Research project
Duration: since 2023

The core of modern democracies consists of the individual’s right to speak and participate in political decision-making processes. Since the 1970s, however, a steadily rising number of migrants have remained excluded from democratic participation due to ethnicising discourses, which tend to present migrant populations as society’s nonintegrated other. Astonishingly, only a few studies in contemporary history analyse the relationship between democracy and migration empirically. Therefore, we know little about how the presence and social participation of migrant populations have shaped and changed democratic practices and visions in Western Europe between the 1970s and the enforcement of EU citizenship in the 2000s.

This project investigates the migration-related transformations of Western European democracies in historical perspective. It aims at critically interrogating present – in part racializing – narratives on European democracies and their ‘migrant other’. Taking the 1970s as a starting point, it analyses from a comparative and interconnected historical perspective constellations in which the value of migration for society was (controversially) negotiated. Following discussions about the autonomy of migration, the methodological focus is on migrant struggles over social participation and political recognition. The project posits that the way European societies since then have dealt with migration uncovers basic social dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, belonging and nonbelonging, and thus allows us to grasp and critically reflect on fundamental democratic self-descriptions of Western European societies.