Dual Citizenship in Germany: Towards a Liberal Approach?

Niemcy, podwójne obywatelstwo, imigracja, integracja, krajowa tożsamość

In October 2010, German Chancellor Angela Merkel proclaimed that attempts to build a multicultural society in her country had utterly failed. Her remarks have been widely debated publicly as well as politically since then. Despite Germany’s liberal guest worker and asylum policies, the country did not see itself as explicitly inviting immigration, but was inevitably faced with the concept. As a result, both, internal as well as external pressures to rejuvenate its citizenship and immigration policies began to mount and Germany’s citizenship legislation has in fact made significant progress in recent years. The shift away from a jus sanguinis approach towards jus soli, with the ability of second-generation Germans to choose whether they would like to take on the legal status as German citizens and renounce their original nationality, proved to be a step towards a more liberal approach, albeit the “no dual citizenship” regulation continues to prevail. In this context, the concepts of “good” and “legal” citizenships arise, the issue of loyalty becomes important and limits of citizenship and belonging can be extracted from this debate. Using political and historical discourse analysis on the subjects of citizenship and national identity as well as present-day public and political sentiments, the following thesis analyzes the limits of Germany’s current dual citizenship policy in the contemporary German context.