Abstract
This article focuses on ancestry as a controversial marker of Britishness/Germanness. Considering developments in nationality law and large-scale survey data for England and Germany, it illustrates that macrocontextual distinctions into civic and ethnic nations tend to overestimate cross-national differences, while underestimating important within-country variations according to people’s educational background. The fact that—in both countries—higher levels of formal education are strongly associated with more ethnically inclusive notions of legitimate national membership underlines the formative potential of formal education in contemporary multicultural societies.
Highlights
In contrast to Britain, Germany has often been portrayed as an ethnically exclusivist nation (Brubaker, 1992; Greenfeld, 1992; Ignatieff, 1994), roughly along the lines of “classic” distinctions into civic (Western) and ethnic (Eastern) forms of nationalism (Kohn, 1961; Plamenatz, 1976)
Ethnic nations are supposed to be built around anachronistic notions of ethno-ancestral communities, whereas civic nations are seen as having evolved around ideas of individual rights and democratic principles
At the time of their invention during the Cold War, such distinctions may have offered some intuitive solace in reducing the complexity of national phenomena around the world to a simple and clear-cut dichotomy—to a binary set of labels for whole nations and societies
Summary
In contrast to Britain, Germany has often been portrayed as an ethnically exclusivist nation (Brubaker, 1992; Greenfeld, 1992; Ignatieff, 1994), roughly along the lines of “classic” distinctions into civic (Western) and ethnic (Eastern) forms of nationalism (Kohn, 1961; Plamenatz, 1976). The subsequent discussion focuses, on legal definitions of Britishness/Germanness and on people’s perceptions1—on whether and to what extent they consider ancestry as an important criterion for legitimate national membership.
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