MIGRATION AND INCLUSION - TENSIONS BETWEEN THE NATION AND THE WELFARE-STATE

A theoretical frame for the interpretation of the relation between the nation state, the welfare state and migration is proposed. Germany serves as a historical example which demonstrates the emergence of semantics of nation and nationality which accompany the development of modern states. With the consolidation of state-building in Western Europe these semantics have become largely devaluated. In the context of world-wide structural economic changes and of growing migration the politics of inclusion of the welfare state has eventually led to the revalorization of the semantics of ethnicity and nationality. Since the eighties inclusion into and exclusion from the welfare state has been debated in ethnic and national terms. While the conflicts in Eastern Europe are caused by problems of state and nation building the recent developments in Germany are based on the constitutive tension between political (state) and non-political (markets, education) memberships of citizens and non-citizens.