The Borders of the Welfare State: Migration, Social Rights and Expulsion (1850-1933)
Final Report Abstract
In current academic and political debates, the tensions between European conceptions of the welfare state and transnational migration are a heatedly discussed issue. How can social promises be kept in times of globalization? Is welfare only feasible in “closed” nation states with tight border controls? Are social rights a privilege of national citizens, or are they a human right due also to foreign immigrants? And under what circumstances are deportations justifiable? Such questions have become a highly explosive and intensely scrutinized subject. Astonishingly little is known, however, about their historical dimension. A rich literature on the origins of modern welfare policies exists by now; migration history is flourishing as well; and in recent years, the history of citizenship has attracted increasing attention. Yet, these have largely remained three separate strands of research: very few works have studied in detail how European welfare states dealt with the challenges of migration in their formative phase. This project aimed at filling the research gap. Taking as its starting point the frequently postulated, but poorly documented hypothesis that the status of aliens deteriorated inversely to the expansion of citizens’ rights with the rise of the modern nation and welfare state, it explored the relationship between migration and social policies from the mid-nineteenth century to the interwar period. In these decades, the “social question” ranked high on the political agendas of the emerging industrial societies, and at the same time, labour migration gained momentum. The coincidence of intense social reform and massive geographic mobility posed the question of what national borders and national citizenship meant with a new kind of urgency. Who should be entitled to the expanding social benefits provided by public institutions, and who should remain excluded? The project analysed the struggles for answers with a main focus on Prussia and the German Empire in their European context on three intertwined levels. These are first, in a comparative perspective, the level of national policies; second, in a transnational perspective, the level of cross-border exchanges and agreements; and third, in a micro-historical perspective, the level of everyday practices in dealing with immigrants in specific regions and cities. Overall, the results show that the conventional narrative of deepening discrimination against foreigners in the age of emerging welfare states is too simplistic. Rather, we can observe never-ending complex negotiation processes about partial inclusions and exclusions, in which neither all natives nor all foreigners stood equal.
Publications
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‘Welfare Does Not Know Any Borders’: Negotiations on the Transnational Assistance of Migrants before the World Wars. Journal of Migration History, 6(3), 352-378.
Althammer, Beate
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German Heimat in the Age of Migration: An Introduction. The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory, 96(3), 221-234.
Althammer, Beate & Oesterhelt, Anja
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Von Pfahlbürgern und Zugvögeln: Kontroversen um das deutsche Heimatrecht im 19. Jahrhundert. The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory, 96(3), 235-255.
Althammer, Beate
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What It Means to Have Nothing: Poverty and the Idea of Human Dignity in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Central European History, 55(4), 473-492.
Althammer, Beate
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Whose Freedom of Movement?. Migration and the European City, 147-172. De Gruyter.
Althammer, Beate
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Citizenship, Migration and Social Rights. Routledge.
Althammer, Beate
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Connecting welfare-state history and migration history. Citizenship, Migration and Social Rights, 1-30. Routledge.
Althammer, Beate
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Policing migrant women. Policing Women, 195-211. Routledge.
Althammer, Beate
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Who cares for foreigners?. Citizenship, Migration and Social Rights, 165-189. Routledge.
Althammer, Beate
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Foreign Polish Labour Migrants in the German Empire. Migrant Actors Worldwide, 275-297. BRILL.
Althammer, Beate
