McGill Journal of Political Studies 2014 April, 2014 | Page 32

Abstract
Despite having the consistently highest levels of immigration, Germany only acknowledged its status as an Einwanderungsland, or ‘immigration nation,’ in 2000. In maintaining that recruited guest-workers were merely temporary long after it was clear they
had come to stay permanently, Germany failed to implement a comprehensive framework
that could integrate immigrants not only economically but also socially and politically.
By comparing the paths of immigrant-integration of Germany and the Netherlands,
this paper seeks to address how the insufficiencies of the German immigrant integration
framework have missed opportunities for positive integration, and stand to threaten the
country’s democratic quality as immigration levels continue to rise.

Immigration, Integration
and the Threat to
German Democratic
Quality
By Valerie Weber

G

ermany is an immigration nation.
In 2010, the number of foreigners
in the country was close to ten
million, or around twelve per cent of the
total population1. Having experienced a
sizeable increase in immigration starting
in the 1960s due to its guest worker
program, Germany has consistently held
the highest proportion of foreigners in
Europe throughout the post-WWII
period2. Without foreigners, nothing would
work. There would be a serious workforce
shortage, and whole industries would crash.
There would be fifty billion dollars less in
tax income, and GDP would drop eight per
cent. Without foreigners, Frankfurt would
lose every fourth resident, and Berlin’s
population would drop by fourteen percent.
One million four hundred thousand
Germans would lose their spouses. Millions
of people would lose good friends. The auto
industry would lose one in ten workers.
Almost half of the German premiere soccer
league would be gone3. Germany without
Marianne Hasse and Jan C. Jug, “Migration Im
Europäischen Vergleich - Zahlen, Daten, Fakten?,”
[Comparison of European Migration - Figures Data,
Facts?], Bundeszentrale Für Politische Bildung (August
2008), http://www.bpb.de/gesellschaft/migration/
dossier-migration/56589 migrationsdaten.
2
Rainer Klingholz, “Migration and Integration
Policies in Germany – Demographic Change and
Migration in Germany,” Migration and Integration:
Japan in Comparative Perspective, (Munich: Iudicium,
2011): 115.
3
Pitt von Bebenburg and Matthias Thiem, “Deutsch1

Keywords: Immigration, Germany, Integration, Democracy, Cultural Identity, Netherland

foreigners would not be Germany.
Being so dependent on foreign workers,
one would think Germany would have an
incredible immigrant integration framework.
If not for the fact that the country needs
foreign workers, but because it is one of
the strongest European democracies and
secures the integrity of each person in its
first and most significant national law. One
would think. Remarkably, given how reliant
the country is on foreign workers, and to
what extent it has benefitted from their
presence, German provisions for integration
are shockingly insufficient - and even more
shockingly, they are only a very recent
addition to German policy. At the root of
this paradox is the effective denial of the
country’s status as an Einwanderungsland,
or immigration state, until the late 1990s,
after facts had shown for several decades
that those whom the government had
deemed ‘temporary immigrant residents’
were here to stay4. The delayed realization
and acceptance of this reality has robbed the
country of important chances to integrate
foreigners and has made it more difficult for
installed integration policies to be effective.
Foundational in hindering integration
efforts were the country’s until-recently
land Ohne Ausländer? Das Wäre Grauenhaft!” [Germany Not for Foreigners? That Would Be Ridiculous],
Die Welt ( June 2012), http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/.
4
Peter Lang and Marianne Takle, German Policy on
Immigration--from Ethnos to Demos?, (Frankfurt DE:
Lang, 2007): 227.

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