National identity and citizenship in Germany and France

Starting from Brubakers contrasting account of citizenship and nationhood i n France and Germany, the authors argue, that the distinction between ius s oli and ius sanguinis should be handled more cautiously when associated wit h real and presumably unique collective entities. The article gives a numbe r of hints to show that these two idealtypes - though useful as analytical categories - cannot in a convincing way simply be attributed to French and German history respectively. Instead of this dichotomy and often closely as sociated ones (like that between French enlightenment and German romanticis m, between French universalism and German primordialism, a Western and Non- western path of modernization, or between nations based on territorial stat ehood and nations rooted in culture) the authors suggest that there are at least three different codes of constructing collective identities. These di fferent codes constitute a common stock of paradigms for constructing colle ctive identities in all European nations. They usually compete with each ot her on different levels, to dominate public discourse only for certain time spans, depending on specific carrier groups and institutional settings, bu t can hardly be associated inherently with such macro-units as France or Ge rmany.