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Blocked democratic inclusion in an immigration society: the curious case of Austria’s citizenship policy

Citizenship
Migration
National Identity
P02

Thursday 15:00 - 16:00 GMT (18/02/2021)

Abstract

Austria has been an outlier in terms of adapting its citizenship policies to international migration. With 24% of its population having a “migration background” (i.e. two parents born abroad), Austria is among Europe’s foremost immigration societies. Yet it has repeatedly tightened its citizenship law for immigrants, has been steadfastly refusing to join the international trend of dual citizenship toleration and has failed to introduce conditional jus soli for the second or third generation. Naturalisation is officially regarded as a reward for individual integration achievements. Income barriers to naturalisation are among the highest in Europe. The Austrian Constitutional Court has struck down weak attempts to extend local voting rights for EU citizens under EU law to third country nationals. In this seminar, Rainer Bauböck, suggests that the puzzle of Austria’s restrictive citizenship policies cannot be fully explained by the electoral strength of the far-right nativist Freedom Party. Explaining the persistence of this attitude over fifty years of massive immigration and changing government coalitions requires also a historical account of Austria’s construction of national identity since World War Two and the replacing of the discredited German nationalism of the past with an increasingly culturalist interpretation of Austrian national identity.