Citizenship Debates in the New Germany

Nowhere is the fear, guilt, and pain of Germany’s dreadful past more evident that in contemporary debates over immigration policy. This debate has pit successive Christian Democratic Union politicians, who define Germany in ethno-nationalist terms, against the German left, which seeks to replace the volkish national tradition with a post-national multicultural identity. Ethno-nationalists and multicultural post-nationalists speak powerful, but mutually exclusive, moral languages that galvanize large segments of the German public. At the national level, extremists rarely succeed in Germany’s immigration debates, and the legislation that prevails represents a chaotic mix of liberal and nationalist policies.

Immigration and Citizenship in Germany: Contemporary Dilemmas

The paper starts from a paradox of contemporary German politics: after the unification of the two Germanies the ethnocultural grounding of German citizenship has lost its historical meaning; at the same time violent conflicts and heated debate over the rights to full membership for immigrants in the German state have developed. After a theoretical discussion of the notions of nation state, citizenship, and immigration, the development of the contemporary paradox of citizenship is sketched historically using two pairs of distinctions: nationhood v. statehood and political v. social (state-mediated) inclusion. The paradox of 'ethnicized' conflicts over Germans v. foreigners is interpreted as a discrepancy between membership in the state on the one hand and membership in the welfare state system on the other—a discrepancy which currently is 'overdetermined' by the socio-economic consequences of unification.     

The Politics of Labour Market Reforms and Social Citizenship in Germany

Since the second half of the 1990s, German labour market policy has experienced paradigmatic changes, undermining the conservative ideal of preserving social status and maintaining achieved living standards. Reforms carried out by the conservative–liberal government of the 1990s focused largely on workfare measures. This development had its roots in the progressive disintegration of the cross-class alliance of organised business and trade unions that had previously supported Bismarckian unemployment protection. The withdrawal of employers from the conservative welfare state can be related to far-reaching socio-economic changes which were thought to undermine the functional feasibility of the social dimension of the ‘German Model’. Instead of pursuing ‘social democratic’ activation, the Red–Green government (1998–2005) not only continued on the reform trajectory of its predecessor, but accelerated the departure from the established policy path. Understanding the revision of social democratic labour market policy requires scrutiny of both shifts in power and policy learning.     

Thinking Globally,Integrating Locally: Gender,Entrepreneurship and Urban Citizenship in Germany

Germany's refusal to pursue active integration policies for three decades has unleashed surprising do-it-yourself-integration processes among migrant communities, as demonstrated by dramatic changes in the Turkish ethnic economy since 1990. This study embeds these developments in an analytical framework linking economic enclaves and urban citizenship. Initially motivated by structural unemployment and social exclusion, guestworkers and their offspring are turning to self-employment, not only adding new jobs to an otherwise moribund national economy but also promoting urban revitalization in cities like Berlin, Frankfurt and Cologne. The study outlines generational differences within the Turkish-German community, ascertaining that third-generation ethnics are more likely to start businesses outside the food sector and more willing to embrace FRG citizenship. It describes the size and scope of ethnic enterprises across Germany, followed by a treatment of women entrepreneurs in Berlin. Ethnic associations indirectly foster “participatory” consciousness among males, but women tend to identify directly with the society that offers opportunities not available to them in the purported Turkish homeland. Instead of producing “parallel societies” (as German politicians often insist), ethnic businesses and local community involvement are crucial in bridging majority and minority cultures, on the one hand, and in granting Turkish entrepreneurs top-level access to state policy-makers—even without the formal rights of citizenship.     

对经营城市的几点认识

经营城市是市场经济条件下发展城市的一条新路子.其本质要求是打破传统计划经济时期城市建设的单一融资渠道,充分利用城市基础设施、土地等资源,把城市作为一个重要整体资产去运营,通过市场手段,采取多种有效形式,实行有偿使用,走以地建城、以城养城的城市建设市场化新路子.     

Neo-liberal Citizenship

The government of populations within states and the government of states themselves within the international arena are intimately connected. Thus, in order to understand the character of citizenship in the modern world, it is necessary to locate it as part of a supra-national governmental regime in which the system of states, international agencies and multinational corporations play a fundamental role. A brief history of the modern system of states is followed first by an account of liberalism as a project of government emerging within that system, and secondly by an examination of how twentieth-century changes in the system of states have impacted on that liberal project. Where the liberal government of non-Western populations was once predicated on a denial of citizenship it is now channelled through the promotion of citizenship in states that are themselves increasingly subject to the rigours of the market.     

关于公民参与的几点认识

公民参与表明了一种全新的公民责任、权利以及治理的观念。公民参与公共政策,对提高公共政策的质量进而实现其良好的施行效果具有实质性的作用和极其重要的功能,公民参与是公共政策的基石。公民社会是国家和家庭之间的一个中介性的社团领域,是公民参与的载体。公民性是公民参与的内在支持和保证。伴随国家民主化改革的进程,我国应当培育公民社会,促进公民性的发展。国家的治理需要有一个讲道德、守法律的公民社会。依靠有良好公民性的公民社会,才能节约治理的成本。     

The Fate of Citizenship in Post-Westphalia

The article discusses the meaning of citizenship in a situation where the nations-state as we know it, i.e. the Westphalian form of state, is being eroded, thereby losing some of its essential functions. Since, as the argument goes, citizenship is embodied in civil society, and civil society needs a protective shelter in the form of a political authority structure, the decline of the nation-state implies a serious dilemma as far as the maintenance of principles of citizenship and human rights are concerned. The author outlines possible post-Westphalian scenarios, focussing on globalism versus regionalism, and finally argues in favour of what is called 'regional multilateralism' a regionalized world order, facilitating a regional civil society.     

关于社会主义涵义的几点认识

社会主义是关于解放生产力,发展生产力,解放人,发展人,消灭剥削,消除两极分化,最终达到共同富裕的一种思想体系、制度体系、实践体系.其涵义在于1.社会主义首先是一种思想体系、制度体系、实践体系;2.社会主义是关于解放生产力,发展生产力、消灭剥削,消除两极分化,最终达到共同富裕的一种思想体系,制度体系,实践体系;3.社会主义实质上也是解放人、发展人、消灭剥削、消除两极分化,最终达到共同富裕的一种思想体系、制度体系、实践体系;4.社会主义既是解放生产力、发展生产力,又是解放人、发展人,从而消灭剥削,消除两极分化,最终达到共同富裕的一种动态的开放的思想体系、制度体系、实践体系.     

重塑公民:当代中国农民公民身份的考察与反思

无论从何种角度考察,公民首先表现为一种资格,权利与义务的内在规定是其本质的要义所在,只有二者统一,才能外化为公民身份.当代中国农民的公民身份在新中国成立后表现出单向度的特点,税费改革后这个特点发生了逆转,但也使农民的公民身份陷入了困惑.当前,农村社会发生了重大变迁,融入许多新的时代因素,新农险以其法理性契约关系的模式给重塑农民的公民身份以启迪,让我们反思过去,审视当下,积极创造条件以塑造新时代理性的农民公民.     

Protesting Against Citizenship

In The Transformation of Political Community (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998) Andrew Linklater suggests that he and Jacques Derrida share a “vision in which the totalising project is brought to an end” (pp. 74–75). However, the concept of citizenship acts as a prism through which Linklater and Derrida diverge radically. Linklater defends a dialogic conception of cosmopolitan citizenship in pursuit of more inclusive political arrangements. For Derrida, on the other hand, the future of the political requires radical openness to the coming of a universal alliance or solidarity beyond or in protest against citizenship. This article explores the divergence: first, to call into question Linklater's self-emplacement; second, to open up new angles of critique of his vision expressed in The Transformation of Political Community; and third, to emphasise the force of the Derridean argument.     

Citizenship as horizon

The idea of citizenship has today emerged as a global horizon under which a proliferating range of claims and demands for recognition, visibility, care, moral dignity, and inclusion are made. Initially a legal concept tied to self-determination and national sovereignty, the global human rights agenda has made citizenship less tied to the nation-state and instead a carrier of multiple cultural and political meanings and agendas from the global level to the most localized context. But can there be meaningful forms of citizenship that are not guaranteed by a sovereign state?