Different Legacies, Common Pressures, and Converging Institutions: The Politics of Muslim Integration in Austria and Germany

Abstract

Austria and Germany have shared similar nationality rules and political landscape with strong Christian Democratic parties. This would lead readers to expect similar, non-multicultural policies toward Muslim inhabitants. However, Austria has long maintained an official Muslim recognition regime, while there had been no such recognition in Germany throughout the twentieth century. How do we explain such divergence?

This chapter has two main aims. First, it investigates why Austria and Germany had different institutional arrangements incorporating Muslim inhabitants. Based on historical analysis, this paper elucidates different contexts which surrounded respective institutional formation. This divergence is explained by different historical legacies, especially an experience of multinational empire, in the case of Austria, and an imperial nation state, as for Germany.

Recently, both regimes have shown signs of institutional changes. In Austria, traditional a-liberal incorporation regime has been criticized for its disregard for transparency and non-democratic procedures within organizations, which eventually led to the change of laws. In Germany, increasing number of Muslim inhabitants led to recognition of dual citizenship and the steps towards official recognition of Islamic religious education has been taken. The second aim of the chapter is to show the way established institutions are put under the common pressure and how they are converging.

Through these two case studies, it is shown that history matters, but common pressure pushes different incorporation regimes toward convergence in the direction of Liberal Multiculturalism.