Citizenship in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland: Courts, Legislatures, and Administrators1

• Autores: Claus Hofhansel
• Localización: International migration review, ISSN 0197-9183, Vol. 42, Nº. 1, 2008, págs. 163-192
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • A common claim has been that liberalization of citizenship policy depends on making policy behind closed doors. I challenge one variant of this line of argument, which regards courts as the primary “countermajoritarian” champion of the expansion of immigrant rights, through a comparison of citizenship policy in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. In all three countries subnational authorities play a significant role in the administration of naturalization policy. Courts have played more of a “nationalizing” rather than a “countermajoritarian” role. I also show how differences in federal structures affected recent efforts to reform citizenship policy in these countries.