Issue definition, political discourse and the politics of nationality reform in France and Germany

Abstract.  This article examines reforms to citizenship, a highly politicized issue, in France and Germany in the 1990s. It begins with the fact that, against a dominant strain of scholarly thought emphasizing path dependence and policy continuity, nationality law was reformed four times in the two countries. Taking this puzzling outcome as its starting point, the article attempts to account for the evolution of nationality law in the two countries. The argument has three components. First, following a now-established line of research, we argue that the terms of political debate have sharply narrowed since the Second World War. Appeals to ethnic bases of identity, national hierarchies and racial homogeneity, easy and natural before 1945, are now politically unacceptable. Second, this narrowing of the terms of discourse has not eliminated political debate over concepts of nationality, belonging and integration, but rather shifted it to a narrower sphere. In other words, political actors express their support for integration (as demanded by political necessity), but seek to redefine integration in a manner that continues to serve exclusionary ends. Third, the eventual policy outcome in citizenship reform reflects in large measure the definition that emerges triumphant from this battle over discourse. The article ends with a reflection on the broader role of argument, language and strategy in the study of comparative politics.     

THE COSATU PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRATIC TRADITION AND SOUTH AFRICA'S NEW PARLIAMENT: ARE THEY RECONCILABLE?

COSATU, The Congress of South African Trade Unions, has a participatorydemocratic tradition on the shopfloor that dates back to theemergence of some of its constituent unions in the 1970s. Infact, an ethic developed among members that the unions oughtto be democratic. By 1994, when South Africa underwent a majorpolitical transformation and the African National Congress cameto power with the support of COSATU, the question arose whetherthe new parliament would be reconcilable with COSATU's expectationsof it. A random survey of 643 COSATU members shortly beforethe 1994 election established that COSATU had sustained itsdemocratic shopfioor tradition and that its members expectedthe 20 union leaders it sent to parliament on an ANC ticketto be as accountable to them as their shop stewards are. Subsequentresearch found dissatisfaction with the ANC on account of unsatisfactorydelivery and inadequate consultation, especially by the ministries.In response, COSATU has adopted a dual strategy of strengtheningits representation in parliament by opening a ParliamentaryOffice and putting pressure on the government and organizedbusiness by engaging in mass action on selected issues. COSATUthus reconciled itself to parliament by combining new terrainsof struggle.     

DEVELOPMENT AND FRACTURE OF A DISCIPLINE: LEGACIES OF THE SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY AT BERKELEY

In the early twentieth century, the University of California—Berkeley opened its doors to police professionals for instruction in “police science.” This program ultimately developed into the full‐fledged School of Criminology, whose graduates helped shape American criminology and criminal justice until well into the 1970s. Scholarship at the School of Criminology eventually fractured into three distinct traditions: “Administrative criminology” applied scientific methods in pursuit of refining law enforcement practices, “law and society” coupled legal scholarship with social scientific methods, and “radical criminology” combined Marxist critiques of the state with community activism. Those scientific traditions relied on competing epistemic premises and normative aspirations, and they drew legitimacy from different sources. Drawing on oral histories and archival data permits a neo‐institutional analysis of how each of these criminological traditions emerged, acquired stability, and subsided. The Berkeley School of Criminology provides fertile ground to examine trends in the development of criminal justice as a profession, criminology as a discipline and its place in elite universities, the uncoupling of criminology from law and society scholarship, and criminal justice policy's disenchantment with the academy. These legacies highlight how the development of modern criminology and the professionalization of American law enforcement find precedent in events that originate at Berkeley.