Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T06:19:31.063Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political aspects of repatriation: Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan. A comparative analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Olga Zeveleva
Olga Zeveleva*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
*
∗Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper is based on a study which compares repatriation policies of Germany, Russia, and Kazakhstan. The choice of cases is based on a “most similar case design.” The Russian case results in unsuccessful and unsustainable repatriation, the German case exhibits a change from sustainable repatriation to a slow termination of the program, while the case of Kazakhstan is one of sustainable and relatively successful repatriation. The main argument of the paper is that in order for a repatriation program to be sustainable, the program must contain both a practical component and an ideological component. If a repatriation program lacks ideological backing which permeates other aspects of political life in a state, then the repatriation program grinds to a halt. If a repatriation program has ideological backing, but is rendered impractical and does not meet the economic, demographic and labor market needs of a state, then the further development of the program stops. The findings of this study merit further reflection on issues of changing national identities, on transnational migration pathways, and on the “post-Soviet condition” which has set the stage for all of the aforementioned processes and transformations.

Keywords

international migrationrepatriationreturn migrationco-ethnic migrationreturn ethnic migrationpost-Soviet migrationGerman resettlementAussiedlerRussian compatriotsKazakhstan oralmans
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 42 , Issue 5 , September 2014 , pp. 808 - 827
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aleinikoff, Thomas A., ed. 2001. Citizenship Today: Global Perspectives and Practices. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Bade, Klaus, and Oltmer, Jochen, eds. 2003. Deutsche Einwanderer aus Osteuropa. Osnabrück: Universitätsverlag.Google Scholar
Barcus, Holly, and Werner, Cynthia. 2010. “The Kazakhs of Western Mongolia: Transnational Migration from 1990–2008.” Asian Ethnicity 11 (2): 209–228.Google Scholar
Bonnenfant, Isik Kuscu. 2012. “Constructing The Homeland: Kazakhstan's Discourse And Policies Surrounding Its Ethnic Return-Migration Policy.” Central Asian Survey 31 (1): 31–44.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 1992. Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 1994. “Nation as Institutionalized Form, Practical Category, Contingent Event.” Contention 4 (1): 3–14.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 1996. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2011. “Nationalizing States Revisited: Projects And Processes of Nationalization in Post-Soviet States.” Ethnic & Racial Studies 34 (11): 1785–1814.Google Scholar
Cassarino, Jean-Pierre. 2004. “Theorising Return Migration: The Conceptual Approach to Return Migrants Revisited.” International Journal on Multicultural Societies (IMS) 6 (2): 253–279.Google Scholar
Chernilo, Daniel. 2010. “Methodological Nationalism and the Domestic Analogy: Classical Resources for Their Critique.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 23 (1): 87–106.Google Scholar
Danzer, Alexander M. 2009. “Battlefields of Ethnic Symbols. Public Space and Post-Soviet Identity Formation from a Minority Perspective.” Europe-Asia Studies 61 (9): 1557–1577.Google Scholar
Davenel, Yves-Marie. 2012. “Cultural Mobilization in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan: Views from the State and from Non-Titular Nationalities Compared.” Central Asian Survey 31 (1): 17–29.Google Scholar
De Tinguy, Anne. 2003. “Ethnic Migrations of the 1990s from and to the Successor States of the Former Soviet Union: ‘Repatriation’ or Privileged Migration.” In Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants: Germany, Israel, and Post-Soviet Successor States in Comparative Perspective, edited by Muenz, Rainer and Ohlinger, Rainer, 112–127. Portland: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Dietz, Barbara, and Hilkes, Peter. 1993. Russlanddeutsche. Unbekannte im Osten: Geschichte, Situationen, Zukunftsperspektiven. 2nd ed. Munich: Olzog Verlag.Google Scholar
Flynn, Moya. 2003. “Returning Home? Approaches to Repatriation and Migrant Resettlement in Post-Soviet Russia.” In Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants: Germany, Israel, and Post-Soviet Successor States in Comparative Perspective, edited by Muenz, Rainer and Ohlinger, Rainer, 173–187. Portland: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Gmelch, George. 1980. “Return Migration.” Annual Review of Anthropology 9: 135–159.Google Scholar
Green, Simon. 2001. “Citizenship Policy in Germany.” In Towards a European Nationality: Citizenship, Immigration and Nationality Law in the EU, edited by Hansen, Randall and Weil, Patrick, 24–51. New York: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Hale, Henry E. 2009. “Cause Without A Rebel: Kazakhstan's Unionist Nationalism In The USSR And CIS.” Nationalities Papers 37 (1): 1–32.Google Scholar
Heß, Christin. 2011. “What Can Co-Ethnic Immigrants Tell Us About Ethnic Visions of the National Self?” Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology & Sociology 2 (1): 103–133.Google Scholar
Heleniak, Timothy. 2008. “An Overview of Migration in the Post-Soviet Space.” In Migration, Homeland and Belonging in Eurasia, edited by Buckley, Cynthia and Ruble, Blair, 29–67. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Howard, Marc Morjé. 2008. “The Causes and Consequences of Germany's New Citizenship Law.” German Politics 17 (1): 41–62. Academic Search Premier.Google Scholar
Jin Oh, Chong. 2006. “Diaspora Nationalism: The Case of Ethnic Korean Minority in Kazakhstan and its Lessons from the Crimean Tatars in Turkey.” Nationalities Papers 34 (2): 111–129.Google Scholar
Joppke, Christian. 2005. Selecting by Origin: Ethnic Migration in the Liberal State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kalshabaeva, Bibiziya Kenzhebekovna, and Senbayevna Seisenbayeva, Akbota. 2013. “Some Problems of Repatriation and Adaptation of Representatives of the Kazakh Diaspora of Central Asia in the Historic Homeland.” Middle East Journal of Scientific Research 15 (1): 20–26.Google Scholar
Khazanov, Anatoly M. 1995. “The Ethnic Problems of Contemporary Kazakhstan.” Central Asian Survey 14 (2): 243–264.Google Scholar
von Koppenfels, Amanda Klekowski. 2002. “The Decline of Privilege: The Legal Background to the Migration of Ethnic Germans.” In Coming Home to Germany? The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe in the Federal Republic, edited by Rock, D. and Wolff, S., 102–121. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Luchterhandt, Otto, and Eisfeld, Alfred, eds. 2008. Die Russlanddeutschen in den Migrationsprozessen zwischen den GUS-Staaten und Deutschland. Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis e.V. Google Scholar
Mukhina, Irina. 2007. The Germans of the Soviet Union. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ó Beacháin, Donnacha, and Kevlihan, Rob. 2013. “Threading a Needle: Kazakhstan Between Civic And Ethno-Nationalist State-Building.” Nations & Nationalism 19 (2): 337–356.Google Scholar
Muinz, Rainer, and Ohlinger, Rainer. 2003. “Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants in Twentieth-Century Europe: A Comparative Perspective.” In Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants: Germany, Israel, and Post-Soviet Successor States in Comparative Perspective, edited by Muenz, Rainer and Ohlinger, Rainer, 2–15. Portland: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Oka, Natsuko. 2013. “A Note on Ethnic Return Migration Policy in Kazakhstan: Changing Priorities and a Growing Dilemma.” IDE discussion papers 394, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization.Google Scholar
Pilkington, Hilary. 1998. Migration, Displacement and Identity in Post-Soviet Russia. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Radenbach, Niklas, and Rosenthal, Gabriele. January 2012. “Das Vergangene ist auch Gegenwart, das Gesellschaftliche ist auch individuell. (German).” Sozialer Sinn 13 (1): 3–37.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Gabriele, Radenbach, Niklas, and Stephan, Viola. 2011. Brüchige Zugehörigkeiten: Wie sich Familien von “Russlanddeutschen” ihre Geschichte erzählen. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag.Google Scholar
Sarsembayev, Azamat. 1999. “Imagined Communities: Kazak Nationalism and Kazakification in the 1990s.” Central Asian Survey 18 (3): 319–346.Google Scholar
Schatz, Edward. 2000. “The Politics of Multiple Identities: Lineage and Ethnicity in Kazakhstan.” Europe-Asia Studies 52 (3): 489–506.Google Scholar
Schmid, Albert. 2009. “Zur Integration von Aussiedlern.” In Aussiedler- und Minderheitenpolitik in Deutschland: Bilanz und Perspektiven, edited by Bergner, Christoph and Weber, Matthias, 67–78. München: Oldenburg Verlag.Google Scholar
Shevel, Oxana. 2011. “Russian Nation-Building From Yel'tsin to Medvedev: Ethnic, Civic or Purposefully Ambiguous?” Europe-Asia Studies 63 (2): 179–202.Google Scholar
Skrentny, John D., Chan, Stephanie, Fox, Jon, and Kim, Denis. 2007. “Defining Nations in Asia and Europe: A Comparative Analysis of Ethnic Return Migration Policy.” International Migration Review 41 (4): 793–825.Google Scholar
Surucu, Cengiz. 2002. “Modernity, Nationalism, Resistance: Identity Politics in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan.” Central Asian Survey 21 (4): 385–402.Google Scholar
Tsuda, Takeyuki, ed. 2009. Diasporic Homecomings: Ethnic Return Migration in Comparative Perspective. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wolff, Stefan. 2003. The German Question since 1919: An Analysis with Key Documents. Westport: Praeger.Google Scholar
Zevelev, Igor. 2008. “Russia's Policy Toward Compatriots in the Former Soviet Union.” Russia in Global Affairs 1. http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/n_10351 Google Scholar