ABSTRACT
The German case is part of a broader phenomenon in post-war Western Europe, where controversies about immigration have replaced conflicts between states as the primary arena for the articulation of nationhood (Cesarani and Fulbrook 1996; Schain and Baldwin-Edwards 1994; Tilly 1995). Most of these debates on collective identification in Western European countries have been triggered through the cultural, economic and political effects of migration, giving rise to widespread politics of belonging and reassessments of collective boundaries (Geddes and Favell 1999).
