Once its unifying threat receded, the German ethnocultural framework loosened.

Evidence

The xenophobia that accompanied reunification and its immediate legislative outcome suggested that the ‘Berlin Republic’ would continue to deny the diversity of its population. The 1993 law limiting the right of asylum gratuitously capitulated to anti-foreign sentiment without addressing the status of foreign residents. Nevertheless the same law, which made citizenship for ‘late resettlers’ more difficult to obtain, acknowledged the re-emergence of a pro-immigration coalition in response to the attacks on foreigners that would bear fruit by the end of the decade. The 2000 citizenship reform fell short of reformers’ expectations, but it expanded the basis for citizenship and laid the foundations for the further encouragement of immigration. No doubt the fear of hybridity persists as do the structural inequalities which those of ‘migration background’ face. Yet it is clear enough that a significant legacy of the ‘East’ is receding. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 212

Categorization

• XREF: Relevant to the reader’s question about what happens when the external threat/enemy dissolves: the ‘East’-rooted ethnocentrism is deemed ‘receding’ as its constitutive grievance and Cold War rival disappeared. — connects to: Removing a named external threat intensifies rather than softens dominant-group nationalism. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1391; Anti-immigrant solidarity collapsed almost instantly when the anarchist threat faded — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 660

Broader Connections

• Anti-immigrant solidarity collapsed almost instantly when the anarchist threat faded #exemplifies (0.82) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 660
• Removing a named external threat intensifies rather than softens dominant-group nationalism. #contradicts (0.80) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 1391