The Political Participation of Berlin’s Turkish Migrants in the Dual Citizenship and Headscarf Debates: A Multilevel Comparison

Abstract

When Turkish migrants came to Germany in the early 1960s as guest workers, it was not expected that they would stay. The notion of “return” was intrinsic to the guest worker system, premised as it was on the importation of cheap labor without social or political costs.1 Workers would assist in the rebuilding of postwar Germany and then return to Turkey when the job was done. Yet even after the first oil crisis, a rise in unemployment and the official end to the guest worker program in 1973, most Turkish guest workers did not leave but rather made Germany their home. They became permanent residents. Five decades on, there are almost two million Turkish migrants without German citizenship in Germany. 2 They comprise Germany’s biggest migrant group and a significant proportion of Germany’s three million Muslims. 3 Further, unlike many other migrants in Germany, Turkish migrants do not hold European Union citizenship and therefore cannot benefit from the advantages this brings. The original Turkish guest workers, their children, and their children’s children have largely remained foreigners. They are denied formal political rights such as the right to vote, 4 the right to stand for office, 5 and the constitutionally protected rights to assemble and associate, although the latter are provided through statute. 6