KON_F_01 Membership, Migration, Constitution

Objective / Research Questions

The project’s main question is concerned with the search of contemporary German society for an understanding of membership in keeping with the times, which handles ongoing transformation and individualization processes as well as migration. This question is at the centre of a scientific monograph planned within the framework of the project on the changed self-conception of German migration law and ongoing journalistic interventions on current topics, which we want to advance above all during the intensive research phase.

Content-wise, the project rests on two research pillars. The starting point for the project line “Constitution and Cohesion” lies in the observation that the German Basic Law is often invoked in public debates on integration as the foundation for cohesion. This practice induces a discursive momentum that confronts legislation with the question of which role the constitution can play for society’s self-understanding and how constitutional law processes this change. The initial hypothesis is that answers to concrete questions cannot be offloaded on the concept of constitution or cohesion but instead must be clearly defined in both the political process and the public discourse. The project line “Migration and Cohesion” concentrates on migration-related questions, on which various projects in the Konstanz section are working. It aims to conceptualize migration as an element of extensive social transformation processes. This enhances migration research within RISC, and at the same time integrates it into a larger research context. A deficit of recent public debate on “Migration and Cohesion” lies in the fact that it has narrowed the topic of cohesion down to migration phenomena and, in doing so, overemphasized forced migration. This narrow interpretation sometimes leads to migration or flight appearing in public discussions as a central variable for explaining social changes. One of the priorities of the RISC consortium is to oppose this narrow interpretation. Within a broader contemplation of the issue, we want to make the relative importance of migration a topic of discussion, together with other projects in Konstanz and elsewhere, without acting as if migration is the central lever for better cohesion.

Thematic Reference to Social Cohesion

In public discourse, "constitution and cohesion" are often equated, with the Constitution being elevated as the supposedly unshakable foundation of cohesion. Therefore, it is worth discussing the role of the constitution as a separate research subject and addressing the access of law to central contemporary issues (Balkin 2011). This purpose is pursued by a total of four constitutional symposia or workshops, through which the location of Konstanz aims to initiate a foundational theoretical discourse with other sub-institutes and external researchers in order to demonstrate at a moderate level of abstraction that the concept of cohesion can only be concretized through constitutional law (Vorländer 2002). The initial hypothesis is that answers to specific questions cannot be outsourced to the concepts of constitution or cohesion, but must be concretized in the political process and public discourse.

Regarding "migration and cohesion," a deficit of the recent public debate lies in narrowing down the complex of cohesion to migration phenomena and overemphasizing forced migration. This narrowing down occasionally leads to the perception of migration or flight as the central variable for explaining social changes in public discussions. It is an advantage of the FGZ consortium to counteract this narrowing down. Within the broader perspective, the applicant, together with Konstanz projects and other locations, aims to address the relative importance of migration without pretending that migration is the central lever for better cohesion. Points of reference for this are the debates on social redistribution (Abraham 2014) as well as equality and non-discrimination (Gotanda 1991; Augsberg 2019).

The scientific monograph on the transformed self-perception of German migration law serves as the backbone of the applicant's individual research and is complemented by high-impact interventions on current issues. They follow the guiding question of to what extent a modified understanding of membership can be derived from German and European migration and constitutional law.

Abraham, David 2014: Immigrant Integration and Social Solidarity in a Time of Crisis. Europe and the United States in a Postwelfare State, in: Critical Historical Studies 1, 215-253.

Augsberg, Steffen 2019: Gleichheit angesichts von Vielfalt als Gegenstand des philosophischen und des juristischen Diskurses, in: Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung Deutscher Staatsrechtslehrer 78, 7-52.

Balkin, Jack M. 2011: Constitutional Redemption. Political Faith in an Unjust World, Harvard.

Gotanda, Neil 1991: A Critique of ‘Our Constitution Is Color Blind’, in: Stanford Law Review 44, 1-68.

Vorländer, Hans (Hrsg.) 2002: Integration durch Verfassung, Wiesbaden.