Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Today people of Turkish origin comprise Germany's largest ethnic minority, with an estimated number of around 2.5 million Turks living in Germany. With immigration naturally arises the issue of integration, of how the immigrants will relate to and live in the host society. Integration encompasses economic, political, social and cultural factors which are fundamental in building bridges between the two societies. In recent years the failure of this community of Turkish immigrants to integrate into German society has come to light. The pressing issue of this community’s struggle illustrates the wider problem of immigrant integration facing Germany. This paper will address the challenges of integrating Germany’s minority immigrant populations. Focusing specifically on Germany’s Turkish immigrant population provides a valuable case study of the challenges facing Germany in regards to understanding the relationship between these spheres German society. Three possible hypotheses on the underlying causes of Germany’s difficulty in integrating its minority immigrant populations will be examined: the role of German state policies, the societal perception of immigrants among the German population, and the role of the minority immigrant communities. The implications of this paper extend beyond Germany’s relationship with its Turkish population to the issue of immigration within Germany and more broadly within the European Union.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Coming to terms with the Nazi past was a key challenge to both German states. In retrospect, the founding of the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany can be seen as two different attempts to draw certain lessons from National Socialism, each with different consequences for their respective cultures of remembrance and thus for public education after Auschwitz. Against the backdrop of a dual national history of memory, the presentation will examines how the divergent value systems of both German nations came together in forging a uniform national conception of “education after Auschwitz” and the role played by the division of Germany in current debates about the teaching of the Nazi past.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper investigates the origins of national consumer protection regulation in France and Germany during the formative period from 1970 to 1985. Consumer protection appeared at the time as an entirely new area of public policy for both countries. Three different models for consumer protection ? information, protection, and negotiation ? set the terms of an intensive political conflict over the appropriate regulatory response. What strategy was eventually adopted depended on the way in which consumer and producer interests were organized in the country. As a result of this conflict, Germany adopted the information strategy of protection, in which consumers use accurate product information to make wise product choices. France adopted the protection strategy, in which state policy and legal norms work to insulate consumers entirely from product-related risk. The paper suggests ways in which these different policies may drive divergent product market strategies in the two countries.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines developments in immigration and citizenship policymaking and politics in Canada and West Germany in the immediate post-WWII era. I argue that key events related to the war and its aftermath led to a reappraisal of prewar attitudes toward race and ethnicity both internationally and within the respective countries. I also demonstrate that this reappraisal was limited by the continuing influence of prewar policy regimes. In line with a key postulate of historical institutionalist theory, policymakers in Canada and West Germany reached back to earlier solutions to the migration-membership dilemma when confronted with the challenge of resuming mass migration to meet postwar labor market needs. Although the most egregiously discriminatory elements of past practices were pruned and offensive language in statutes modified, postwar solutions bore an uncanny resemblance to those enacted in the early twentieth century. Thus, Canada sought to facilitate mass migration while simultaneously endeavoring to limit entry as much as possible to whites, while West Germany resumed temporary labor recruitment and restored its descent-based citizenship regime, effectively shutting the door to national membership for foreign "guest workers" and their descendants.

Critics of postwar policies took advantage of changed normative conditions to frame their protests. Canada and West Germany’s commitment to ascendant liberal democratic principles put policymakers in an awkward position when confronted with evidence of hypocritical conduct. The discrediting of integral nationalism and scientific racism and rise of human rights granted reformers a powerful discursive grammar with which they could phrase challenges. Thus, while the period was marked by evasion and a good deal of policy continuity, it also gave rise to reform initiatives that would ultimately advance very different answers to the migration-membership dilemma. As such, it truly stood between two worlds.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed