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(Regional) Norms and (Domestic) Social
Mobilization: Citizenship Politics in Post-Maastricht,
Post-Cold War Germany*
Jeffrey T. Checkel**
ARENA, University of Oslo
Abstract
This paper considers changing norms of citizenship and
membership in post-Maastricht, post-Cold War Europe.
Empirically, I contrast the domestic impact of two
European-level influences: the European citizenship
provisions contained in the Treaty on European Union, and
several Council of Europe treaties that address broader
issues of national membership (citizenship, minority
rights, naturalization). For reasons of both design and
empirical importance, I focus on only one country -- the
Federal Republic of Germany. My central research question
is to ask what effects the prescriptions embodied in
these norms have at the agent level in Germany.
The essay has five parts. I begin by briefly
describing my case -- the debate over citizenship and
membership in contemporary Germany. Second, I review
recent work by constructivists and students of
transnational social movements, with my argument being
that regional norms play two key roles at the national
level: mobilizing instrumentally motivated social groups
and agents; and promoting social learning among puzzling
or “novice” actors. The literature has largely
neglected this latter dynamic. After briefly discussing
issues of research design and methods, I -- fourth --
apply this argument to the Federal Republic. In the
conclusion, I situate my theoretical/empirical results
within ongoing debates over the role(s) of European
institutions, constructivism and its relation to rational
choice, and German identity.
Introduction
This paper asks whether and in what ways
“europeanization” -- in my case, the
development of new norms at the European level -- affects
politics within states. Most scholars would agree that
such collective understandings can have two very
different national-level effects. On the one hand, they
can provide domestic agents and actors with new
understandings of interests and identities; this view, of
course, is favored by social constructivists. Yet, it is
equally plausible that norms may simply constrain the
choices and behaviors of self-interested agents with
given identities, a view that virtually all
rational-choice scholars readily endorse (see also Klotz,
1995b: chapter 2). In exploring the impact of European
norms on the politics of German national identity, I
argue that both “schools” are right: Norms
sometimes constitute, and sometimes constrain.
Why this approach, and, for that matter, why the focus
on norms? On the former, my premise is that an
empirically based rational-choice/social-constructivist
dialogue is long overdue. Too many constructivists and
students of transnational advocacy movements, like all
too many rationalists, are method driven: They ignore the
obvious empirical fact that not all aspects of social
reality and interaction can be captured by their
preferred approach. Moreover, it is theoretically
unproductive and empirically false to divide social
interaction into two neat phases: an early one where
actors discover their interests (constructivism); and a
later phase where those same agents maneuver
strategically in pursuit of these -- now fixed --
interests (rational choice). While such
a “division of labor” thesis may be appealing
as it makes everyone happy, it will have the unfortunate
effect of truncating the type of dialogue favored here. [1]
The focus on European norms is motivated by two
factors. Theoretical logic suggests that contemporary
Western Europe, with its institutionally
“thick” environment, is a most likely case for
norms to emerge and diffuse (Weber, 1994; and, more
generally, Risse-Kappen, 1995: chapter 1). A second
factor is my own frustration with the literature on
European integration, the majority of which has explicit
or, more common, implicit, rationalist underpinnings;
this has led to an unjustified neglect of the causal role
played by social norms (Joergensen, 1997; Checkel,
1999c). [2]
Citizenship and Membership in the Federal Republic of
Germany
As in many European states, recent years have seen a
heated debate over citizenship and broader issues of
membership (rights of national minorities, immigration)
in Germany. While such debates have occurred before, the
present one is qualitatively different in two respects.
Domestically, it is broad-ranging and includes an array
of actors -- elite decisionmakers, Bundestag deputies,
representatives from the church and trade unions, members
of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and immigrants
themselves. Internationally, Germany is debating
fundamental reforms to its citizenship/membership laws at
a time when regional institutions -- in particular, the
European Union (EU) and Council of Europe (CE) -- have
taken a renewed interest in such questions. Thus, if it
was ever possible to analyze national debates over
membership in isolation, this is certainly not the case
today.
Within these new domestic and international contexts,
the German discussion centers on two questions. First and
at a practical level, the issue is how and to what degree
the country’s citizenship laws should be reformed.
While most politicians, analysts and activists are in
agreement that change is needed, the devil is in the
details. For example, should German law incorporate
greater elements of jus soli, where citizenship is
based on birthplace and not blood? Should immigrants be
allowed to retain their former nationality when they
acquire that of Germany (so-called “dual
citizenship”)? Opinion is sharply divided on these
and other matters (“Misstrauen gegen
unbekannt,” Der Spiegel, January 11, 1999,
for recent survey results).
Second, underlying this practical/legal debate is a
more basic one, which addresses fundamental notions of
how Germans, collectively, view their nation-state.
Conceptions of citizenship, by their very nature, create
boundaries. Who is a member of the national collectivity?
Who is not? At core, answers to these questions revolve
around degrees of inclusion/exclusion. Do Germans view
the boundaries of their collectivity/state in terms more
ethnic (blood) or civic (territorial)? In a crucial
sense, then, the current debate is about much more than
changes to law and administrative practice -- although,
these are certainly important. Rather, it is about the
dominant shared understandings -- norms -- of what it
means to be German, and whether these need to be changed.
Norms, Social Protest and Social Learning
So, norms matter. In itself, such a statement is of
little use -- for everything can matter. The challenge is
to think systematically about the mechanisms and
processes that link European norms, my cut at
Europeanization, with the domestic arena. In other words,
how does the norm get from “out there” -- the
European level -- to “down here” -- the
domestic arena, where -- potentially -- it affects both
policymaking and social mobilization? [3]
To have a causal impact, European norms must be
empowered in the domestic arena, that is, they must
constrain the behavior, or change the interests of some
agent or group. Norm empowerment directs our attention to
early stages in policymaking. Here, the issue is not so
much compliance with well-established regime norms
(Mueller, 1993) or whether they have become so
internalized as to be taken for granted (March and Olsen,
1989), but how norms first have effects -- an important
consideration given my focus on newly emergent
European-level understandings. This requires exploration
of the transmission mechanism or diffusion pathway
through which norms reach the domestic level.
Specifically, I define empowerment as occurring when
the prescriptions embodied in a norm become, through
changes in discourse or behavior, a focus of domestic
political contention or debate (Adler and Haas, 1992:
375-78; Kratochwil, 1989; Klotz, 1995b: chapter 2).
Empowerment involves elite decisionmakers and possibly
other societal actors as well. Put more carefully,
actions by state policymakers, be it changes in their
discourse or behavior, are a necessary but not always
sufficient condition for empowerment to occur (Bachrach
and Baratz, 1963).
A review of the broader political science, sociology,
transnational advocacy movements and international law
literatures reveals two different diffusion mechanisms
that empower norms domestically: one is a
“bottom-up” process, while the other is
“top-down.” The former comes in two variants. A
first argues that domestic social actors (NGOs, trade
unions or the like), in relative isolation from broader
transnational ties, exploit international norms to
generate pressure on state decisionmakers. Here,
empirical examples are typically drawn from the
industrialized West, with the argument apparently being
that these well established and, in some cases,
militarily powerful states are less susceptible to
transnational pressures (Cortell and Davis, 1996 [on the
US]; and Moravcsik, 1995 [on West Europe]).
Recently, a second, more sophisticated variant of the
bottom-up dynamic has been elaborated. In this case,
non-state actors and policy networks, at both the
national and transnational level, are united in their
support for norms; they then mobilize and coerce
decisionmakers to change state policy. Norms are
typically not internalized by the elites. The activities
of Greenpeace exemplify this political pressure mechanism
(Nadelmann, 1990; Charney, 1993: 543-550; Sikkink, 1993a;
Brysk, 1993; Klotz, 1995a; Idem, 1995b; Wapner,
1995; Ron, 1997; Hawkins, 1997; Keck and Sikkink, 1998: passim;
“A Survey of Human-Rights Law,” Economist,
December 5, 1998; Risse, Ropp and Sikkink, 1999).
This newer work is truly state of the
art in that it has generated novel insights at both the
theoretical and empirical levels. Yet, it contains a
three-fold bias against the state and state
decisionmakers. Normatively, elite policymakers are
portrayed as “bad”; empirically, they are
viewed as passive and reactive; ontologically, they are
viewed solely as calculating agents. Consider the
forthcoming Risse, Ropp and Sikkink volume on the
transnational diffusion of human rights norms. Their
starting point is the “boomerang” model (Keck
and Sikkink, 1998: chapter 1), whereby recalcitrant state
elites are caught in a vise of transnational and domestic
social mobilization. Here, the preferences of elites do
not change at early stages; however, their behavior and
strategies do. Temporally expanding the model, Risse, et
al, argue that at later points in the process
(perhaps five years to a decade), elites become less
reactive and, indeed, learn new preferences. While,
analytically, this is an important step forward, it is
unclear to me why state decisionmakers get to play this
(more intelligent) role only after an initial
“softening up” by networks and activists (Risse
and Sikkink, 1999; see also Keck and Sikkink, 1998: 3,
28-29). [4]
These two variants on the bottom-up mechanism have
received more attention in studies of norm diffusion. In
part, this is understandable. The shaming activities of
Greenpeace or Amnesty International, say, are very much
in the public and scholarly eye, and undoubtedly play a
major role empowering norms. Yet, it sets up an implicit
and unfortunate dichotomy between the good activists,
civil-society entrepreneurs, network activists or NGOs,
and the bad state, be it bureaucrats or elite
decisionmakers. The danger in such a dichotomy is not
only empirical (missing other possible normative effects
at the national level), but theoretical and ontological.
On the former, it replicates the unhelpful either/or
distinctions made in the early literature on
transnational politics (Keohane and Nye, 1971; see,
however, Risse-Kappen, 1995). Ontologically, it overlooks
the obvious empirical fact that political agents do not
simply or always power; they also puzzle -- a point made
so eloquently by Heclo over a quarter century ago (Heclo,
1974).
In fact, the broader literature points
to just such dynamic in what I call the top-down
diffusion mechanism. In this case, social learning, not
political pressure, leads agents -- typically elite
decisionmakers -- to adopt prescriptions embodied in
norms, which become internalized and constitute a set of
shared intersubjective understandings that make
behavioral claims. This process appears to be based on
notions of complex learning drawn from cognitive and
social psychology, where individuals, when exposed to the
prescriptions embodied in norms, adopt new interests
(Haas, 1990; Idem, 1992; Soysal, 1994; Stein,
1994; Finnemore, 1996; Robert Herman, “Identity,
Norms and National Security: The Soviet Foreign Policy
Revolution and the End of the Cold War,” in
Katzenstein, 1996: chapter 8; Wendt, 1996: chapters 7-8;
Checkel, 1997a: chapter 5). [5]
In sum, international/regional norms play two causally
important roles in domestic politics. They heighten
levels of social mobilization and contention, as societal
actors exploit them to pressure elites and reframe the
terms of debate (see also Tarrow, 1998a: chapter 7, on
the creation of “collective action frames”); in
the jargon, they “empower.” However, norms may
also “teach old dogs new tricks,” as they help
agents discover or learn what, precisely, their
preferences are in the first place. When these agents are
state elites, such learning may “re-empower”
them as well, as their cognitive horizons expand.
Now, admittedly, the analytic challenge is to
disentangle these two -- very differing -- dynamics. This
requires the elaboration of so-called scope or boundary
conditions, a point to which I return in the conclusion.
At this point, I simply wish to document their presence
in an important empirical case of Europeanization.
Case Selection and Methods
In a larger work-in-progress, I document and explain
how the two diffusion mechanisms identified above, which
link European norms to processes of domestic change, vary
in a systematic way across polities with differing
institutional structures: post-Soviet Russia, independent
Ukraine and unified Germany (see Checkel, 1997b, for
initial results). Here, I focus only on Germany, and do
so for three reasons. Theoretically, as already argued,
it is a most likely case for international-regional norms
to have a domestic impact; given my interest in studying
the role of norms at the national level, the German focus
thus makes sense. Methodologists may find this case
selection strategy problematic. Good theory testing
standards suggest that one pick “tough cases,”
where the theory is likely to be shown true, only if it
really is true. Such a strategy works best where the
extant body of literature is relatively mature and
advanced; however, as indicated earlier, theoretical work
on the diffusion mechanisms linking systemic norms to
domestic polities is at an early stage. Thus, I have
purposely chosen a case (Germany in post-Cold War Europe)
where normative diffusion should be at work; this more
readily allows me to establish the plausibility of my
argument (see also George, 1979, on “plausibility
probes”).
Empirically, my hunch was that German identity, contra
arguments advanced by a number of scholars (Keohane,
1993: chapter 1; Risse et al, 1997, for example),
would be resilient and relatively stable. This suspicion
was based on nothing more than a reading of the
specialist literature on the country, which stressed its
deeply rooted ethnic conception of citizenship. As my
fieldwork progressed, this hunch became an empirical
reality; in turn, this increased the appeal of an initial
focus on Germany. From a methodological perspective, it
was a case where “the dog didn't bark” -- that
is, where norms diffuse and are deeply contested in the
domestic arena. For constructivist and integration
literatures that too often have only considered cases
where norms or Europeanization “work,” my
German study should thus also be valuable.
Practically, given my process-tracing method and its
attendant data requirements, it simply would not be
possible to fit five cases (three countries, plus the
evolution of two sets of European-level norms) into one
paper. The resulting analysis would be stretched too
thin, leading readers to question the validity of my
results.
Regarding methods, my argument dictates a two-step
research methodology. First, I document the existence of
European norms on national membership and establish
whether the development of such norms correlates with
domestic policy debates or changing state practice.
Second, to move beyond correlations, I utilize a
process-tracing technique to describe the multiple
pathways through which these norms diffuse and affect
domestic politics.
On regional norms, an important methodological
challenge is to develop techniques for determining that
such understandings, independent of any domestic effects,
have evolved and become sufficiently robust to attain
prescriptive status -- that is, make behavioral claims on
actors. I employ two: textual and discursive analysis.
(These are operationalized in the Council of Europe
sub-section below.)
At the national level, my primary method is in-depth
interviews. In all instances, I utilized a similar
interview protocol, with my questions being designed to
tap an individual's basic beliefs about citizenship and
what motivated him/her to hold them. On the latter, I
gave interviewees several possibilities, including
answers that addressed the role of regional norms,
materialist incentives (easing citizenship might allow
more immigrants to access a decreasing social-welfare
pie), and identity concerns (easing citizenship would
dilute or change the “Germanness” of the
country).
As a supplement and check on the interview data, I
carry out a content analysis of major media -- German, in
this case. This not only allowed for checking the beliefs
and motivations of particular individuals (when that
person was both an interviewee and participant in public
debates); equally important, it helped me determine the
general public discourse about citizenship. Together,
these two methods allow for a degree of triangulation
when assessing the content of norms and normative effects
(see also Raymond, 1997: 219-222).
Citizenship and Membership in Germany: Post-Maastricht
and Post-Cold War
In this section, I first establish the degree to which
it is even possible to talk about European citizenship
norms. Next, I assess the fit between these norms and
German conceptions of identity, establishing a baseline
and context for the social mobilization and learning
documented in the section’s last two parts.
European Norms. When examining the development
of European understandings on citizenship and membership,
one is immediately struck by their tentative, incipient
nature. Indeed, at best one can speak of emergent norms
and understandings on these issues. Moreover,
Brussels-centered students of Europeanization might be
surprised to know it, but much of the more substantive
and interesting work in this area has occurred elsewhere,
in Strasbourg -- at the Council of Europe.
I begin by considering recent Council work on
membership and then examine the Maastricht treaty's
provisions for a European citizenship. I argue that while
the CE treaties contain minimal normative guidance,
Maastricht's conception of citizenship is nearly devoid
of such prescriptions. The difference is explained by the
ability of member states to dominate the agenda-setting
and negotiation that led to Maastricht's concept of
European citizenship, while, in Strasbourg, activists and
entrepreneurs, at least initially, were able to dominate
the European-level process.
Post-Cold War: Council of Europe. Questions of
membership -- rights of immigrants and ethnic minorities
-- have become central to the construction of national
identity in post-Cold War Europe. Laws on citizenship and
national minorities create fundamental categories and
distinctions; they define who is a member of a national
community. Is the membership principle jus sanguinis
(citizenship passed along blood lines) or jus soli
(citizenship accorded to anyone born on state territory)?
What rights do states grant to foreigners and migrants?
Are they viewed as citizens-in-waiting or aliens? How are
national minorities treated? Are they urged to assimilate
or is their separateness recognized? All these issues
have been matters of public debate in a wide range of
European countries in recent years (Hayden, 1992;
Verdery, 1993; Jones, 1994; Brubaker, 1989).
In contrast with the EU's work on citizenship, much of
the impetus behind this debate, as well as specific
proposals for change, came from the scholarly community
and non-governmental organizations with interests in
citizenship and immigrant/minority rights. These
discussions have advanced to the point where specific
propositions -- for example, on the desirability of dual
citizenship -- have gained wide backing (Miller, 1989;
Hammar, 1989; Hannum, 1991; Bauboeck and Cinar, 1994;
Bauboeck, 1994).
Moreover, proponents of such arguments have linked
them to the norms of the European human rights regime
centered on the Council of Europe. Far from being a
passive player in this process, the Council has sought
actively to influence it, seeking to create shared
understandings of citizenship and the rights of
immigrants and minorities -- the common social categories
that are a prerequisite for the creation of norms.
Indeed, the European rights framework and the Council are
considered to be one of the clearest examples of an
effective international regime (Donnelly, 1986: 620-24;
Sikkink, 1993b; Moravcsik, 1995).
In recent years, the CE has devoted increasing
attention to minority rights and citizenship. In
December, 1994, it adopted a Framework Convention for the
Protection of National Minorities (Council of Europe,
1994); in November, 1997, the Council approved a new
convention on nationality that addresses issues of
citizenship and immigrant rights (Directorate of Legal
Affairs, 1997). The former promotes shared understandings
regarding the legitimacy of minority rights and
identities; until now, such a consensus had never existed
at the European level. Council officials see the
Framework Convention's most important function precisely
as a tool for exerting normative pressure. As one put it,
the “important thing is that countries accepting it
promise to implement its principles -- and know the
spotlight will be turned on them if they fail to do
so” (Council of Europe, Forum [December
1994], p.34).
The convention on nationality revises norms on
citizenship that were embodied in a 1963
Council-sponsored treaty. On the question of dual
citizenship, this earlier treaty had taken a negative
view. It privileged state interests: From the vantage
point of the state, dual citizenship was bad news,
leading to split loyalties and complicating military
service obligations.
Seeking to exploit a growing scholarly, NGO and
European consensus that multiple nationality is often
necessary and desirable, the CE Secretariat drafted a new
European Convention on Nationality that privileges
individual over state interests and takes a neutral view
on dual citizenship. In reality, however, this
neutrality, by removing the earlier explicit negative
sanction, is designed to pressure states to be more open
to multiple nationality.
Do the Framework Convention and Convention on
Nationality promote European norms favoring new, more
inclusive conceptions of national membership? To answer
this question, I used two techniques. One is textual,
which meant a careful reading of the various draft treaty
texts and, for the nationality convention, a comparison
with its 1963 predecessor. Crucial in this regard were
the explanatory reports attached to each treaty, which
give an insider's view of their evolution. Textual
analysis of this sort uncovered areas where shared
understandings have emerged.
A second, more important, technique is discursive.
Interviewing in Strasbourg and in the various capitals
revealed that key aspects of both treaties have acquired
a prescriptive, taken-for-granted status as normative
understandings. For example, those involved in the
negotiations -- CE bureaucrats and national negotiators
-- no longer question the legitimacy of minority/group
rights in Europe, a concept which is still deeply
contested in the broader international arena.
Exploitation of this second method was only possible due
to extensive field work, which involved four rounds of
interviewing over three years. These techniques of
textual analysis and in-depth interviews replicate
Zuern's (1997: 298-302) excellent suggestions for
“using documents” and “asking
experts” when one wants to establish actor interests independent of behavior, a
methodological challenge analogous to the one faced here.
[6]
Thus, by the definition given earlier, these treaties
-- and the process that led to their promulgation -- do
indeed promote norms, which embody both specific
prescriptions and intersubjective agreement. At the same
time, their scope should not be overstated. For example,
the shared understanding on minority rights is limited to
the cultural sphere; on the more contentious issue of
political rights (territorial autonomy, say), no
normative understanding exists. [7]
The particular negotiating process that led to these
two CE treaties explains why, in contrast to the
EU/citizenship case, they embody tentative areas of
normative agreement. Both treaties were discussed for
several years in special “committees of
experts” (one on national minorities; the other on
nationality) that consisted of CE secretariat officials,
state officials and independent analysts. Thus out of the
limelight, these groups debated issues extensively;
moreover, at early stages, key CE secretariat officials
-- for example, former CE Secretary General Laluminiere
-- were able to exploit windows of opportunity to promote
new normative understandings within the groups (Checkel,
1999c). [8]
In sum, recent years have witnessed the development of
an emergent and tentative set of European understandings
on questions of membership; these norms are reflected in
the two CE treaties discussed above. Given the existence
of these norms, one should expect to see normative
diffusion at the national level, with the predicted
combination of social mobilization and social learning
occurring.
Post-Maastricht: European Union. For all the
scholarly attention devoted to the European citizenship
provisions of the Treaty on European Union (hereafter,
TEU or just Maastricht treaty), it is surprising just how
little is there -- either in terms of substantive content
or prescriptive guidance. Indeed, much of the academic
writing is explicitly normative in nature -- complaining
of the provisions' limited scope (Twomey, 1994, for
example).
The citizenship provisions of the TEU (Part Two,
Article 8) articulate minimal political rights (voting in
local and European Parliament [EP] elections), while
glossing over social and fundamental rights. Moreover,
the treaty language on citizenship is devoid of
prescriptive guidance on such key issues as the relation
between Union citizenship and member-state nationality or
fundamental rights (Treaty on European Union,
1993: 119-23).
Conceptually, of course, nationality can be
distinguished from citizenship. However, as a practical
matter, the latter is inextricably bound up with
nationhood and national identity. Maastricht thus
presented an opportunity to address this relationship,
one that is rapidly changing in contemporary Europe. Yet,
the TEU's citizenship provisions are silent on
nationality, except to say that European citizenship is
available only to individuals who are nationals of EU
member states; the latter is defined by member-state
nationality laws, which the TEU decisively leaves as a
state-level prerogative (O'Leary, 1992; Closa, 1995; Rea,
1995: 179-81).
The utter lack of EU-driven Europeanization on
nationality is made clear by a “Declaration on
Nationality of a Member State” attached to the
Maastricht treaty. This dominance of unchanging state
preferences on nationality has a long history in the
EC/EU: When the UK and Germany joined the EC, for
example, both issued declarations on nationality stating
that Brussels, in their opinion, had no competence in
this area (Closa, 1995: 510; O'Leary, 1992: 360,
respectively).
Regarding fundamental rights, the Commission and
European Parliament (EP) had been hoping to include them
in Maastricht's conception of Union citizenship. This
would have corrected what they saw as the EU's
longstanding neglect of basic rights -- most notably, its
refusal to ratify the European Convention of Human Rights
(ECHR). Once again, however, member-state preferences
dominated and Commission proposals to include fundamental
rights in Maastricht's citizenship
provisions were rejected (O'Leary, 1995: passim;
Neuwahl and Rosas, 1995). [9]
Thus, despite persistent agenda-setting efforts by the
Commission and the EP, the member-states maintained firm
control over development of the TEU's citizenship
provisions -- not surprising given how national
conceptions of citizenship are such a deeply rooted part
of state identity in contemporary Europe. The informal
deliberative processes that were key for generating
shared understandings in Strasbourg were absent in
Brussels. Given these trends, it comes as no surprise
that the June 1997 Amsterdam EU Summit, despite its
mandate to revise the TEU, had nothing to say about
extensions to or modifications of its citizenship
provisions (Koslowski, 1994; O'Keeffe, 1994; Closa, 1994;
Neuwahl and Rosas, 1995: chapters 1, 7; and, on
Amsterdam, Lemke, 1997: 2-3). [10]
Perhaps the future will bring a new
round of EU-driven mobilization and Europeanization in
this area. Indeed, some analysts go so far as to talk of
the “dynamic” and “evolutionary”
character of Maastricht's citizenship provisions
(O'Keeffe, 1994: 102, for example). Yet, the TEU itself
mandates that any further changes will require a
unanimous vote within the European Council -- thus
minimizing their likelihood (Treaty on European Union,
1993: 123). Moreover, the European Court of Justice
(ECJ), which has often been a key agenda-setter in the
Europeanization process (Alter, 1998), will find it
difficult to play any such role on citizenship:
Fundamental rights and nationality -- central issues in
any further elaboration of the TEU's European citizenship
-- are notable in Community law only for their absence
(O'Leary, 1992: 357; Idem, 1995: 545). [11]
All in all, then, Maastricht's citizenship provisions
lack any normative dimension (see also O'Leary, 1995:
548-49, 553). Rather than embodying prescriptive
guidance, they are a list of minimal rights and
information, which essentially codify, but do not further
develop, what was already extent in Community law. At the
national level, one would therefore expect few noticeable
diffusion effects -- be they through societal
mobilization or social learning.
Europeanization and German Citizenship - I: History
Matters. The foregoing suggests that European norms
on citizenship and membership are evolving. Especially in
the case of the Strasbourg-based process, they are moving
in a more inclusive direction, with emphasis on broadened
understandings of both citizenship and the rights of
national minorities; in particular, these CE norms
promote inclusion by facilitating dual citizenship. In
Germany, dual citizenship would promote the assimilation
of the large foreigner population. In most cases, present
German law requires immigrants and foreigners to give up
their original citizenship if they wish to seek it in
Germany; this is an obstacle to integration since many do
not wish to sever all ties to their homeland. The
importance of dual citizenship for large parts of the
foreigner community is so great that they acquire it
through illegal methods that contravene German law (Diehl
and Urbahn, 1997: section 2; Kreuzer, 1997: 5; Martina
Keller, “Einbuergern, Ausbuergern,
Einbuergern,” Die Zeit, March 27, 1997;
Interview, Kennan Kolat, President, and Safter Cinar,
Speaker, Tuerkischer Bund in Berlin/Brandenburg, May
1996).
The lack of fit between these changing regional norms
and understandings of identity and citizenship held by
many (but not all -- see below) Germans is significant.
While there are clear historical reasons why these
understandings took hold in Germany, the important point
is that they have been reinforced over time and are now
rooted in domestic laws and institutions (for background,
see Brubaker, 1992: chapters 3-4, 6; Kanstroom, 1993).
Legal and bureaucratic indicators as well as textual
analysis and interview data all suggest the embedded
nature of these domestic norms. Most important, the
German citizenship statute, as of early 1999, continues
to be based on a Law on Imperial and State Citizenship
that dates from 1913, and an ethnic conception of
identity is maintained throughout the German legal system
-- notably in Article 116 (1) of the Basic Law, the
post-war German constitution. Indeed, the ethnic core of
the 1913 citizenship law is reproduced in the Basic Law
via a so-called “Nationalstaatsprinzip” (the
Nation-State Principle), which makes very clear that
there is a material core (that is, blood ties) connecting
a citizen and his/her nation. As one analyst has noted,
this basic principle, despite minor modifications over
the years, “remains effective until [the]
present” (Kreuzer, 1997: 2). It is thus not
surprising that a CDU expert on nationality and citizenship, Rupert Scholz, claims a
fundamental, constitutional status for the concept of jus
sanguinis (Hailbronner, 1989: 77; Kanstroom, 1993: passim;
Koslowski, 1994: 371; Fulbrook, 1994: 233; Leslie, 1996:
5-8). [12]
Developments in German jurisprudence have also
promoted the institutionalization of historically
constructed understandings of citizenship and identity.
Most notably, the Federal Constitutional Court
(Bundesverfassungsgericht) has elaborated what German
analysts call the “evil doctrine”: the dictum
that “dual nationality is an evil from the national
as well as the international viewpoint, and it should be
avoided in the interests of citizens and states.”
Likewise, in a 1989 ruling which struck down a Laender
law on local voting rights for immigrants, the Court
insisted it “would be incorrect to claim that the
concept of the 'people' in the German constitution had
undergone a change due to the drastic rise of the aliens
population” (Bauboeck, 1994: 116; Kreuzer, 1997: 1,
respectively). [13]
Finally and at a very practical level, it is striking
how ethnic and exclusive understandings of identity so
often appear as the default mode in public discourse,
suggesting their deeply rooted nature. Consider one,
important, recent example. In May 1997, Federal President
Roman Herzog gave a speech in Berlin dedicated to the
opening of the “European Year Against Racism,”
an initiative co-sponsored by the European Union and the
Council of Europe. A former judge and moderate within the
CDU, he clearly intended the speech to be a
bridge-building exercise between Germans and the
foreigner community within their country.
Herzog warned, in particular, against the danger of
stereotyping foreigners as temporary visitors; yet,
almost in the same breath, he referred to their status in
terms of guests' rights (Gastrechte). This led one young
German-born Greek in the audience to heatedly reply that
she did not consider herself a guest. Subsequent
newspaper editorials harshly criticized Herzog's faux
pas: How could one talk about the guest rights of
foreigners born in Germany? (“Herzog wuerdigt
Rolle der Auslaender,” Sueddeutsche Zeitung,
March 5, 1997; “Folklore, Gyros, Trallala,” Sueddeutsche
Zeitung, March 5, 1997).
Why bother with all this history and
background? For a simple -- theoretical -- reason: Work
on “role conflict” in cognitive/social
psychology (Barnett, 1993) and on “cultural
matches” in sociology (Meyer and Strang, 1993)
strongly suggests that, when one studies the spread of
norms, a crucial variable affecting their ability to
spark dynamics of contention or learning will be the
normative environment into which they diffuse. In
particular, for cases like the German one documented
above, where there is a degree of mismatch between
regional and domestic norms, one should expect heightened
levels of normative contestation and a short-circuiting
of social learning as agents find themselves in multiple
(domestic, regional) institutional settings that evoke
conflicting roles. At a cognitive level, greater numbers
of these agents should experience framing and dissonance
problems. [14]
Europeanization and German Citizenship - I I:
Pressures from Strasbourg. In this sub-section, I
organize my case material in terms of the two diffusion
mechanisms identified earlier.
Social Pressure. Recent years have witnessed an
explosion of societal interest in questions of
citizenship and the situation of foreigners in Germany,
with key roles being played by the liberal media,
churches, trade unions, grassroots citizens' initiatives,
and the commissioners for foreigners' affairs. The
activities of foreigners' groups and councils, while
important, have been less consequential (for background,
see Katzenstein, 1987: chapter 5; Kanstroom, 1993: Part
III; Klusmeyer, 1993).
For some, the very existence of such concern and
pressure might be surprising. After all, here, one is
talking about rights for individuals -- foreigners --
who, for the most part, are non-citizens; by definition,
they are disenfranchised (see, however, McClain, 1993).
Moreover, with few exceptions -- some local elections,
for example -- foreigners and immigrants in Germany have
no voting rights. Thus, political parties have few
incentives to heed the concerns of these individuals.
Such general arguments, however, overlook a crucial
point: the length of time these non-citizens have been
present in Germany. Large-scale movements of immigrants
began in the late 1950s, when the first guest workers
were recruited. Over the past 40 years, they have slowly
gained access to the political process through at least
three routes. For one, existing and powerful social
actors such as the trade unions now consistently support
liberalizing changes to Germany's citizenship and
naturalization laws. In addition, the churches, another
important social group in the German system, have adopted
the cause of foreigners as their own. Finally, despite a
disenfranchised status as non-citizens, foreigners are
increasingly mobilizing to promote their rights
(“ZDK sieht Deutschland als Einwanderungsland,”
GermNews (DE), January 31, 1996; Konrad Schuller,
“Was gut ist fuer Deutschland, ist gut fuer uns
alle,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March
18, 1996; Interview, Mustafa Cakmakoglu, President,
Tuerkische Gemeinde zu Berlin, May 1996).
Having established that societal pressure and
mobilization in this policy area is possible, the next
step is to document its presence and the extent to which
CE/European norms promote and facilitate such activity.
One force helping to mobilize pressure from below has
been the liberal German press, especially the
Hamburg-based Die Zeit. Its analyses of foreigners
in Germany has shifted from neutral reporting to near
advocacy. Of interest here, the paper's reporters have
forcefully promoted dual citizenship as a way to better
integrate immigrant groups such as the Turks. In making
such arguments, they often point to broader European
understandings favoring dual citizenship (Robert Leicht,
“Scheinangebot,” Die Zeit, December 2,
1994; Theo Sommer, “Diese Tuerkei zaehlt nicht zu
Europa,” Die Zeit, April 7, 1995).
A second societal actor is the churches. In recent
years, the governing bodies of the Protestant,
Evangelical and Catholic denominations have called for
Germany to adopt an immigration and integration policy
for its resident foreigners, including acceptance of dual
citizenship and a move to greater elements of jus soli
in German law. In Berlin, the Evangelical church has
produced flyers on dual citizenship (“Handreichung
zum Thema: Doppelte Staatsbuergerschaft” [Berlin,
1995]); these make the case for it by referring, among
other factors, to emerging European norms and recent work
by the Council of Europe. In the best corporatist
tradition, the churches have also sought to make their
views known by participating in conferences and policy
networks on issues of foreigners' rights (Jochen
Buchsteiner, “Konzepte, die erst reifen
muessen,” Die Zeit, November 18, 1994;
Interview, Thomae-Venske, Commissioner for Foreigners'
Affairs, Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg, May
1996; GermNews, January 7, 1999).
The broader public -- in the form of a grassroots
citizens' initiative -- has been a third social force
present in the debate. Seizing upon a policy window
created by the surge in anti-foreigner violence that
accompanied German unification, a group of activists
based in Berlin orchestrated, beginning in 1992, an
initiative that was specifically focused on the need for
dual citizenship in German law; it gathered over 1
million signatures from a broad array of public figures
(“Unser Ziel: 1 Million Unterschriften fuer die
doppelte Staatsbuergerschaft” [Berlin, no date];
Interviews, Ismail Kosan, Member of the Berlin
Parliament, Buendnis 90/Die Gruenen Fraction, May 1996;
Andreas Schulze, Staff Member, Office of F.O. Wolf,
German Member of the European Parliament, Berlin, May
1996).
It was a textbook example of how to mobilize public
pressure on a specific policy issue. The campaign
coordinated its actions with other social actors
(specifically, the Evangelical Church), collected
signatures from prominent German academics and public
figures, and secured free publicity for the initiative in
the centrist-liberal German press (Der Spiegel, Sueddeutsche
Zeitung and Berliner Zeitung, among others).
Moreover, the existence of European understandings
favoring inclusive conceptions of citizenship played an
important role in the campaign. Signature collectors
pointed to the presence of such norms, and, more
generally, the initiative distributed an information
sheet noting that Germany's refusal to recognize multiple
nationality made it “an international
exception” (“Informationen zum deutschen
Staatsbuergerrecht: Doppelstaatsbuergerschaften”
[Berlin, no date]).
A fourth actor playing a role at the societal level is
a unit nominally a part of the government: the various
commissioners of foreigners' affairs. While there are
dozens of such commissioners at all levels of the German
polity, two stand out for their importance: the Office of
the Federal Government's Commissioner for Foreigners'
Affairs, established in 1978 and headed until late 1998
by Cornelia Schmalz-Jacobsen; and the Commissioner of
Foreigners' Affairs of the Berlin Senat, created in 1981
and directed by Barbara John (Federal Government's
Commissioner for Foreigners' Affairs, No Date;
Auslaenderbeauftragte des Senats, 1994;
Auslaenderbeauftragte des Senats, 1995a; Interview,
Barbara John, Commissioner of Foreigners' Affairs of the
Berlin Senat, November 1995, May 1996).
Both units, but especially the one in Berlin, have
significant influence at the local level -- for example,
working with foreigners' councils and furthering the
social integration of immigrants into communities. The
office in Berlin, in contrast to the federal one, is also
involved in politics, seeking to build policy networks
that can advance the rights of immigrants. In playing
this political role, John's office makes use of the
liberal citizenship policies of several neighboring
countries, as well as European norms. On the latter, a
brochure distributed by the Berlin office is entitled
“Double Citizenship - A European Norm.” John
herself is aware of Council of Europe work in this area
and is involved in several Council projects
(Auslaenderbeauftragte des Senats, 1995a: 21; Idem,
1995b).
Groups formed by immigrants and
foreigners themselves are a final societal actor seeking
to align domestic conceptions of national membership with
emerging European norms. Somewhat surprisingly given
their stake in the matter, they have played a marginal
role in the national policy debates. One reason is the
young age of such organizations. An all-German group
promoting the interests of ethnic Turks, for example, was
only founded in December 1995 (“Tuerkische Gemeinde
in Deutschland E.V. Gegruendet,” Mimeo [Hamburg, no
date]). Basic disagreements over goals and strategies
among these organizations are a second, and equally
important, factor behind the lack of influence. In
Berlin, the two main Turkish organizations are sharply
divided over a number of issues and do not coordinate
their activities (Interviews, Kennan Kolat; Safter Cinar;
Mustafa Cakmakoglu; Barbara John). [15]
So, new regional norms have mattered; in particular,
they have further accelerated a politics of contention
and social mobilization that were already underway. Yet,
exactly how, at the agent level, did they matter? My
interviewing and fieldwork reveal a mixed picture. In the
majority of cases (trade unions, press, churches), these
social agents are using CE norms to pursue given ends;
they are an additional tool which can be instrumentally
used to generate pressure on government policymakers -- a
dynamic consistent with the argument found in much of the
recent constructivist and transnational advocacy networks
literatures. This suggests that the domestic impact of CE
norms is here better captured by rationalist arguments.
On the last point, let me be clear.
The argument is not that these agents were pursuing
material interests. (Although, this may have been true in
some cases.) Rather, I am suggesting that the behavioral
dynamic was consistent with a so-called “thin”
rationalist account, where the goals pursued may be
non-material (normative values, say), but the underlying
theory of action is still consequentialist –
“means-ends” -- in nature (see also Keck and
Sikkink, 1998: 5, on “the strategic activity of
actors in an intersubjectively structured political
universe”; and, especially, Finnemore and Sikkink,
1998: 910, on “strategic social construction”).
[16]
Yet, at the same time, several societal actors in
Germany have acquired new interests via exposure to
Council norms -- through a process of social learning
where the underlying dynamic is not in any serious way
consequentialist. Such agents are typically newer ones
who are thus still developing preferences on the
citizenship issue. This was clearly the case with several
of the immigrant activists interviewed. They had a
general and vague preference for “integration,”
but it took exposure to regional norms to give
operational content to it -- for example, by seeking
integration through the specific mechanism of dual
citizenship.
Social Learning. There is evidence of learning
from norms among a number of elites and decisionmakers;
in several cases, this occurred prior to the social
mobilization dynamics sketched above. Put differently,
active puzzling by state elites -- and not reactive
calculation, as portrayed in most accounts -- is an
additional diffusion dynamic at work in the Federal
Republic.
Consider Cornelia Schmalz-Jacobsen, former head of the
Federal Commissioner's office, and Richard von
Weizsaecker, who held the post of Federal President until
May 1994. Both have spoken out forcefully for a new
understanding of the place of foreigners and minorities
in the German state -- in some cases, well before the
worst of the anti-foreigner violence occurred. In
particular, they called for an easing of naturalization
rules, a revocation of laws prohibiting dual nationality,
and for a more inclusive, civic conception of German
citizenship (Quentin Peel, “German President Urges
Easier Citizenship Laws,” Financial Times,
December 24, 1992).
With Schmalz-Jacobsen, there is clear evidence of a
learning process driven by exposure to broader European
understandings. Her office has extensive contacts with
governmental units and NGOs addressing
citizenship-nationality issues in Great Britain, the
Netherlands and several Scandinavian countries. She is
aware of Council of Europe work in this area, often
making reference to it in Bundestag debates or other
public appearances. Germany, Schmalz-Jacobsen argues,
must develop a “concept” for immigration and
citizenship that is “integrated on a European and
international level” (Report by the Federal
Government's Commissioner for Foreigners' Affairs,
1994: 87-88; Interview, Dr. Camelia Sonntag-Volgast,
Bundestag Deputy, SDP, August 1995).
More specifically, two types of data support a social
learning argument. First, there is the change over time
in Schmalz-Jacobsen's understanding of the citizenship/DC
issue. While she has long campaigned for foreigners'
rights in Germany, Schmalz-Jacobsen now explicitly
connects this concern with a broader and changing
European context (compare Judy Dempsey, “A Change
Foreign to her Nature” [interview with
Schmalz-Jacobsen], Financial Times, February 8,
1993; with Report by the Federal Government's
Commissioner for Foreigners' Affairs, 1994). Second,
interviews with two advisers confirm that exposure to
international/CE work on citizenship has influenced her
views (Interviews, Georgios Tsapanos and Michael
Schlikker, Office of Federal Government's Commissioner
for Foreigners' Affairs, March, August 1995).
More recently, evidence suggests learning among a new
group of elites: the so-called “young, wild
ones” in the ruling CDU. This is a group of younger
Christian Democratic Bundestag deputies who advocate,
contra the wishes of Party elders, major reforms to
German citizenship laws. In particular, they favor
granting DC, for a limited period of approximately 18
years, to children born in Germany of foreigner parents
(Peter Altmaier and Norbert Roettgen, “Die Uhr
laeuft: Das Staatsangehoerigkeitsrecht muss noch bis zur
Bundestagswahl 98 reformiert werden,” Die Zeit,
August 15, 1997 [the authors are leading members of the
young, wild ones]; Hans-Joerg Heims,
“Beruhigungspillen fuer die jungen Wilden: Der
Streit um die doppelte Staatsangehoerigkeit spaltet die
CDU,” Sueddeutsche Zeitung, April 23, 1997).
Why this behavior? As they are politicians, an obvious
explanation would be instrumental self-interest: It is a
way of advancing their political careers within the
party. However, leading CDU figures still vehemently
oppose any move toward DC, with former Chancellor Kohl
recently declaring that “if we were to yield on the
question of double citizenship, then in a short time we
would have not three million, but four, five or six
million Turks in our land” (Helmut Loelhoeffel,
“Koalition vertagt ihren Streit,” Frankfurter
Rundschau, October 31, 1997). Tellingly, the
Chancellor made this angry statement at a meeting of the
CDU Youth Union, where the young, wild ones enjoy a
measure of support. Career advancement thus does not seem
to explain their actions (see also “Ich mache mir
keine illusionen” [interview with Wolfgang
Schaeuble, Kohl’s successor as CDU head], Die
Zeit, January 7, 1999).
A more likely explanation is learning
from emerging norms. In their own writings and
interviews, the wild ones and their supporters in the
Party argue that they are seeking to bring German policy
into line with “European standards”; in a
similar fashion, they claim to be “fitting German
citizenship law to the European context.” Altmaier
and Roettgen, two of the group's leaders, refer to
extensive discussions with foreigners organizations and
churches and how these exchanges have influenced their
views on DC. And, as noted earlier, it is precisely
immigrant NGOs and churches who have played key roles in
diffusing changing European norms on DC to the Federal
Republic (“Hilflose Parlaments-Mehrheit,” Sueddeutsche
Zeitung, October 28, 1997; Horst Eylmann, “Es
gibt keine nationale Blutgruppe,” Die Zeit,
April 18, 1997; and “Schnellere Beratungen
gefordert: Juengere Abgeordnete zur Novellierung des
Staatsangehoerigkeitsrechts,” Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, April 16, 1996, where Altmaier
and Roettgen refer specifically to discussions with
foreigners' groups). [17]
Yet, for each instance of learning of this sort at the
state level, one finds many cases of
“non-learning” as well. That is, other elite
players have a radically different conception of German
identity, a much more exclusive one that appears heavily
shaped by dominant domestic norms; in turn, these hinder
and slow any learning process. This is seen in two ways.
First, opponents of change often cast their arguments in
terms of “Germanness” and “national
identity,” sometimes explicitly referring to the
1913 citizenship statute. Some might claim this is simply
political posturing, where notions of identity are
invoked as a cover for self interest. In this case, there
are problems with such an argument. It is not at all
clear whose economic or electoral interests are being
served given the growing public consensus on the need to
integrate the large foreigner population. These opponents
also make use of the broader European context to buttress
their arguments, often pointing to the norms of an
earlier, 1963 Council of Europe treaty that essentially
prohibited dual nationality (Jochen Buchsteiner, “Am
liebsten abschirmen,” Die Zeit, February 2,
1996; Interviews, Cem Oezdemir, Bundestag Deputy, Green
Party, March 1995; Dr. Camelia Sonntag-Volgast; German
Ministry of Interior, March, August 1995; Dr. Jens
Meyer-Ladewig and Detlef Wasser, German Ministry of
Justice, August 1995; Thomae-Venske; Safter Cinar; Ismail
Kosan).
The foregoing leads to an important observation.
Europeanization not only creates new opportunities,
generates contention and empowers social movements, it
can also be a resource for state elites. Earlier, I
documented how it was a resource for those
“puzzling” elites with high levels of cognitive
uncertainty: The regional norms promoted by
Europeanization facilitated social learning. Here, it
serves as a very different kind of resource, with elites
exploiting other norms (those in the 1963 treaty) to
advance given interests. The argument thus builds on
Moravcsik’s (1994) much criticized
“strengthening the state” thesis, where
integration bestows additional policy authority on state
decisionmakers. While his thesis is overstated and
limited by its materialist and methodologically
individualist ontology, it does offer a healthy reminder
that we should not “read the state out” of our
analyses of contention or normative diffusion, or, more
to the point, to portray state agents only and always as
passive and reactive.
Second and following on the last point, key units
within the government have pro-actively sought to
minimize the influence of new norms on national
membership sponsored by the Council. For example, when
Germany signed the Council's Framework Convention on
National Minorities in May 1995, it issued a special
declaration making clear that: (1) the Council had no
right to define a national minority; and (2) Germany
would adhere to its traditional understanding that the
category “national minority” applies only to
individuals within its borders who hold German
citizenship. In other words, the large numbers of Roma
and Turks living in the country but without citizenship
status would be excluded from the Convention's normative
reach (“Germany Signs European Council Convention on
Minority Rights,” This Week in Germany, May
19, 1995; Rose, 1995; Interviews, German Foreign
Ministry, March, June 1995; Hanno Hartig, CE Secretariat,
June 1995; Vera Jungewelter, German Ministry of Justice,
August 1995).
Even more notable are the government's efforts to
block norms on citizenship sponsored by the Council. In
particular, the Interior Ministry, during 1993-97, made
clear its unhappiness with the new nationality treaty --
especially the provisions on dual citizenship. For a
period during 1995, Germany went so far as to boycott
sessions of the working group that was drafting the
treaty (Interviews, German ministerial official, March,
August 1995; CE Secretariat, June 1995, May 1996).
A Policy in Flux. This active resistance and
“non-learning” of governmental elites has led
to a situation where, despite the societal mobilization
documented above, there was not rapid or wide-ranging
policy change -- particularly on the issue of dual
citizenship. With the exception of some minor changes to
citizenship statutes enacted in 1993 that affected
children of foreigners (Deutsches
Staatsangehoerigkeitsrecht, 1993: 63), the pace of
change has been slow and contested, with five rounds of
Bundestag debate, over a three-year period, ending in
deadlock and recrimination (Spiros Simitis, “Zwei
Paesse - warum nicht?,” Die Zeit, January 27,
1995; “Welcome and Stay Out,” Economist,
May 14, 1994; “Bloody-Minded,” Economist,
February 25, 1995; “Auslaenderrechts-Tango im
Bundestag,” Sueddeutsche Zeitung, November
14, 1996; “Debatte zur Neuregelung des
Staatsangehoerigkeitsrechts am 30. Oktober 1997,” Das
Parlament Nr.46, November 7, 1997; “Germany:
Dual Citizenship,” Migration News 5 (January
1998); “Die Koalition lehnt die erleichterte
Einbuergerung von Auslaenderkindern ab,” Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, March 28, 1998).
At this point, the knowledgeable reader may exclaim
“wait a minute”! Surely, this deadlocked state
of affairs has changed dramatically since the September
1998 federal elections, when the CDU/CSU coalition was
replaced by a SPD/Green one. Indeed, as of this writing
(mid-January 1999), the new government is within days of
legislating the most far-reaching changes to
Germany’s nationality laws since the 1913
citizenship statute was enacted. Among other liberalizing
proposals, these will allow dual citizenship, albeit most
likely for a limited period, after which immigrants must
choose German nationality or that of their
“home” country (Koalitionsvertrag, 1998: Teil
IX; and, for overview and background, “Germany:
Citizenship, Asylum,” Migration News 5
[December 1998]; “Der Kampf um die Paesse,” Der
Spiegel, January 11, 1999). From the standpoint of
the arguments advanced in this paper, these changes raise
two important issues: (1) do they herald a dramatic shift
in the diffusion dynamics sketched earlier; and (2) are
they evidence of victory for the social movements that
have for so long pushed for such reforms?
On the former, both diffusion
mechanisms that link European norms to German politics --
social mobilization and social learning -- still appear
to be at work. To cite one example: German NGOs, the
liberal press and immigrant groups, over the last three
months, have intensified their pressure campaign -- again
pointing to the laws of other countries and changing
European norms to make the case for fundamental reforms
of German citizenship/identity conceptions (Roger de
Weck, “Pro: Zwei Paesse,” Die Zeit,
January 7, 1999; Manfred Ertel, “Regalmaessig
akzeptiert: In den meisten europaeischen Laendern ist die
doppelte Staatsangehoerigkeit kein Problem fuer Politik
und Buerger,” Der Spiegel, January 11, 1999).
[18]
There is also additional evidence of social learning
by some elites. SPD leader and Finance Minister Oskar
Lafontaine, for example, has recently argued that a
central goal in allowing dual citizenship in the Federal
Republic is “to europeanize German nationality
law” (“Possibility for Talks Concerning Dual
Citizenship,” GermNews, January 12, 1999).
However, as before, other elites continue to exploit, in
a proactive way, the European arena to advance their own
-- unchanging -- views on citizenship; this is especially
true for members of the CDU/CSU opposition.
Most important, they have announced plans to challenge,
in the European Court of Justice, the constitutionality
of any move toward dual citizenship (“CSU May
Challenge SPD’s Citizenship Plans in Court,” GermNews,
January 6, 1999). [19]
At a more general level, recent events confirm the
relevance of my earlier theoretical discussion of role
conflict and cultural matches, with historically
constructed and ethnic conceptions of German identity
clashing with new, emergent and more civic
understandings. Indeed, the SPD/Green citizenship reform
proposals have both intensified this clash and revealed
its deeper, underlying normative dimension. The result,
over the past four months, has been a wide-ranging public
debate in Germany unlike any seen in many years. [20] It is a heated --
impassioned would not be too strong a word --
disagreement over the normative constitution of what it
means to be German. For sure, some of the rhetoric is
just that: Rhetoric employed strategically in an ongoing
political contest. However, in many other cases, it goes
beyond this, to what FDP general secretary Westerwelle
has called “immigration policies from the gut”
-- that is, behavior driven not by politics and
strategizing, but by more fundamental identity
conceptions (“Opposition Parties Clash over
Citizenship Plans,” Financial Times, January
5,” Sueddeutsche Zeitung, January 5/6, 1999).
All this said, one still needs to answer the second
issue raised above: Are the recent changes evidence of
the power of social movements and their politics of
contention? After all, there is a strong correlation
between the content of the SPD/Green proposals and
reforms earlier advocated by numerous individuals, groups
and movements in Germany. Yet, correlation is not
causation, and while my research is still very much in
progress, I am skeptical of any strong claims along these
lines. For one, the shift in policy also correlates with
a rather dramatic changeover at the elite level. SPD
Chancellor Schroeder is not simply a “third
way,” Blairite social democrat; equally important,
he signals the arrival in power of a truly post-war generation of German politicians. And
“generational change” of this sort is often a
key causal variable behind radical policy shifts,
especially at the ideational/normative level highlighted
here (see also Stein, 1994: 162-63, passim). [21]
More important, it is crucially important, from a
methodological perspective, to ask the counterfactual:
Absent the development of new regional norms and absent
domestic social mobilization, would liberalizing changes
to citizenship and naturalization laws in any case be
occurring in a modern industrial democracy such as
Germany? While it is beyond the limits of the present
paper to conduct a thorough analysis of this sort, there
are reasons to expect that the answer might be
“yes.” For example, it has recently been argued
that immigration/nationality policy in liberal states has
an in-built bias towards becoming more expansionist and
inclusive over time: It is dominated by client politics,
where small and often well-organized employer,
human-rights and ethnic groups work with state officials
outside public view to promote more inclusive membership
policies. While the sentiment of the general public is
typically anti-immigration, this interest is diffuse; in
contrast, the interests of immigrant advocacy groups tend
to be concentrated. Collective action problems thus
explain: (a) the public’s inability to bring about
more restrictive change; and (b) why the preferences of
the better organized liberal interest groups tend to
prevail (Freeman, 1998: 101-104). [22]
In sum, while it is never analytically satisfying to
have an overdetermined outcome, the three causal strands
identified above -- social mobilization and social
learning spurred by regional norms, generational turnover
and client politics -- can nonetheless be reconciled in
the following manner. For one, it is very likely that the
SPD election victory and accompanying generational shift
simply accelerated a process of change that was already
under way, due to the mobilization and learning dynamics
sketched earlier. Moreover, the “concentrated
interests” of the advocacy groups stressed by
analysts like Freeman were most likely: (a) more
“mobilizeable” due to the existence of new
regional norms; and (b) in some cases, learned in the
first place via exposure to such norms.
Europeanization and German
Citizenship - III: Pressures from Brussels. In part
because the TEU's citizenship provisions lack any
prescriptive guidance, the German debate over their
implementation has lacked the social mobilization or
learning dynamics seen in the CE case. Indeed, the EU's
democratic deficit is being replicated within the Federal
Republic as few societal actors or groups have even taken
notice of Maastricht's Union citizenship provisions.
Instead, the debate has been largely confined to elites
(Laender officials, judges, politicians) as they
calculate strategies for carrying out the TEU's
citizenship injunctions.
I use the phrase “calculate strategies”
purposely as the evidence indicates that the adoption of
a Union citizenship in Brussels has led to no fundamental
reconceptualization of German membership; rather,
domestic agents view it as a constraint on their behavior
or as an opportunity to exploit. One only need consider
the example already given: how prominent CDU/CSU elites
plan a legal challenge, based on Maastricht’s
European citizenship provisions, to current SPD proposals
on dual citizenship. [23]
This is not to argue that the TEU’s
Euro-citizenship statute does not have effects in the
Federal Republic -- far from it. Various Laender have
been required to make changes to their electoral laws
and, to take just one example, French nationals are now
voting in local elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg. However,
in terms of this essay’s central concerns -- how and
whether Europeanization and normative diffusion are
spurring social mobilization/learning -- these changes
are of little interest. The overwhelming conclusion one
can infer from media coverage and the specialist
literature is that European citizenship in Germany has
been a dry and technocratic affair, where agents have
engaged in a self-interested game of strategic adaptation
to a new external constraint (Degen, 1993; Bauer and
Kahl, 1995; Engelken, 1995; “Kein Konkurrenzschutz
an der Urne,” Sueddeutsche Zeitung, February
28, 1997; “Gericht: EU-Auslaender darf in Bayern
nicht Buergermeister werden,” Agence France Presse,
November 6, 1997).
One caveat to my analysis is in
order. Simply put, it may be too early to tell whether EU
citizenship will promote mobilization or learning
dynamics that may, in the longer term, have deeper,
identity-shaping effects in the Federal Republic. After
all, new laws are now on the books and if they become
institutionalized and locked-in, a slow process may take
place where domestic agents come to rethink fundamental
interests and perhaps conceptions of German identity.
Historical institutionalists have demonstrated the
importance of just such a dynamic in numerous other
contexts (Longstreth, 1992; Hattam, 1993, for example). [24]
Yet, I am skeptical. The new laws are limited in scope
of application to EU nationals; they continue to view
such individuals precisely as foreign nationals who are
temporarily resident on German soil. Moreover, these laws
say nothing about the long-term social integration, and
its consequent implications for German identity, of the
largest group of foreign nationals resident in Germany:
Turkish immigrants.
Conclusions
In this last section, I assess the implications of my
analysis for the study of European institutions and
social mobilization, the debate between rationalists and
social constructivists, and for students of German
identity.
The EU in Comparative Perspective. In two ways,
my study suggests the value of viewing the EU from a
comparative -- cross-institutional -- perspective. First,
when comparing the CE and EU, one sees an important
difference in the pattern of social mobilization. At the
regional level, Brussels surely gets more attention from
various advocacy groups. Initially, these were primarily
transnational peak associations; however, recent years
have seen an explosion of NGO and social movement
interest and presence in Brussels (Favell, 1998). Yet, at
the national level, it was the CE, in my case, that
sparked greater dynamics of both social mobilization and
social learning.
Why the difference? For one, there is the issue area
studied. Given that the CE has a 40 year track record of
work in human rights and citizenship and that the EU has
only in the last decade very, very hesitantly begun to
address such matters, it comes as no surprise that the
former is a greater normative and organizational asset in
the domestic arena than the latter. Equally important,
the EU, from the start, has been a project largely by and
for elites -- and thus largely “off the radar
screen” for many movements and activists.
However, this latter factor is currently in a state of
change and flux. The signal failure of the 1997 Amsterdam
Treaty to advance the human-rights/citizenship agenda
begun in Maastricht, along with the European
Parliament’s growing interest and assertiveness in
such matters, are leading to higher levels of social
mobilization at the national level on EU-related issues
as well. For example, more and more transnational and
domestic NGOs and activists are adopting -- and
simultaneously seeking to modify -- the EU’s
European citizenship as a cause of their own. As these
groups multiply, create links to the European Parliament
and begin to work with like-minded organizations in
countries such as Germany, the whole debate over EU
citizenship could move to a qualitatively different level
(“Call to Strengthen Rules on Human Rights and
Democracy,” Financial Times, February 11,
1997; “The Brussels Lobbyist and the Struggle for
Ear-Time,” Economist, August 15, 1998; Nas,
1998).
Second, my comparative case materials suggest that
Europeanization is not simply a constraint on the
strategies of social movements, or that it only creates
new political opportunity structures for them (Marks and
McAdam, 1996; McAdam, Tarrow, Tilly, 1997: 153-54;
Tarrow, 1998b: 25, passim). This view is not so
much wrong as incomplete. The implicit ontology
(methodological individualism) and theory of action
(rational choice) on offer unduly circumscribe our
understanding of agency. There are other instances where
agents do not calculate and “power,” but
instead “puzzle” (due to high cognitive
uncertainty). In these cases, they do not so much react
to or exploit events at the European or transnational
level; rather, through a process of interaction with
them, they learn new interests and preferences -- for
example, when that “opportunity structure”
promotes normative understandings. Here, the ontology
(mutual constitution or, better said, relational) and
theory of action (social learning) are quite different.
Of course, these comments point to
the utility of a more constructivist understanding of
agency’s role. While the constructivist literature
is young, varied and still has many deficiencies, it has
nonetheless reminded us, and empirically demonstrated,
that social interaction between agents or between agents
and structures cannot be reduced -- at all times and
under all circumstances -- to the language of
calculation, optimizing behavior and constraint
(Katzenstein, 1996, for example). [25]
Constructivism and Rational
Choice. These last comments, however, should not lead
readers to conclude that I favor an “either/or”
approach -- either constructivism or rational choice.
Rather, the proper stand is one of “both/and”
(see also McAdam, Tarrow, Tilly, 1997: 159, passim).
Indeed, there is an emerging debate on the relation of
constructivism to rationalism, with a number of different
claims being advanced -- for example, that
constructivism, by endogenizing interest formation,
supplements rational choice; or, more ambitiously, that
it represents an alternative approach to social action,
one based on a cognitive model different from rational
choice; or, that it “seizes the middle ground”
between rational choice and postmodernism (compare Adler,
1997; Checkel, 1998a; Katzenstein, Keohane, Krasner,
1998; and Risse, 1998). [26]
To disentangle these claims, constructivists must pay
greater theoretical attention to process and agency. Too
often, they consider only the role of international,
regional or transnational “norm-makers”; on the
one hand, this is understandable and important. By
helping to create norms, entrepreneurial activists,
international institutions such as the EU and CE,
advocacy networks and international NGOs are changing
world politics before our eyes -- witness the amazing
story of individual agency in the emerging global norm to
prohibit land mines (Price, 1998).
This emphasis comes at a cost, however. By bracketing
theoretically how norms connect with domestic
“norm-takers” (the focus of the present paper),
constructivists have been unclear about the process
through which norms have their effects. Put more bluntly,
these researchers often employ their own variant of
“as if” reasoning (agents operating as if
governed by logics of appropriateness), to the detriment
of developing theories that capture and explain how the
constructivist world, at the unit level, really works.
The result has been an analytic failure to appreciate an
obvious empirical fact: Both rationalist and
constructivist logics are at work in most social
settings.
This essay, by exploring the role of social learning
and societal mobilization at the level of norm-takers,
helps restore agency to its rightful place in the
constructivist enterprise. In so doing, it will assist
these scholars in developing a distinctively
constructivist theory of action, while also helping
delimit more clearly their claims vis-a-vis theoretical
competitors. Yet, in the end, my own analysis still falls
short in two ways.
First, the mechanism and interaction context through
which agent preferences change require further
“unpackaging.” To model this context,
constructivists too often employ a vague notion of
“socialization,” which is broad, temporally
sweeping and obscures more than it clarifies (however,
see Risse and Sikkink, 1999). Here, I argued that
implicit conceptions of social learning underlay
arguments about socialization, and drew upon earlier work
in cognitive/social psychology and organizational theory
to operationalize the term. However, this argument, in
turn, is itself underspecified: In some cases, a very
active process of communication and persuasion may be the
dynamic promoting learning. If so, then there are rich
literatures in communications research and social
psychology waiting to be exploited by constructivists
(Checkel, 1999c; and, especially, Johnston, 1998).
Second, while it is all well and good
to demonstrate empirically that both rationalist and
constructivist logics operate in the real world, the
analytic challenge is to develop scope conditions that
specify when and under what conditions agents are more
likely to operate under one or the other logic. From a
problem-driven perspective, this would seem to be a
central issue; yet, it has received surprisingly little
attention in the literature (see also Finnemore and
Sikkink, 1998: 913; and, for a [rare] empirical test,
Schimmelfennig, 1999). In this essay, I suggested two
conditions under which constructivist/social-learning
logics are more likely: high cognitive uncertainty and
the degree to which agents are “novices”
(actors in new/novel settings). However, this is only a
start, and other types of scope conditions are possible
-- for example, the structure of domestic political
institutions (Checkel, 1999a) or
organizational-setting/group-size (Risse-Kappen, 1996),
to name just two. [27]
German Identity. This essay defined
Europeanization as the development of new collective
understandings on citizenship and membership. Norms of
this sort, if successfully diffused, can have a powerful
impact on state identity. However, my analysis suggests
their influence in contemporary Germany is ambiguous and
contested. Two factors account for this outcome. At the
regional level, Europeanization of nationality or
citizenship -- be it in Brussels or Strasbourg -- is at
best emergent and tentative. At the national level,
Germany's historically constructed identity, with its
ethnic and exclusive focus, is serving as a filter or
block for some domestic agents vis-a-vis more civic and
inclusive European-level norms.
My results are therefore at odds with
accounts that depict the emergence of a postnational
membership model in Western Europe or with arguments that
assert a thorough Europeanization of German national
identity in the postwar era. On the former, differences
arise because previous work (Soysal, 1994, for example)
employed a theoretical apparatus that brackets the
process through which European and international
discourses favoring postnational membership actually play
out in particular national settings. For the latter, my
empirical focus -- the hard case of fundamental
conceptions of nationhood (citizenship, membership) --
explains why I see less Europeanization of German
identity. [28]
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Footnotes
* Paper presented at
a workshop on "Transnational Networks and European
Contention," Institute for European Studies, Cornell
University, February 1999. This is a significantly
revised version of a chapter that will appear in James
Caporaso, Maria Cowles and Thomas Risse, Editors, Europeanization
and Domestic Structural Change (forthcoming 2000).
The financial support of the German Marshall Fund of the
United States and Norwegian Research Council is
gratefully acknowledged. For detailed comments on earlier
drafts, I thank Thmas Risse, Fritz Scharpf, Antje Wiener
and, especially, Jim Caporaso.
** ARENA/University
of Oslo, P.O. Box 1143 Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway.
E-mail: jeffrey.checkel@arena.uio.no.URL:
http://www.sv.uio.no/arena/presentation/Checkel.htm.
[1].
Recent endorsements of this thesis include Bates, de
Figueiredo and Weingast (1998: 635, passim); and
Katzenstein, Keohane and Krasner (1998: 679-82).
[2].
This claims holds for intergovernmentalists, as well as
their putative opponents:
neofunctionalists/supranationalists and students of
multi-level governance.
[3]. The
following builds upon Checkel (1997b).
[4]. The
social movements literature seems to adopt many of these
same biases. See, especially, the important synthesizing
effort in Tarrow (1998a: chapter 11, 192-95). Let me
stress that my criticisms are meant to be constructive in
that I seek to build upon the pioneering work described
here.
[5].
Learning of this type needs to be distinguished
analytically from simple learning. For the latter,
strategies and tactics change while underlying interests
and preferences remain stable; it can be accommodated
within a rationalist account. With complex learning,
interests themselves are endogenized. Levy (1994).
[6].
Full textual and interview citations for the points made
here and above can be found in Checkel (1999a: 94-96).
[7].
Some might argue that by only examining norms in formal
treaty processes, I miss key elements of Europeanization
that may develop in broader realms -- say, in
transnational discourses or shared practices. While this
may be true, invoking the latter dynamics becomes
problematic if one wishes to establish causal pathways
connecting social structures to agents. Put differently,
significant measurement difficulties arise when one seeks
to link diffuse transnational discourses or practices to
regional/domestic change. See Soysal (1994); Koslowski
and Kratochwil (1994); and Wiener (1998: 8-15, passim),
for example.
[8].
The windows were, for minority rights, the war in
Yugoslavia, and, for citizenship and immigrant rights,
the break-up of the USSR.
[9].
The Commission has been advocating EU adherence to the
ECHR since 1979.
[10].
Amsterdam also failed to change the status-quo regarding
the ECHR, with member states still refusing to have the
EU formally accede to it. See “Protection of
Fundamental Rights in the Union,”
http://europa.eu.int/search97cgi/s97r, March 16, 1998.
[11].
Shaw (1997: 3) notes that the TEU’s placement of
fundamental rights in Article F(2) ensures that they
stand outside the jurisdiction of the ECJ.
[12].
The historical dimension extends even further than
documented here, with the ethnic citizenship principle of
the 1913 statute being taken from a law promulgated in
1870. Von Mangoldt (1994).
[13].
The evil doctrine view of DC also took root at the
Federal Interior Ministry, where former minister Kanther
often referred to multiple nationality as a
“fundamental evil.” Matthias Geis,
“Deutsche unter sich: Streit um die
Staatsbuergerschaft,” Die Zeit, April 25,
1997.
[14].
Recent empirical studies of norm diffusion provide ample
evidence of the crucial importance of this domestic
normative setting -- for example, Klotz (1995b: chapter
7).
[15].
Kolat and Cinar, in particular, are very much aware of
and utilize broader European norms and policy on
citizenship.
[16].
On thin rationalism more generally, see Green and Shapiro
(1994: 17-19), as well as Elster’s more recent work.
Thanks to Frank Schimmelfennig for discussion on these
points.
[17].
To the extent that these politicians are reacting to
earlier social mobilization, my account is partly
consistent with the more sophisticated
pressure-from-below argument (Risse and Sikkink [1999],
for example). Yet, their learning seems to have come
about less through pressure and confrontation and more
through dialogue and persuasion -- points to which I
return in the conclusion.
[18].
My observations here are preliminary: I have conducted no
fieldwork in Germany since the September 1998 election
and thus lack the interview data that is especially
crucial for documenting social learning.
[19].
While this appeal to the ECJ may be legal bluff,
Germany’s move toward dual citizenship does raise an
important issue for the EU. Most analysts predict that
the forthcoming changes will result in the granting of
German citizenship to 2-4 million Turkish immigrants and
other foreigners resident in the Federal Republic; under
Maastricht’s European citizenship provisions, this
means they would also acquire immediate rights of
residency, local/EP voting, etc, in all other
EU-member states. Put very crudely, a far-reaching German
reform of citizenship may give several million
“Turks” limited citizenship rights throughout
the EU.
[20].
The one exception to this generalization would be ongoing
German debates/discussions over the Holocaust.
[21].
In Checkel (1998b: 19-24), I document the central role
played by elite turnover for empowering regional
citizenship norms in independent Ukraine.
[22].
I thank Andy Moravcsik, Fritz Scharpf and Rey Koslowski
for discussion on these points.
[23].
See Note 19 and accompanying text. Similar dynamics are
at work in France and Belgium, with domestic agents --
the Constitutional Council in France and government
elites in Belgium -- calculating how best to advance
existing interests and identities given the constraints
placed on them by Maastricht's European citizenship
provisions. Closa (1995: 501); and “European Union
Law: Belgium Faces Fines over Votes,” Financial
Times, July 10, 1998, respectively.
[24].
Constructivists in IR make similar claims when they argue
for the socializing effects of norms -- Risse and Sikkink
(1999), for example.
[25].
On agency’s ontological status, there are striking
parallels between research on social movements and
transnational advocacy networks, on the one hand, and an
earlier generation of work on agenda setting, developed
largely in the policy studies field. In the latter, the
central dynamic driving change is also knowledgeable,
calculating agents (“policy entrepreneurs”) who
exploit changing opportunity structures (“policy
windows”). In Checkel (1999b), I empirically
demonstrate how this methodologically individualist
ontology hinders a full understanding of the large-scale
policy and normative change occurring over the past
decade in the former USSR, post-Soviet Russia and
independent Ukraine.
[26].
More accurately, this is a debate between so-called
“modernist” or “conventional”
constructivists and rationalists. Critical
constructivists, for the most part, deny the possibility
of any such debate on deeper epistemological and
ontological grounds. See Hopf (1998); and Price and
Reus-Smit (1998).
[27].
The scope conditions proposed here are very different
from those advocated by proponents of the division of
labor thesis. For the latter, the scope condition is
temporal and carries a fixed ordering: first
constructivism (endogenization of interests), then
rational choice (strategic exchange on the basis of those
interests).
[28].
Katzenstein and collaborators (1997: 24-33, passim),
for example, argue for a Europeanization and
internationalization of German national identity, but
neglect issues of citizenship and membership addressed
here.
[Date of publication in the ARENA
Working Paper series: 15.01.1999]
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