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ABSTRACT
Following Brunsson’s [1989. The Organization of Hypocrisy: Talk, Decisions, and Actions in Organizations. Chichester: Wiley] neo-institutional approach to differentiate between talk, decision and action, this article analyses discourses on and related practices of diversity incorporation within political parties in Germany. In the light of demographic change political parties in Germany have begun to step up to immigrants and propagate diversity as potential. While still underrepresented as a whole, politicians with migration background are becoming more prominent and visible in leading positions. However, their roles appear manifold: They are expected to function as “bridge-builders” between the immigrant population and the supposed “majority”. Ethnicization takes place in various contexts. Discourses on diversity within parties are contradictory and reflect contested concepts of homogeneity and diversity. How do parties and their members negotiate these various discourses? Can parties actively open themselves to diversity, and how do they deal with the ensuing power struggles and issues of representation?
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Lea Markard http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4326-560X
Iris Dähnke http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1172-5317
Notes
1. The term “migration background” follows the definition of the Microcensus of the German Federal Statistical Office. In this definition a person is considered as having a “migration background” if they immigrated to Germany after 1949, were born in Germany as a foreigner or have at least one parent who immigrated or who were born as foreigner in Germany (Statistisches Bundesamt Citation2014, 6). While using this definition, it should be pointed out that this category is insufficient in order to describe inequalities generating discourses. It is often people “marked as migrants” and “marked as the ‘Other’” who experience exclusion. People marked as migrant are those who, on account of their appearance (skin colour, hair and eye colour), their name or their accent are regarded as migrants by others.
2. Political participation is defined by Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (Citation1995) as “activity that has the intent or effect of influencing government action – either directly by affecting the making or implementation of public policy or indirectly by influencing the selection of people who make those policies”. However, this paper concentrates on membership and participation within political parties.
3. In the following we will merely use the term “diversity” when speaking of ethnic diversity.
4. However the CDU continued to stage high-profile events show-casing their interest in inner-party diversity, but despite continued attempts of the researchers did not actively engage in the DIVPOL project.
5. All findings refer exclusively to the statements of the interviewees and rather point to general tendencies. Individual interviews are referenced as E1–E31 and focus groups as FG1 and FG2. DIVPOL was co-financed by the European Commission. For more details see http://www.cjd-nord.de/angebote/migration-forschung-und-beratung/abgeschlossene-projekte-forschung/divpol.
6. We scanned the names and biographies of the parliament members to investigate which parliamentarians had a migration background. Due to this method the numbers are presumably underestimated.
7. In this article we use the concept of “intercultural opening” which dominates debates about the organisational development of public administration in Germany. The term “intercultural opening” addresses the process of ethnic diversity incorporation. The concept derives from debates in Germany about social work. The basis for a slow paradigm shift towards the concept of intercultural opening started in the 1980s with a critical reflection about social services and counselling offered to foreigners being paternalistic. The critique was linked to the claim that with regard to their structures, concepts and staff these services need to become more open for their clients and should overcome their deficit-orientated approach (Schröer Citation2009).
8. This was followed by Buschkowsky’s book (Citation2012) “Neukölln ist überall” (Neukölln is everywhere).
9. In fact he spoke about Christian and Jewish history being part of Germany and concluded: “But the Islam nowadays also belongs to Germany”, but it was the abbreviated version of his statement which made the news nationwide.
10. Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) had said this before in 2006 when opening the Federal Islam Conference.
11. PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Western World) is a German far-right and anti-Islamic political organisation founded in Dresden in October 2014 that has been organising weekly big demonstrations.
12. The CDU/CSU put more emphasis on demands expected from migrants than speaking about how this group’s participation in society can be supported and reference to a German “Leitkultur” – a culture that all immigrants should adapt to – are made in their election programme 2009. While conservative voices still found their expression in the programme of the CDU in 2013, in the “talk” that was promoted to the electorate, the CDU shied away from any negative campaigning in relation of immigrants and references to the “Leitkultur” disappeared (Blätte Citation2015, 226ff).
13. Some of these initiatives are not active anymore. An important network for several interviewees is the cross-party network of office holders organised around Turkish background (“Netzwerk türkeistämmiger MandatsträgerInnen”).
14. In contrast to the CDU, the SPD founded working groups first at regional level. In Berlin the SPD group “Migration and Diversity” has existed since 1997.
15. The concept of tokenism was introduced by Kanter (Citation1977) in order to describe organisational behaviour. It refers to a practice of inclusion in which persons are hired, admitted or appointed as members of a minority.
16. In 2013 the FDP did not reach the 5 per cent threshold and is thus not represented in the German Bundestag.