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This article discusses the policy and politics of dual nationality in Germany. It contrasts the policy reality, in which dual nationality is tolerated in a wide range of cases, with Germany's continued opposition in principle to this phenomenon. It then analyzes political, cultural and electoral factors to explain why this opposition persists despite these widespread exceptions. In conclusion, the article argues that by continuing formally to oppose dual nationalities, Germany in effect discourages naturalizations and thereby continues to operate a broadly exclusive citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1970s, when it became clear that some three million of the eleven million foreigners recruited to work in Germany from 1955 to 1973 would not be returning home as expected, German democracy has faced a difficult problem. What would (and should) be the political status of long-term alien residents living in a democratic society that did not consider itself an immigration land? Although it was evident to some that a major consequence of postwar guestworker policy was the creation of a difficult-to-resolve political question, the contention seemed arguable in the mid-1970s. It no longer is so today. The convening of this conference on dual nationality offered incontrovertible evidence of the long-term significance of the political dilemma to German democracy posed by guestworker recruitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]