Chapter 8. Religious Citizenship as a Substitute for Immigrant Integration? The Governance of Diversity in Austria

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1 0 Chapter Religious Citizenship as a Substitute for Immigrant Integration? The Governance of Diversity in Austria Julia Mourão Permoser and Sieglinde Rosenberger Throughout Europe, migration has greatly increased the religious diversity of the population and turned immigrant integration into a key political issue. In particular, conflicts over the public display of religious symbols and practices of Muslim immigrants have figured prominently in the public sphere. Nevertheless, sustained scholarly attention to the relationship between religious accommodation and immigrant integration is still lacking. Although both the governance of religious diversity and the socio-economic and political integration of immigrants have attracted considerable interest by political and social scientists (Bauböck et al. 00b; Maussen 00), the two issues are too often studied separately. This chapter attempts to link these two research strands. Combining the study of religious governance with that of immigrant integration is crucial in order to understand the dynamic interplay of these two different models of governance, for the relationship between these policy areas is far from simple. At the national level, Austria is a case in point. Here illiberal immigrant integration policies are coupled with pluralistic policies of accommodation of religious diversity. While the access of immigrant communities to socio-economic and political rights are curtailed and increasingly made conditional on cultural assimilation, a great number of individual and collective rights cutting through the civil, social and political spheres of life are granted to the same communities on the basis of their religious membership. Thus, Austria constitutes a particularly interesting case in order to analyse a general phenomenon that has been affecting Europe as whole, namely the uncomfortable coexistence between liberal and illiberal dynamics in the politics of immigrant incorporation. Several waves of migration have turned Austria into one of the main immigration countries in Europe. In 00, over per cent of the population had a migration background, that is, was either born abroad or did not possess Austrian citizenship despite having been born in the country. This constant influx of immigrants has largely increased the religious diversity of the Austrian population. Islam has Statistik Austria (00), In Österreich leben, Mio. Menschen mit migrationshintergrund, < accessed Guild.indb /0/00 ::

2 0 Illiberal Liberal States 0 become the third biggest religious community after Catholics and Protestants and comprises about. per cent of the total population. Moreover, the vast majority of Muslims in Austria are immigrants. In 00,. per cent of Muslims did not possess Austrian citizenship. Most Muslim immigrants are of Turkish origin and arrived in the 0s and s as guest workers [Gastarbeiter], that is, temporary workers, and later through family reunification. Another important source of Muslim immigration was the Yugoslavian War in the s when a great number of Bosnian refugees fled to this country. In situations in which religious communities are also immigrant communities, the existence of pluralistic policies towards religious minorities could be expected to have a positive influence on the inclusion of migrants into society and the acceptance of differences resulting from immigration. However, in Austria this is only partially the case. On the one hand, the Austrian model of management of religious diversity, with its official recognition of Islam and the attendant rights that come with it, has been effective in some ways. Liberal policies of accommodation of religious diversity concerning Islamic clothing, holidays and education facilitate the insertion of observant Muslims into mainstream institutions (Wieshaider 00). In general Muslim claims for accommodation of religious practices are negotiated in a consensual way between the Government and religious representatives, so that conflicts have so far not escalated to major crises. Thus, so far the Austrian model has largely succeeded in avoiding major conflicts both inside the Muslim community and between the Muslim community and the rest of the Austrian population. On the other hand, the pluralistic policies towards religious minorities coincide with deficient socio-economic integration, lack of political rights, and assimilatory integration policies for immigrants. Muslims immigrants who do not have the Austrian citizenship are subject to restrictive policies where socio-economic rights are concerned due to their immigrant status. Barriers in the access to the labour market and limitations imposed on family reunification and the acquisition of longterm residency, as well as weakly enforced non-discrimination regulations, hamper the ability of immigrants to become full members of the society they live in and strengthen the divide between citizens and non-citizens (Niessen et al. 00). The unwillingness to grant third-country nationals (TCNs) resident within the territory comparable rights to national citizens contrasts strongly with the generous policies of religious accommodations directed largely at the same group. Moreover, the inclusionary regulatory framework does not imply societal acceptance of religious diversity that comes from immigration. Anti-Islamic sentiments are widespread in Austria and so is discrimination of Muslim immigrants Statistik Austria (00a), Bevölkerung 00 nach religionsbekenntnis und staatsangehörigkeit, available from < accessed Ibid. 0 Guild.indb 0 /0/00 ::

3 Religious Citizenship as a Substitute for Immigrant Integration? 0 in employment and housing. This lack of acceptance of the value of religious diversity is also manifested at the level of political discourse, where anti-islamic sentiments are often instrumentalised by mainstream political actors to win votes or to justify strict immigration and integration policies. Furthermore, there are no concrete policies for the accommodation of diversity for those immigrants who are not religious. Thus, this chapter uses Islam in Austria as a case study to analyse the tensions that exist between the religious rights and restrictive immigration and integration policies that create barriers to the acquisition of political and socio-economic rights by immigrants. Against the background of an exclusionary citizenship regime, restrictive immigrant integration policies, and the strong presence of antiimmigration parties, the chapter investigates the following research questions: How can one explain the existence of an inclusionary model of religious governance from which Muslim minorities benefit? Are religious rights a substitute for immigrant integration policies? It will be argued that the comprehensive policies of accommodation of religious diversity currently in place are not the product of efforts for multicultural accommodation of immigrants, but rather the result of a mixture between opportunity structures based on the historical legacy of a de facto multicultural empire and the specificity of the modern Austrian political system, namely a tendency toward corporatist forms of interest representation. The chapter starts with an account of the different models of governance of diversity that prevail in Austria in the field of immigrant integration and accommodation of religious diversity. In the following section of the chapter we describe and classify the religious rights associated with Islam and argue that the increasing number of rights derived from religious membership amount to a form of religious citizenship that transcends nationality and therefore increases the rights of Muslim immigrants. We then proceed to an analysis of how the relationship between religious citizenship and restrictive integration policies in Austria fits into the European context. Finally, we conclude by offering some explanations for these contradictory dynamics. Where Pluralist meets Exclusionary: Religious Governance vs. Immigrant Integration Austrian policies to deal with diversity do not fit neatly into scholarly classifications. Rather, two contradictory models of the governance of diversity co-exist. According to the typologies within the literature on religious governance, Austria can be considered as a liberal country in its policies of religious accommodation. See: EUMC, European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (00), Muslims in the European Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia, (Vienna: EMUC); EMUC (00), National analytical study on housing, (Vienna: EUMC). 0 Guild.indb /0/00 ::

4 Illiberal Liberal States 0 By contrast, the current immigration policy, citizenship regime, and immigrant integration policies are highly restrictive and exclusionary by Western standards. In his discussion of different models of citizenship with regards to the incorporation of immigrants, Castles (, -) identifies three ideal types which he terms the exclusionary model, the assimilationist inclusionary model and the pluralist inclusionary model. He places Austria within the exclusionary model of citizenship and of migrant integration. This model is based on the idea that the nation is a community of birth and descent and therefore citizenship is granted primarily on the basis of jus sanguinis. In fact, the access to formal citizenship by immigrants in Austria is extremely limited, and the trend is for both citizenship and integration policies to become increasingly restrictive. Most adult immigrants are only eligible for citizenship after ten years, whereas spouses of Austrian citizens have to wait for six years of residence and at least five of marriage in order to become eligible for naturalisation. Children and grand-children born in Austria to non-austrian parents must also apply for naturalisation in order to acquire the nationality of their country of birth. Since the implementation of the immigration laws [Fremdenrechtspaket] of 00 and 00, further obstacles have been put in place to limit access to citizenship even more, such as obligatory language course, civic tests, and language proficiency tests. Also in other areas of immigrant integration Austria has very restrictive policies. According to the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), Austria ranks second to last among all countries studied in family reunification measures, and in antidiscrimination it ranks second to last among the EU- countries (Niessen et al. 00). Immigrants also face many obstacles to participation in the labour market and education. For instance, the fees for universities are higher for foreigners than for Austrians. The work permit of a labour immigrant is generally coupled to a specific job, so that the immigrant cannot change jobs without having to apply for a new permit. Moreover, Austria uses a quota system for the issuing of work permits, which also applies even after permits have been issued, meaning that an immigrant may loose his/her permit even after several years of legal residence and employment history in the country (Waldrauch 00, -). In addition, access to the labour market is blocked to several categories of immigrants, such as asylum seekers and students, and only permitted for other categories, such as family members brought in through family reunification, after a long waiting period. The conditions for acquiring long-term residency are also unfavourable, being considered by the MIPEX as the worse of the EU- (Niessen et al. 00, ). Besides the fact that long-term residents do not have a right to participate in any public elections, they do not have much security in their status. For reasons of public order and based on a non-exhaustive list, the legal possibility exists that TCNs be expelled even after having lived in the country for 0 years. Thus we see how in Austria the exclusion of TCNs from formal citizenship due to the rule of jus sanguinis correlates with other exclusionary policies such as reluctance to permit 0 Guild.indb /0/00 ::

5 Religious Citizenship as a Substitute for Immigrant Integration? 0 family reunion, barriers to labour market participation as well as unwillingness to grant secure residence status to immigrants. By contrast, where religious diversity is concerned, Austria has very liberal and pluralistic policies. In the normative typology established by Veit Bader (00) to evaluate different models of governance of religious diversity, Austria approximates the ideal type of non-constitutional pluralism, which is considered by him to be the most normatively desirable model of all since it combines disestablishment or non-establishment with restricted legal pluralism (e.g. in family law), administrative institutional pluralism (de jure and de facto institutionalisation of several organised religions), institutionalized political pluralism, and the religio-cultural pluralisation of the nation (Bader 00, ). Accordingly, in Austria, the model of religious diversity is characterised by the accreditation of religious communities as public legal entities with a privileged position in the political system and the granting of several group-differentiated rights both to the community and to individual members of recognised religions (Kalb et al. 00). Religious communities and their members have a number of specific rights and privileges that go well beyond the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion. This model is largely a product of the Austrian model of church state relations. As Fetzer and Soper (00) show, the historical framework of church state relations and inherited ideas about the role of religion in public life are still of paramount importance in explaining domestic public policy. This is certainly the case in Austria, where the legacy of the way churches have historically been related to the state plays a major role in the development of current policies towards Islam. In general, in Austria there is an institutional separation between church and state in that the state refrains from interference with religious matters and vice-versa. Nevertheless, there is no complete separation since the state officially recognises a number of religious communities and grants them certain legal privileges including large state subsidies (Madeley 00, -; Potz, ). The practice is therefore characterized by cooperation between the state and several recognised religious organisations. The legal instrument that enables this institutional cooperation is the Law of Recognition [Anerkennungsgesetz] dating from. Of major importance is the fact that the Law of Recognition extended to all recognised religions rights enjoyed until then only by the Catholic Church (Kalb et al. 00: ). The Law of Recognition is generally interpreted as having introduced into jurisprudence and political culture the principle of the equality of treatment of all officially recognised religions [Paritätsprinzip], which has remained a guiding principle of the Austrian model of religious governance ever since. In other words, on the basis of the Law of Recognition, Austrian legislation not only harmonises the rights of different religious traditions, it does so by levelling-up the rights of all faiths to those of the dominant religion. Therefore the privileged situation of minority religions is intrinsically linked to the privileged position of the Catholic Church and its strong role within the Austrian political system. 0 Guild.indb /0/00 ::

6 Illiberal Liberal States 0 A further relevant point is that the Law of Recognition grants officially recognised religions the special status of privileged corporations of public law, which is attached to a number of rights and privileges. Thus, the main hierarchical organisations of officially recognised religious communities are quasi-public bodies with whom the state negotiates all matters related to religion. In that sense, Austria can be considered a state corporatist polity (Koenig 00, - ), which means that corporative religious organisations rather than individuals are perceived as the main religious actors with whom the state cooperates. These officially recognised religious organisations are deemed to be representative of all persons belonging to that religion within the Austrian territory. This is the case of the Islamische Glaubensgemeinschaft in Österreich (IGGiÖ) [Islamic Faith Community Organisation in Austria]. Austria is one of the few European countries that formally recognise Islam as an official religion. As mentioned before, this status is attached to a number of specific rights. Moreover, the fact that Islam is a recognised religion has influenced the interpretation of the Federal Constitution. Thus, where controversies have arisen with respect to traditional religious practices of Muslims, the constitutional right to freedom of religion and to be able to manifest one s religion was interpreted as imposing on the state a duty to accommodate the Muslim community. In concrete terms, this means that several special governmental decrees have been issued throughout the years to accommodate Muslim practices and customs. This interpretation of the Constitution reinforces the inclusionary principle of religious accommodation that lies at the basis of the Recognition Law (Kalb et al. 00). Interestingly, however, the official recognition of Islam is not the product of a policy of multicultural accommodation of ethnic and religious diversity by the modern Austrian state, but rather a consequence of historical path dependencies. The Law of Recognition mentioned above was enacted at a time when the Austro- Hungarian Empire had a strongly multi-ethnic and multi-religious character and included a great number of Jews and Orthodox Christians among its subjects. The inclusion of Islam as one of the recognised religious communities dates from and was the consequence of the annexation of the province of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the end of the monarchy, when Bosnia ceased to be a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, these provisions became largely dormant, since there was no significant percentage of Muslims among the population in the newly founded Austrian Republic. It was not until the 0s that demands for the revival of the recognition of Islam started to be voiced by a small group of active Muslims. These were not, however, typical Gastarbeiter but rather a relatively privileged group of well-educated immigrants. It is important to note that at that time the number of Muslims living in Austria was still very low, about 0. per cent of the population. Statistik Austria (00b), Bevölkerung nach dem religionsbekenntnis und Bundesländern bis 00, available from < accessed Guild.indb /0/00 ::

7 Religious Citizenship as a Substitute for Immigrant Integration? 0 Nevertheless, the process of consolidating the legal status of a representative Muslim organisation was facilitated by reference to a legal basis in the form of the law dating from (Ferrari 00, ). So, in the IGGiÖ managed to acquire the legal status as a corporation in public law representative of all Muslims present within the territory. The result is that Muslims in Austria, who are mostly immigrants, have a great number of rights due to their religious membership. It is to these rights and privileges that we shall turn now. Religious Citizenship In the following, we will review the rights granted to Muslims in Austria by virtue of national, European and international human rights legislation. As will be shown, the rights of the Muslim community are of three kinds. First of all, Austria recognizes the universal right to freedom of religion for all individuals. Secondly, individual Muslims possess a significant number of rights that can be considered group-differentiated rights (Kymlicka ), that is, rights which are not available to all citizens but only to a certain group or members of a group by virtue of their group membership. Furthermore, Muslims also have a third kind of right, which we propose to call corporate rights. The Law of Recognition grants the organisation representing the Islamic community specific rights which are accorded to the organisation itself as representative of all Muslims in Austria. Having established this typology of religious rights, we shall now turn to a detailed analysis of the existing rights enjoyed by Muslims. Universal Rights In Austria, the Federal Constitution provides a guarantee of freedom of religion in general and also the right to manifest one s religion in private and in public as long as this does not conflict with public order and customs. At the European level, the human right to freedom of religion is protected by different instruments, such as the European Convention of Human Rights of the Council of Europe and the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights. Moreover, the whole text of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) forms part of the Austrian Constitution. Group-Differentiated Rights Muslims are granted a number of group-differentiated rights due to the official recognition of Islam. Moreover, the official recognition of Islam also works indirectly to the benefit of immigrants claims, since the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion is often interpreted very broadly in light of the Law of Recognition, thus facilitating claims-making by representatives of the IGGiÖ for special legal treatment beyond the provisions of the Law of Recognition itself. 0 Guild.indb /0/00 ::

8 Illiberal Liberal States 0 We will consider the following group-differentiated rights: the right to wear religiously prescribed dress, to take time off for prayer and religious holidays, non-discrimination rights, and the right to receive religious education about Islam in public schools. One of the most important and most contested rights claimed by Muslims throughout Europe is the right to wear religiously prescribed attire. In particular, the demand of school girls to be able to wear the Islamic headscarf, or hijab, in public schools has led to very heated debates about the proper way to accommodate religious diversity in secular Europe (Benhabib 00; McGoldrick 00; Motha 00). In Austria, there is very little debate in the media and the political sphere about the Islamic headscarf. Nevertheless, in 00 a controversy did arise over some students headscarves, so a decree was issued by the Ministry of Education that approves a non-restrictive approach in the state school-system. The decree states that the wearing of a headscarf by Muslim students shall be identified as a religious dress code and therefore is to be protected by the constitutional principles enshrined in Article of the Basic State Law of the Austrian Constitution [Staatsgrundgesetz] and by Article of the ECHR. The right to wear headscarves is thus defined by the state as a religious obligation, and hence viewed as ensured by constitutional law (Gresch et al. 00). Likewise, where discussions have arisen concerning the requests of Muslim employees and students to take time off work or school for prayer or for religious holidays, an inclusive-pluralistic solution was sought. Hence, the Arbeitsruhegesetz allows workers to take time off for religious prayer so long as that does not disturb others (Kalb et al. 00, -). A corresponding law assures the rights of Muslim students not to attend school on the Islamic holidays of Eid-al-Fitr and Eid-al-Adha. Additionally, special regulations have also been adopted to assure that Muslims serving in the military receive special food and are released from service for the Islamic holidays of Ramadan and Eid-al-Adha. Further group-differentiated rights are granted to individual Muslims by European Union legislation. Besides the fact that primary EU law and international treaties to which the EU and its member states are signatory parties assure the individual human right to freedom of faith, since the adoption of Council Directive 000//EC, EU secondary legislation explicitly prohibits employment discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief. The right to non-discrimination ZI 0./-III//00. GZ 0./-III//; see also information by the Federal Ministry ZI..00/- Z//00 regarding Abs. of the Schulpflichtgesetzes and Abs. of the Schulunterrichtsgesetzes. GZ 0.00/-../. Council Directive 000//EC of November 000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation, OJ No. L 0 of //000, pp. -. Compliance with the Directive was required of all member states by December Guild.indb /0/00 ::

9 Religious Citizenship as a Substitute for Immigrant Integration? 0 established by the Directive is granted to all persons resident in the Union independently of nationality. Directive 000//EC goes well beyond a mere guarantee of freedom to chose one s faith to include a prohibition of direct and indirect discrimination, harassment, instructions to discriminate and victimisation. Thus, the Directive grants a group-differentiated right to non-discrimination on the ground of religion to members of all religious communities. This might be considered a group-differentiated right because it is only granted to religious persons on the basis of their belonging to a religious group. Other kinds of group membership and ascribed characteristics (for instance membership in a political group or nationality) do not have the same protection. Finally, a last very important group-differentiated right granted to individual Muslims in Austria by virtue of the Law of Recognition is the right of Muslim children to religious instruction in Islam. All school children are required to attend some kind of religious instruction unless their parents decide that they are exempt from this subject. Religious instruction is confessional and legally recognised churches and religious communities have a right to maintain publicly funded religious instruction for students of their faith. This is also the case for Islam. Muslim students have a right to receive religious instruction in Islam in their school, provided that numbers warrant. Where the number of students belonging to Islamic faith is too small to justify a separate class, Muslim students are exempt from attending religious instruction. In the EU, the right to receive Islamic religious instruction in public schools is unique to Austria, and it is heralded by the IGGiÖ as a major factor contributing to the integration of Muslims in the country. Corporate Rights The right of individual Muslims to religious education about Islam is connected to a right granted to the IGGiÖ as the representative organisation of the Islamic community to define the curriculum of the religious classes, choose the textbook which will be used, and to hire, train and supervise the teachers (Wieshaider 00, ). Austrian legislation establishes that the content of the confessional religious instruction in schools is to be considered as an internal affair of the respective church or officially recognised religious community, whereas the state remains responsible only for the organisational and disciplinary aspects of the religious instruction (Kalb et al. 00, ). The only restriction imposed by the legislation is that the content of the materials taught in the religious instruction should not go against the general principles of civic education (Kalb et al. 00: ). Thus, the IGGiÖ as an officially recognised religious community has autonomy to define the content of Islamic religious instruction in schools without interference See the website of the IGGiÖ (last visited..00): < islam.php?name=themen&pa=showpage&pid=>. Bundesgesetz vom. Juli, BGBl. Nr., betreffend den Religionsunterricht in der Schule. 0 Guild.indb /0/00 ::

10 Illiberal Liberal States 0 by the state. More than that, the IGGiÖ has the right to hire the religious teachers, even though they then become public servants and are paid by the state. The right to religious education is a very important one not only because of the symbolic value of cultural recognition that comes from including a minority s religion in the normal curriculum of public education, but also because it allows the IGGiÖ to intervene directly with the public educational system. Furthermore, the IGGiÖ has the right to autonomy and self-determination in internal affairs. Internal affairs include regulations and issues related to the religious doctrines, sacraments, and offices, and issues related to religious education such as the above mentioned assignment of teaching posts, as well as issues related to the organisation itself, such as membership duties and rights, and the administration and acquisition of the group s property. Here it is important to note, however, that in order to acquire official recognition by the state, the religious communities must fulfil a number of conditions, such as showing that they have a positive approach towards society and the state, and that they do not prescribe their members any conduct that goes against Austrian law or the customs (Kalb et al. 00, -). The IGGiÖ also plays an important role in the political arena. Officially recognised religious organisations have the right to be consulted in the negotiation of legislative initiatives that concern religion or religious people. Thus, Muslims in Austria have a corporate right to political representation in policy areas related to religion. Moreover, at the policy level, the state cooperates with religious organisations when issues arise that are protected by the principle of freedom of religion. This includes the negotiation of specific claims by minority religions to be granted legal exceptions to accommodate specific practices and ways of life related to religion (e.g. religious regulations on slaughtering, the wearing of religious dress, the building of places of worship), as well as all matters related to the exercise of public functions by religious organisations (e.g. religious instruction) (Khorchide 00). These consultation rights fit well with the Austrian traditions of consociational democracy and strong corporatism. The political system has been historically marked by a particularly strong institutionalisation of corporatist interest representation in the form of social partnership (Pelinka ). Although the role of the social partners in the decision-making process has been waning (see Tálos 00), in the case of interest representation of religious groups in the political system, the role of religious communities seems to be actually gaining in importance (Mourão Permoser et al. 00). This is exemplified by the fact that the IGGiÖ has been invited to take part in consultation processes which are not directly related to religion, such as for instance the recently created Integrationsplattform, which shall elaborate a new integration policy for immigrants. The embeddedness of the IGGiÖ in several important policy-making settings definitely represents a major inclusionary feature of the model of governance of religious diversity. 0 Guild.indb /0/00 ::

11 Religious Citizenship as a Substitute for Immigrant Integration? 0 From Religious Rights to Religious Citizenship In his classic analysis of the development of citizenship in England, T.H. Marshall () divided the rights of citizenship for analytical purposes into three categories or elements : civic, political and social. The civic element of citizenship in Marshall s (, ) account was composed of the rights necessary for individual freedom, including liberty of the person, freedom of speech, thought and faith, the right to own property and to conclude valid contracts, and the right to justice. The political element, in turn, refers to the right to participate in the exercise of political power (ibid.), be it as an elector or as a member of a political body. Finally, the social element in Marshall s (, ), view implies an absolute right to a certain standard of civilization by which he means both economic sufficiency and cultural recognition (that is, the right to be treated as equal and not to be stigmatized or discriminated against due to social class or group membership). Religious rights or freedom of faith were already included in Marshall s framework, namely as belonging to the domain of civic citizenship. However, what Marshall refers to as freedom of faith is a merely passive right to chose one s own religion. It implies a right to freedom from state interference with one s individual choice of religion or belief, not a positive responsibility by the state to make sure that all religious groups can exercise their religion and fully participate in society on an equal basis despite their religious differences. The religious rights that exist in Austria due to the Constitution, the Recognition Law and the implementation of EU anti-discrimination legislation go well beyond this notion of freedom of faith as implied in Marshall s typology. First, religious rights not only imply that the state should refrain from interference with each person s choice of religion, but rather create a positive duty by the state and by private parties (employers) to accommodate religious diversity and make full participation in society possible for all religious groups. They thereby recognise the public aspect of religious observance. Whereas the choice of religion remains a private individual affair, the exercise of religious freedom is recognised as taking place both in the private and in the public spheres of life. Secondly, in Austria religious rights are not only individual in nature but sometimes actually amount to collective or group-differentiated rights. Moreover, as we have seen, the rights granted to recognised religious communities are not only civil, but rather permeate all three elements of Marshall s typology, including the political element (due to consultation rights) and the social elements (in the form of cultural recognition and non-discrimination). A further particularity of these religious rights is that they are granted independently from possession of formal citizenship. Thus, the IGGiÖ represents all Muslims independent of their citizenship and it has a right to be consulted in political negotiations in certain areas. Consequentially, Muslims who do not have citizenship are nevertheless partially represented in the political system and can sometimes indirectly influence policy making. This means that in Austria affiliation with a given religion may at times replace citizenship status as a condition for 0 Guild.indb /0/00 ::

12 0 Illiberal Liberal States 0 becoming an actor in the political system. Of course, religious citizenship is far from granting the same degree of egalitarian political participation and autonomy as political citizenship. Nevertheless, since they are independent of possession of nationality, rights of religious citizenship indicate a trend towards postnational (Soysal ) forms of membership. In sum, religious rights as present in Austria break with the nationality-based conception of citizenship and go well beyond an individual right to freedom of faith. Rather, they include both individual and group-differentiated rights that cover many aspects of life (employment, education, symbols, etc.) and cut through all three different dimensions of Marshall s concept of citizenship, thus constituting a form of religious citizenship. A European Pattern? In the previous section we have argued that in Austria two contradictory dynamics are at play in the governance of diversity. Thus, an inclusionary model of religious governance that amounts to a form of religious citizenship for members of officially recognised religions coincides with restrictive immigrant integration policies that create high barriers (including the imposition of criteria based on values and culture) to the acquisition of political and socio-economic rights by immigrants. Interestingly, at the level of supranational legislation we can observe a similar pattern. The Employment Equality Directive applies to all persons living in the Union regardless of whether they might be citizens of the EU. At the same time, non-discrimination rights are considered to be part and parcel of the distinctive attributes of European citizenship (see Bell 00). Well, if the right to nondiscrimination on the grounds of religion is considered a right of EU citizenship, but it is granted to all inhabitants of the EU independent of nationality, then the traditional dependency of European citizenship on national citizenship is being broken. However, while the anti-discrimination Directives grant important rights to TCNs by virtue of their ethnic or religious membership, policies aimed specifically at the socio-economic integration of immigrants in the EU have failed to achieve such high standards. The most significant measure to improve the socio-economic rights of TCNs resident in the EU until now, the so-called Long- Term Residents Directive (LTRD), has failed to establish a full-fledged right to non-discrimination on the grounds of nationality for legally established longterm resident TCNs. The LTRD does not apply to all TCNs and permits existing inequalities in the labour market and social assistance schemes to be continued. Moreover, the LTRD offers wide discretion to member states to impose mandatory Council Directive 00//EC of November 00 concerning the status of third-country nationals who are long-term residents, OJ No. L of /0/00, pp Guild.indb 0 /0/00 ::

13 Religious Citizenship as a Substitute for Immigrant Integration? 0 integration requirements for immigrants wishing to benefit from its provisions. These integration requirements are not further defined, but in practice are likely to amount to the imposition of language and civil education tests, which are often aimed at assessing whether immigrants have adopted the receiving society s values and morals. Examples of countries that have already adopted such integration test are Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France, and others. In certain cases civic integration tests have actually been used as a discriminatory tool, supposedly aimed at assessing the immigrant s commitment to core liberal values. A case in point is the test applied in the province of Baden-Würtenberg after 00, where applicants for citizenship who came from countries where the population is predominantly Muslim had to answer questions such as what would you do if you found out that your son is gay? or in your view were the perpetrators of the September attacks terrorist or freedom fighters?. Similarly, the Dutch government s information DVD sent to applicants for a Dutch visa includes images of naked women and homosexual couples kissing, which is likely to be a measure specifically targeted at Muslim audiences (Joppke 00a). Joppke (00a) points out that one very interesting aspect of these new civic integration policies is their obligatory character. The state therefore coerces immigrants into adopting liberal norms and values. Moreover, such tests are often used as an instrument of the state to manage migration and select immigrants according to their level of education and their capacity or willingness to adopt the general norms and values as well as the language and customs of the hosting society. As Carrera (00a) notes, if implemented in a restrictive manner, the application of these provisions would lead to a situation where the values of a multicultural society and the respect of the fundamental rights of TCNs could be seriously undermined. The dividing line between an efficient integration policy and the respect of cultural, ethnic and religious diversity may become dangerously thin. In sum, by including in the LTRD the optional condition that member states may require TCNs to comply with integration conditions, in accordance with national law, those member states with restrictive integration regimes have managed to transpose their exclusionary policies onto the supranational framework. Thus, also at the European level two models of governing diversity coexist. The approach towards religious diversity does not match with the tendency towards policies of immigrant integration that allows for immigrants rights to be conditional on cultural adaptation into the receiving society. Conclusion As our analysis of the origins of the official recognition of Islam and of the IGGiÖ show, the privileged situation granted today to immigrants due to their religious membership was not the result of a conscious effort on the part of the government to improve the immigrants lot. Rather, this religious citizenship is the product 0 Guild.indb /0/00 ::

14 Illiberal Liberal States 0 of a combination of three factors. Firstly, the historical legacy of the multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire and its tolerant attitudes towards religious minorities created the legal premises upon which the recognition of Islam was made possible. Secondly, the existence of a small but very active group of politically engaged Muslims, who recognised in this historical legal premise a chance to improve the situation of Muslims and pressured the government to recognise Islam, was an absolutely crucial factor. Lastly, the traditions of consociational democracy and corporatism that characterize the political system have certainly contributed to the IGGiÖ s increasing importance as a political actor. However, none of these factors imply a political willingness to accommodate cultural diversity that comes with migration and to treat immigrants as full members of society. Had it not been for the clever manipulation of a historical legacy by a group of politico/religious entrepreneurs, it is very unlikely that a similar degree of rights for Muslim immigrants as presently exists would ever have developed. Much to the contrary, xenophobic discourses have been widespread in Austrian politics for a long time. Moreover, these discourses increasingly take an Islamophobic turn (Rosenberger and Hadj-Abdou 00). In the case of Austria, we have argued that the reasons for the development of two contradictory systems of dealing with cultural diversity may be found in the capacity of relevant societal actors to make use of existing institutional frameworks and societal norms. Thus, in the case of religious governance, an active group of Muslims was able to make use of historical path dependencies to promote liberal policies towards Islam. By contrast, in the case of immigrant integration policies, it was the anti-immigration parties and protectionist interests that have so far been successful in preventing a change in the historically established exclusionary citizenship and immigration regime by framing liberal norms as being synonymous with European values and as conflicting with the values of immigrant communities. At the supranational level, the situation does not markedly differ. As Geddes and Guiraudon (00) have shown, the passing of the year 000 anti-discrimination Directives was crucially influenced by the fact that a committed group of political entrepreneurs could use the window of opportunity of the rise of extreme right-wing parties in Europe, especially the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) of Jörg Haider, to frame the new claims to anti-discrimination in the language of contemporary Europe s commitment to countering anti-semitism and racism. Thus a historical commitment to religious and ethnic pluralism was cleverly instrumentalized by those interests who wished to improve the situation of immigrant communities in Europe, despite the fact that such a strong commitment to these minorities might not have been present per se among the decision-makers. By contrast, when it came to the negotiations of the LTRD (00), no such window of opportunity existed. The context was one of ever more restrictive immigration and integration policies in a number of European countries, including especially Austria, Germany and the Netherlands. The European Council was composed of a majority of centre-right parties and the intuitional setting of the 0 Guild.indb /0/00 ::

15 Religious Citizenship as a Substitute for Immigrant Integration? 0 negotiations was the Justice and Home Affairs Council, which contributes to a framing of the question of immigrant integration as an issue of security and welfare protection, rather than fundamental rights. The fear that liberal policies of immigrant integration might support the illiberal values of certain immigrant communities favoured those protectionist interests who wish to isolate national labour markets and welfare systems from newcomers, thus contributing to the weakening of the Directive. In sum, one possible hypothesis to be further explored would be that, similarly to the Austrian case, the success of policies aimed at immigrant integration at the supranational level also depends on the capacity of socially progressive actors to frame their claims in terms of existing liberal norms against those interests who try to instrumentalise those same norms to justify the exclusion of immigrants from full participation in society. A full exploration of this hypothesis lies, however, beyond the scope of this chapter. It will be the task of further studies to show whether this hypothesis holds at the level of the EU and in different national contexts. In conclusion, the case of Muslims in Austria shows that, independently of its causes, the result of maintaining two different models of governance of diversity is that immigrants have their religious identities formally recognised and protected, but they are still excluded from full participation in society as equal members of the polity. In particular, immigrants are often not given an equal chance to improve their economic situation since there are restrictions to labour market participation and to welfare benefits due to their immigrant status. At the same time, it is predominantly their inferior economic status that makes immigrants a target of xenophobic and intolerant arguments. Moreover, those immigrants who are not religious are left entirely outside the scope of religious citizenship and therefore of the existing liberal policies of accommodation of diversity. Here Marshall s () insight remains as pertinent as ever, that an adequate level of economic welfare and security is an indispensable element in achieving full social equality. Religious citizenship is no substitute for comprehensive measures to promote social, economic and political integration. 0 Guild.indb /0/00 ::

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17 0 0 Part III Immigration and Integration: The European Union Guild.indb /0/00 ::