The debates about citizenship laws in Norway and Germany

The article compares the Norwegian and the German political debate on changes to the respective countries' citizenship laws. The Norwegian law will come into force in September 2006, while the German law was introduced in 2000. In citizenship laws we can find a contrast between an ethnic and cultural understanding of political community and a rights-based understanding. This contrast was hardly touched upon in the Norwegian debate. Among the Norwegian political parties there was broad agreement to carry on with the principle of ethnic decent. Moreover, all parties, with an exception of the Socialist Left Party (SV), wanted to introduce more restrictions on the established Norwegian practice to accept dual citizenship. The German debate dealt with the contrasting principles, and the conflict followed the left/right cleavages. The main difference found between the two countries refers to the left parties. Both with regard to the principle of ethnic decent/territorial principle and the acceptance of dual citizenship, the Social Democrats in Norway and Germany presented opposite standpoints.