (and social democratic) states themselves. I will focus on the three German-speaking states (Austria, Germany and Switzerland (3)  ) since these are the archetypal "guest-worker countries" and, being a privileged member of one of them (Austria), because I know more about them than about others. I tend to think, however, that the general thrust of the discussion has wider applicability and argues against the wide-spread adoption of  temporary worker programs, without the option of formal membership in the community after a certain period of residence (i.e. naturalization), in countries like the U.S. as well.(4)
In the first part of the paper I will put forward three moral arguments for better access to citizenship for long-term residents than is current practice in the three countries discussed. All of them go somewhat beyond the moral arguments for inclusion I have found in the literature. In part two of the paper I will try to give a brief but accurate account of those aspects of "guest-worker" policies that have a particular bearing on moral arguments on the norms of inclusion. In part three I will try to justify my own arguments by relating the described "social realities" to a set of norms inherent in the principles of liberal democratic states. In the concluding part I will argue that the resulting contradictions call for a radical change of policy in states that want to take liberal democratic principles seriously.

Three Arguments for Inclusion
For many liberals today the prolonged exclusion of immigrants from the same legal status as natives, as is the case in the German-speaking "guest-worker countries", is plainly unjust. This might not be the general consensus of the populations of European countries today, nor even of liberal politicians. After all, even a liberal contractarian can resort to the view that the recruited workers voluntarily entered into their "guest-worker" contracts, with full knowledge of their legal status, or at least, that they repeatedly re-entered these contracts with that knowledge. Of all the moral justifications of this policy, I think that this one poses the greatest challenge for liberals. However, I think I can show that this argument has run into a number of difficulties. I will focus on three points here:
First, the power relationship between migrants and their host countries has become more and more asymmetrical. The reason for this is the simple observation that as "guest-workers" gradually shifted their involvements from their home-country to their new host country, they accumulated ever higher stakes in a continuing residence in their new home country, thus making them ever more vulnerable to exploitation. At the same time, however, the very precariousness of their legal and social situation has forced them to maintain strong ties with their motherland as well, thus keeping them in a situation of permanent "in-between". I will argue that this situation has put "guest-workers" at a substantial disadvantage vis-a-vis natives with negative consequences for both their economic performance in the labor market, their social status as well as their capacity for democratic participation. Thus, the argument that "guest-workers" came voluntarily and can freely leave whenever they want is ignoring the strengthening of moral claims for inclusion over time. It is also a distortion of reality.
Second, with prolonged duration of residence the new denizens have acquired more social entitlements (such as the right for continuing residence, rights for family re-unification but also social rights such as unemployment benefits, pensions,..) and thus an ever higher degree of social membership. Thus, while the new denizens have been ever more affected by the political system around them, they have not been given an equal say in the formulation of these decisions, which is hardly a justifiable position in a liberal democratic society.
Third, with the gradual shifting of their social and economic membership to their new countries of residence, the new immigrants brought in their families and raised their children in their common household. Despite their lasting social membership, however, many immigrants have been barred from political membership (i.e. citizenship). To put the stronger part of the argument first, it can certainly not be said that it is the voluntary decision of a child to be raised in a certain country, thus the contractarian argument clearly does not hold in their case. Yet, with current laws of citizenship acquisition in the three German-speaking countries the children of foreigners are automatically foreigners. The second part of the argument concerns the immigrants themselves: It is of course possible for a foreigner to become a naturalized citizen in all three German-speaking countries. But this is contingent on a much longer period of continuing residence, than is usual in other liberal democracies and is also linked to a much more extensive set of additional requirements than in any of these other states. I will argue that the denial of an option to full citizenship is clearly unjust for the children of immigrants, who have been raised in the country, whose citizenship they desire; that for all immigrants there should be no additional requirements for a right to naturalization beyond a certain time of residence; and that countries should even go further than making citizenship optional for denizens: On the grounds of past discrimination they should also work towards enabling their would-be citizens to fully participate in the democratic life of their societies.

The "guest-worker" system in the three German-speaking states has led to the creation of a large class of disenfranchised, permanently disadvantaged denizens in the midst of affluent capitalist welfare states. The share of foreigners in these states is higher than the share of the foreign-born population of the U.S., the "classical immigration country".(5)  To understand how this came about and why this situation has become increasingly unjust we need to look at the historical developments that turned temporary into permanent immigrants and aliens into denizens.

From Aliens to Denizens
The origins of guest-worker policies in Austria, Germany and Switzerland (6)   lie in the strong economic growth of the post-W.W.II era of the "Wirtschaftswunder" (economic miracle) with its high and steadily rising labor demand. In the 1950s and 1960s one European country after another entered a period of full employment and, in fact, labor shortages. Furthermore, the rise of the welfare state in the increasingly prosperous capitalist democracies made certain jobs increasingly unattractive for natives (in particular menial, low-paid and dangerous work in the construction, textile, leather, steel and auto industries, which were to become the typical "guest-worker" jobs). Instead of raising the wages for these jobs (thereby fueling cost-inflation that might have brought the economic boom to a sudden end), the strong unions and employer federations agreed on recruiting foreign workers instead.(7)  By temporarily bringing in foreign workers for specific jobs, thereby increasing the labor supply in certain sectors of the economy, both employers and labor could gain from continuing strong growth and higher incomes. The reason the unions agreed to this arrangement was the promise on the part of employers that, first, native workers would not be replaced by cheaper foreign workers (the "primacy of natives" in hiring decisions is still part of the dense system of regulations of the labor markets in Germany, Switzerland and Austria). Secondly, to protect native workers from unemployment, foreigner workers would be laid off first in periods of slack demand. Because they were only invited to come to work and could be asked to leave at the discretion of their hosts  , they would then have to go home - unemployment should thus be "exported".(9)

The way this cyclical supply-side policy was set up was through a system of granting "guest-workers" only temporary work-permits (and, hence, residence permits) for a limited period of 6 - 12 months. Any specific worker should, in principle, come to work for only this period and then return to his/her home country (At the beginning of the "guest-worker" programs the overwhelming majority of "guest-workers" were, in fact, male). Labor market conditions permitting, a new cohort of happy "guest-workers" would then be brought in and return to their home-countries upon expiration of their permits. This "principle of rotation" should thus prevent a long-term residency of foreign workers. Accordingly, no long-term plans for the integration of foreigners were made, family-reunification was not possible at the beginning, accommodation was provided by employers (often in crowded, sub-standard conditions), unemployment benefits would not accrue to "guest-workers" (since the duration of work in order to become eligible for unemployment benefits was likely to be too short) and education of the children of foreigners was not an issue, since the families would stay in their home countries anyway.

The "guest-worker" policy thus conceptualized was an economically based, perfectly rational immigration policy. As such, it forgot an important element.  As the Swiss poet Max Frisch put it: "We asked for workers and got humans". And human beings tend to settle were they live and work. Thus, many "guest-workers" more or less continuously worked in Austria for a long period of time through a series of short-term permits. And again, this did not happen without good economic reasons on the part of employers: Many were simply satisfied with the work performance of their foreign employees and arranged for the prolongation of their work-permits (thereby retaining firm-specific experience and avoiding turn-over costs). Accordingly, the average time of residency of foreigners went up steadily, the longer the system was in place.(10)  Continuous work and residency implied social membership, also in a very practical sense: longer duration of employment meant that foreign employees - like native employees - attained entitlements for unemployment benefits. Many guest-workers also qualified for long-term residence permits, once they lived in the country long enough. This made unemployment harder to "export" the longer the "guests came to stay" (11)  : In the economic downturn of 1973-74 which led to a complete stop of further labor recruitment and massive lay-offs of foreign workers, many "guest-workers" did, in fact, return to their home countries and the unemployment rate of foreign workers remained at fairly low levels. By the time the next recession hit in the early 1980s few returned home and unemployment among foreigners increased substantially. (12)  What this shows is that by the 1970s many of the "guest-workers" have settled more or less permanently in the countries they have lived and worked in. At this point more and more foreign residents were also entitled to bring in their families under existing  rules for family re-unification and by the mid-1980s most of the "core families" of "guest-workers" lived in common households in their new countries of residence. (13)  Demographically this meant that the extremely uneven gender balance was becoming more evenly distributed; economically it led to an increase of "foreign" employment in the tertiary sector, as more foreign women took up jobs in cleaning and housekeeping; and socially it simply reflected the fact that more and more of the former "guests" had established long-term residency in their host societies with the intention of staying permanently. They have become members of reluctant immigrant societies.

Does this mean that they have become social members of their new societies only, while giving up membership in their old one? The answer is no, and this should not come as a surprise. First, it is rarely seen that migrants cut their social ties to their homeland quickly and completely, given the "cultural losses" involved in such an experience  (14) , and many will never do so completely. Nor should we expect them to do so in any significant way as long as we do not extend full membership to them in their new country of residence. But there is another, more tangible reason for these migrants to invest heavily into the maintenance of social ties, far beyond those that can normally be found in social and familial networks between migrants and their home countries: This is the basic uncertainty that many foreigners face in the three German-speaking states, as regards their future right to stay. This "residency uncertainty" is looming behind all long-term decisions of many former "guest-workers" (such as the decision whether or not to accept low-paid menial work) and is not even removed through the attainment of permanent residence status. (15)  It also creates a need for maintaining an effective safety-net in the old home country in case of losing the right to remain in their new home country. Foreigners in Austria, Germany and Switzerland invest a large share of their income in physical and relational assets in their countries of origin and regularly visit their old countries with car-loads of consumer goods. (16)   These very "investments", or rather "insurance premiums", in the form of remittances further contributed to the low living standards of many foreigners in the traditional "guest-worker countries".

To come back to the question of membership and citizenship I think that this dual social membership of "guest-workers" is directly related to the fact that many long-term denizens from the "traditional guest-worker countries" (that is Turkey, the Former Yugoslavia and the Magrehbinian countries) have not yet acquired formal citizenship status, even after very long periods of residence. (17)  The reasons for the extremely low naturalization rates for denizens of certain countries are both direct (fairly harsh legal requirements for discrete naturalizations) and indirect (dual membership has worked against the "integration" of foreigners and has made the renunciation of their old citizenship more difficult). To understand, we need to take a brief look at the legal requirements for naturalization in the three German-speaking countries:
As can be seen from table 1, the residence requirements as the basic condition for discrete naturalization in all three countries are relatively long: 10 years in Germany and Austria and 12 years in Switzerland compared to 5 years in most other major immigration countries. In addition, there are a number of requirements, that are often hard to fulfill even for long-term resident foreigners. (18)

Table 1: General Conditions for Discrete Naturalization by Virtue of Residence in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
 
 
General conditions  Austria  Germany  Switzerland
required period of residence 10 years 10 years  12 years
language proficiency not mentioned by law (may be decisive in practice)  ability to read and write in German   not required by law, in practice invoked by local authorities
integration or assimilation not required by law  integration in German society
voluntary and lasting affiliation to Germany
 integration in Swiss society
familiarity with Swiss customs and habits
renunciation or loss of previous citizenship  required by law  required  not required
(since 1992)
other
conditions
sufficient income;
loyalty towards the republic of Austria;
not to endanger the public peace, order or security, absence of relations to a foreign country, which could damage Austria's interests or international prestige 
accommodation;sufficient income and ability to maintain family members living in Germany; basic knowledge of the political order and commitment to the constitutional order; public interest in granting citizenship to the applicant  not threatening the internal or external security of
Switzerland
Source: Cinar, 1994, pp. 51-52

Discreet naturalization is naturalization at the discretion of the authorities. Thus authorities have a certain margin of interpretation in determining whether or not the above given requirements (and some other ones) are met and if naturalization of the applicant is in the "public interest". The widest room for maneuver is given by requirements for "integration", such as "Eignung" (suitability) in Switzerland or "Hinwendung" (lasting affiliation) in Germany. Besides the long time-requirements these additional conditions for naturalization are often the main obstacles for the acquisition of citizenship for many long-term immigrants. But perhaps the key factor is the requirement  to renounce one's old citizenship upon acquisition of the new one (thus preventing double citizenship). (19)   A refusal to do so is interpreted as disloyalty and a ground for exclusion from political membership. However, the preceding discussion should help to elucidate the motivation of many denizens of holding on to their first citizenship. A situation of dual membership is not an easy one to live in, especially if it is coupled with overt discrimination and an inferior social status in the country one regularly lives and works in. Under these conditions identity and self-esteem demand a certain measure of pride in the (only) political membership one has. (20)  But there are also more prosaic reasons for not wanting to give up one's first citizenship. As Joseph Carens points out for " [..] many Turks in Germany [...] this would prevent them from owning or inheriting land in Turkey". It could also disrupt relations with former neighbors and friends, who could see it as a renunciation of Islam. Now, we have seen that the very precariousness of the situation of many "guest-workers" has led them to invest heavily in physical as well as relational assets in their home countries and this makes it that much harder to give up the security of one's first citizenship. The impact of the legal restrictions on dual citizenship was found significant in a number of surveys carried out in the 1980s that revealed that more immigrants would be interested in German citizenship if dual citizenship were available. (21)

On the other hand, a right to naturalization (as opposed to naturalization at the discretion of authorities) has only recently been created in Germany  (22)   for two categories of long-term foreign residents:  Since a 1993 amendment to the new Aliens Act of 1991 all immigrants have a right to German nationality if they have legally resided in the FRG for 15 years; have not been convicted of a crime; and have a sufficient private income. The same law created an option to (i.e. right to) German nationality for the children of immigrants if they have 8 years of legal residence in the FRG; have been to school there for at least 6 years; have not been sentenced of a crime and apply between the 16th and 23rd birthday. It is noteworthy that integration into German society is not a precondition for naturalization for these long-term immigrants any longer, while the renunciation of their former nationality remains a requirement.

In contrast, an unconditional right to naturalization exists in the German constitution for "ethnic Germans", who have come to Germany as "Aussiedler" (ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern European states). In the period 1950-1993 some 3 m "Aussiedler" migrated to Germany (mostly from Poland, Rumania, Hungary, and the former Czechoslovakia and USSR, most of whom have been quickly integrated in mainstream German society (note: in their case, citizenship acquisition preceded "integration" into society, since most of these immigrants have been living abroad for generations and many had little or no knowledge of the German language). For these immigrants (and some others, such as refugees) the renunciation of dual citizenship is not a requirement for the acquisition of citizenship. (23)

For the children of immigrant foreigners, the general principle is Ius Sanguinis: this means that the children of foreigners are born as non-citizens. Unless naturalized according to a complicated set of rules similar to the above they remain non-citizens, even when they grow up and go to school just like all other young members of society. In Austria and Switzerland they still do not have a right to citizenship, and as we have seen, they have only recently been granted such a limited option to citizenship in Germany.

Taken together, we are now in a much better position to better understand the relatively low rates of citizenship acquisition in the three countries discussed: In 1992 these were 1.8 % in Austria, 2.8 % in Germany and 0.9 % in Switzerland. (24)   In other words, despite their long residence and the fact that the former "guest-workers" have really become permanent members of our societies, we continue to exclude most of them from our polity.

The liberal democratic state and its denizens
I have claimed in part one of this paper, that the relocation of denizens (25)   to a status of permanent second class members of society is unjust from the perspective of a liberal democratic state. A basic principle of modern liberal democracy is the equality of all the members of the state. "Membership", however, " is a social fact, not something that can simply be determined by political authorities." (26)  I think I was able to show that social membership of many of the former "guest-workers" is such a fact and that, therefore, the principle of equality should apply. Since the attainment of universal suffrage for all members in Western European democracies, only three groups, who are social members have been excluded from political membership (i.e. active and passive voting rights): minors, the severely mentally handicapped and convicts. However, the democratic legitimation for their exclusion from the vote rest on wholly different grounds than the exclusion of denizens. Moreover, those who remain disenfranchised are no longer excluded from citizenship. (27)
It follows, that the principle of participation and the principle of legitimacy are violated in democratic states that exclude part of their members (their denizens) from full political participation (i.e. citizenship).
Would an extension of citizenship rights to denizens violate republican norms of inclusion in the polity (e.g. Rousseau's principle of mutual consent)? I think not. As we have seen, it was in the (economic) interest of the immigrant countries themselves to recruit foreign workers, it was them who enjoyed the greatest benefits from this policy and it was them who continuously consented to let others do the socially undesirable work. Moreover, the social membership of the new denizens has long been tacitly accepted by a majority of the (native) populations of these countries, as no large scale forced repatriation program has ever been attempted. It is now time to acknowledge the full rights and obligations that have grown out of this (asymmetrical) relationship: The right of the denizens to full membership in the polity and the obligation of the polity to correct an unjust policy from which they continue to benefit.
This obligation involves more than offering an option of applying for discrete naturalization, which is granted under certain conditions only. To ask for integration as a precondition for citizenship is wrong for at least three reasons: First, as Joseph Carens has pointed out, it violates the principles of toleration and respect for diversity to which all liberal democratic states are committed. (28)  After all, we explicitly (i.e. legally) acknowledge such rights for our national minorities and we never demand integration from any of our citizens as a condition to retain this status. Second, it violates the principle of equality, for we do not demand integration from all new citizens equally (e.g. those who have a right to citizenship such as the new-born, ethnic Germans and refugees). Third, it reverses the true causality of integration and citizenship: if legal discrimination has an important bearing on the socio-economic status of immigrants (i.e. their degree of "integration") - as I have indicated - we can not reasonably ask for integration first to remove the discrimination later.

But I think our obligations go further than that: For the same reasons liberal democratic states have endorsed "affirmative action" as a way to correct for past injustices and its consequences, we have an obligation to take active steps to enable disadvantaged denizens to fully participate in the social and political life of our democracies. Easier access to citizenship (including a right to citizenship after a reasonable period of time) would be a first and necessary step. However, it would not be a sufficient one: We have seen that of all the former "guest-workers" who presumably would be eligible for naturalization by virtue of their prolonged residence in Germany, Austria or Switzerland only relatively few actually apply for (discretionary) naturalization. And, unlike Joseph Carens, I do not think that the phenomenon of "sour grapes" is much of an issue here. (29)  The official attempt to avoid dual nationality might matter much more. And if the new denizens need dual nationality in order to be able to accept their new one (a principle that is acknowledged for refugees and ethnic Germans, hence the large number of dual nationalities), we should allow dual nationality. After all, they already have dual membership in two societies, and the renunciation of their old nationality would not change that per se.
I shall not say much about the children of immigrant origin, because I think their claim to membership and, hence, citizenship is sufficiently clear by now. (30)   From the beginning, their "host" country is often their only "home" country, much more so than for the immigrants themselves. For this reason the term " second generation immigrants" is plainly misleading, for they are not immigrants, but grew up as full members of society. But they are not given full membership in their own society because they have the formal citizenship of the country of their parents nationality, which they typically know only from occasional visits and usually do not want to live in.  On the other hand "citizenship by descent" provides that the children of citizens are citizens, even if they are not born and reared in "their country". I know of no democratic principle, other than "Ius Sanguinis" (literally the right of the blood), which is a law and not a moral principle, which could justify the exclusion of the former, but not the latter.

Moreover, in the case of Germany, "ethnic Germans" have claims to citizenship, even if their parents were not citizens and their forefathers have not lived in Germany for generations. It seems to me that the principles underlying these norms of inclusion are those of (ethnic) nationalism (31)  rather than those of a liberal democracy and are thus not defensible with reference to the latter.(32)

Conclusion
The verdict on the "guest-worker" policies is thus this: they have failed on either of two accounts. They have failed, on the one hand, to deliver on their promise of keeping the residency of "guest-workers" temporary, at least for a substantial number of them. And they have failed, on the other hand, to extend full membership rights (including membership in the polity as formal citizens) to those immigrants, who have become permanent members of their societies.
So what ? One might say, this is bad policy, not injustice. What makes the policy unjust today is the persistent denial of these two failures and the continuing claim of official policy that our countries are not, really, "immigration countries". (33)   But as the analysis in this paper has shown, this is simply a lie. We must now move on beyond this lie and set our new members on the road to citizenship.



References

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 (1) Walzer, M., (1983), p. 60
 (2) See, for example, Bauboeck, (1994), Brubaker, (1989), Carens, (1989), Hammar, (1994).
 (3) Switzerland is, of course, a quatri-lingual state, but for brevity I will include her in the German-speaking states. My apologies.
  (4) The U.S. currently has a relatively small temporary worker program in place (temporary workers get H-1A or H-1B visas). However, there is strong pressure on the part of employers to expand these programs. In February 1995, the National Council of Agricultural Employers released a proposal for a supplementary foreign worker program to fill temporary or seasonal US jobs.  One year later, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) unveiled yet another NCAE proposal, the "Alternative Agricultural Temporary Worker Program" or "Temporary Agricultural Worker amendments of 1995". Migration News, vol. 3, no. 3, March 1996.
  (5) There are no data that can be directly compared to the US data on the "foreign-born population", since naturalized citizens are statistically indistinguishable from native citizens. (However, by 1994 even the share of "resident foreigners" in countries like Germany (8.5%), Switzerland (18.6%) and Austria (8.7%) was higher than the share of the foreign born population in the US (8%). On the other hand, many of the children of "foreigners", who have been born in their new host country (and are therefore not "foreign-born" as such), are not automatically natives and are therefore included in the number of "foreigners".
  (6) For a fuller account of the history of each of these see, Biffl (1993) for Austria, , Leimgruber (1993)  for Switzerland and Rudolph (1994) for Germany
  (7) This was done in the 1950s and 1960s by concluding formal recruitment treaties with the mediterranean countries and setting up recruitment offices within these countries, who then hired the workers according to employers' demand.
  (8) It should be clear by now, why these foreign workers were called "guest-workers": They were allowed to come only as "guests", at the discretion of their host, with no concomitant residency rights beyond the duration of the permits, no political rights and only limited social rights and entitlements. It should also become clear in the course of this paper, why I think that the term "guest-worker" should be abandoned now in favour of the more inclusive terms "denizen" and "immigrant" and why I prefer to write the term "guest-workers" in parenthesis throughout.
  (9) These two regulations were part of formal agreements between labor and capital in all three German-speaking countries. For example, the Austrian "Social Partnership", a unique system of formal business-labour relations, that independently sets wage-price policy through unanimous decisions, formally entered into such an agreement in 1962.
  (10) In Austria it was 8 months in 1964, 16 months in 1973 and as long as 8 years in 1983. Biffl (1986)
  (11) The phrase is borrowed from Rosemary Rogers (1985).
  (12) see Fuernkranz-Prskawetz (1995), pp. 76-82
  (13) For example, in 1985  80 % of the spouses and 48 % of the children of "guest-workers" were living together in the same household in Austria (Bauboeck, 1985, pp. 352-3)
  (14) Shils, (1978)
  (15) There is now a growing body of work on the negative effects of this uncertainty of residency for foreigners in Austria. See, for example, Gächter (1993a) and (1993b). Without going into details the basic problem is as follows: Foreigners can have work-permits for either one, five, ten or unlimited years. Besides the risk that their short-term permits will not be renewed, foreign workers face another risk: If unemployed, they are entitled to unemployment benefits on the same terms as natives (that is after a certain time of paying unemployment insurance). However, once  unemployment benefits terminate (after 20 - 30 weeks) foreigners, as opposed to natives, are not entitled to any further welfare benefits. Being without income, however, is a reason for expulsion of foreigners from Austria, regardless of their previous duration of stay. It is likely that this specific risk of expulsion, that only foreigners face, makes them more willing to accept low-paid work. This uncertainty of a future right of residency persists as long as foreigners have not become naturalized. Similarly, in Germany, the receipt of "social help" (welfare benefits) for more than three months is a ground for deportation or for the nonrenewal of a resident permit (Brubacker, (1989), p. 157).
  (16) The sight of endless treks of overloaded, old Mercedes Benz of "guest-worker" families, making their way "home" to spend their holidays in Turkey or Yugoslavia, on what has become known as "guest-worker routes" across Austria, was always a disturbing feature of my childhood and one that I often remember with amusement today, when I go home over the holidays myself.
  (17) This geographical limitation of the argument reflects differences in legal status for foreigners with different nationalities: Most significantly, citizens of any EU country enjoy freedom of  movement and work in Germany and Austria. In Germany, which concluded its first recruitment treaties with Italy (1955), Spain and Greece (1960) more than 50 % of all foreigners come from EU countries. ( Biffl, 1994, p. 16) In Austria, more than 80 % of all resident foreigners come from the Former Yugoslavia and Turkey.
  (18) Further complications can arise out of the federal structure in Austria and Switzerland. In Austria, discrete naturalizations fall under the competency of the federal provinces, which can work both for easier naturalization procedures as well as for extremely cumbersome ones. In Vienna, for example, naturalizations are often granted after only four years of legal residence, while many provinces are much more restrictive. In Switzerland, "citizenship" is actually divided into three separate "citizen rights" : municipal, cantonal and federal citizen right, where attainment of the latter two are contingent on attainment of the former. The municipal citizen right (and therefore, in effect, citizenship) is granted by the communal authorities.
  (19) This requirement was dropped in Switzerland in 1992.
  (20) Helmut Rittstieg (1994) made this point:" As the guest worker policy designed emigrants as second-class members of German society, the immigrant's former nationality became an important part of self-esteem for him and his children." He concludes: " To renounce self-esteem should not be the condition for acquiring German nationality." (p. 118).
  (21) Cinar , (1994), p. 62
  (22) In Austria, a right to naturalization is given only after 30 years, and even then some conditions apply. I do not know of the existence of any such right in Switzerland.
  (23) There are now more than 1.2 million persons, who hold a German citizenship as well as that of another country (Cinar, (1994), p. 54). The relative ease with which these citizens have been integrated into German society suggests that it is official rhetoric, rather than any serious problems stemming from the holding of dual citizenship per se, that has prevented the general toleration of dual citizenship.
  (24) Rates of citizenship acquisitions are calculated as acquisitions per 100 non-citizen residents of the same year. Of the 179.904 grants of citizenship in Germany in 1992, 142.862 were as of right and only 37.042 were discretionary naturalizations, bringing the rate of discretionary naturalizations down to 0.6 %. For specific nationalities it was even lower than that: In 1991, only 3.529 Turkish citizens in Germany (out of 1.8 million) were naturalized, that is 0.2 % (Cinar, (1994), pp. 54-64).
  (25) The term "denizen" is from Tomas Hammar and denotes permanent residents, who are not formal citizens (see Hammar, 1994).
  (26) Carens, (1989), p. 3
  (27) Bauboeck, 1994, p. 201
  (28) Carens, (1989), p. 13
  (29) In Aesop's fable the fox held the grapes to be sour, for the very reason that he was excluded from them. This phenomenon, called adaptive preference formation by Jon Elster, is often mirrored in people, who say they do not want things they cannot have (Elster, 1983, p. 110).  But many people say they would want citizenship, if only they can hold on to their old one.
   (30) In any case, the argument of this paper is that the exclusion of all long-term residents from citizenship cannot be justified by the principles inherent in a liberal democratic society and this would certainly include children, who grow up in such states, should they opt for citizenship at the age of majority.
  (31) "For nationalism of any kind, the character and boundaries of the community have been shaped by some irreversible process or event. They are thus given independently of the present shape of a state territory or the network of social interactions that connect a population to a state." (Bauboeck, 1994, p. 215).
  (32) This is not to say that the claims to citizenship of certain ethnic groups towards their "ethnic homeland" can never be justified in liberal democracies, only that they cannot be justified with reference to ethnic nationalism per se, since the two are so fundamentally opposed. Claims could arise, for example, with reference to some kind of "cultural membership", particularly if an ethnic (religious) group faces discrimination in their country of residence/citizenship, precisely because of their membership in that particular ethnic (religious) group. And, of course, every sovereign state has the moral and legal right to extend formal membership to anybody it wishes to, even though I don't think it has the moral right to deny it to anybody it wishes to.
  (33) For example, the Population Report 1994 of the German Federal Government explicitly states: " Germany is no immigration country and should not become one in the future".



This paper has been submitted as term paper for a course at Harvard GSAS in May 1996. Gov 2037, Graduate Seminar "Pluralism and Citizenship", Prof. B.Honig.

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