Abstract: This book compares the post-war politics of immigration control and immigrant integration in three liberal states characterized by sharply distinct nationhood traditions and immigration experiences. Mapping out the many variations between these cases, it focuses on the impact of immigration in the two key areas of sovereignty and citizenship. The first part analyses the effect of immigration on state sovereignty, arguing that with respect to immigration control, liberal states are self-limited by interest-group pluralism, autonomous legal systems, and moral obligations towards particular interest groups – the weight of these factors differing across particular cases. The second part addresses the ways in which immigration impacts upon citizenship, arguing for the continuing relevance of national citizenship for integrating immigrants, albeit modified by nationally distinct concepts of multiculturalism. The book demonstrates the remarkable resilience of these nation-states to immigration pressures, and makes a powerful contribution to the growing macro-sociological literature and political science literature on immigration, citizenship, and the nation-state.

Keywords: citizenship, Germany, Great Britain, immigration, multiculturalism, nation-state, sovereignty, USA