Liberal nationalism, immigration, and the problem of multiple national identities

ABSTRACT

Critics and defenders of liberal nationalism often debate whether the nation-state is able to accommodate cultural and political pluralism, as it necessarily aspires for congruence between state and nation. In this article, I argue that both sides of the debate have neglected a second homogenising assumption of nationalism. Even if it is possible for the nation-building state to accommodate multiple political and cultural communities, it is not obvious that is possible or desirable for it to accommodate individuals belonging to more than one nation. With the rise of international migration, and the growing number of multinational individuals, this flaw is a serious one. I advance an internal critique of liberal nationalism to demonstrate that, from within its own logic, this theory must either reject multiple national identities, or accommodate them at the cost of the normative justifications of nationalism it provides. By analysing David Miller’s influential analysis of national identity in divided societies, I demonstrate how this framework is unable to support an accepting attitude towards multiple national identities.

Abbreviation

EU = European Union; PM = Prime Minister; MP = Member of Parliament

KEYWORDS:

• Liberal nationalism
• loyalty
• immigration
• national identity
• transnationalism

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Rainer Bauböck, who provided guidance and helpful comments on the research leading to this paper. This paper was prepared for and presented at the “Liberal Nationalism and its Critics” workshop, Nuffield College, Oxford, June 2017, and benefitted from the comments of Gina Gustavsson, Nils Holtug, Cécile Laborde, Patti Lenard, David Miller, Margaret Moore, and Daniel Weinstock. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the “Legal, Political, and Social Theory” Thematic Working Group, and at the Max Weber Fellows June Conference, both at the European University Institute.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The seminal works in liberal nationalism are Kymlicka (1995), Margalit & Raz (1990), Miller (1995), and Tamir (1993). For prominent critiques, specifically from scholars advocating greater sensitivity to questions of difference and diversity, see Levy (2000), Parekh (2000), Tully (1995), and Young (2011).

2. This general line of argument is also advanced by A.J Simmons against associative accounts of political obligations more broadly:

‘Political obligation, as this is commonly understood, requires a kind of exclusivity in many of our dealings with political communities. It is only good fortune that allows holders of dual citizenship to satisfy all of the political obligations that we normally suppose citizens lie under. But it may well be that in the final analysis, if we really believe that all citizens owe their states political obligations, we must believe as well that the position of dual (or multiple) citizenship is simply morally untenable’ (Simmons, 2002: 30).

3. Multiple national identities may also be the result of a political process of nation building, where the state has partially succeeded in creating or prioritising one national identity without fully eradicating competing national identities, as is the case in some multinational states. As my focus in this article is on multiple national identities of immigrants, I will limit the scope of the discussion to the first two paths.

4. The flipside of this view is Spiro (2016), who argues that dual nationality undermines the value of citizenship—but that this is both desirable and unavoidable.

5. See the classic argument by Mill (1861/1991), Chapter XVI, as well as Miller (1995: 135–139, 2000a) for explicit examples of this claim vis-à-vis subnational identities. Cf. Buchanan (1997) and Moore (2001: 47–50) for critiques of this argument.

6. For a similar analysis, see Soutphommasane (2012: 225–228).

7. This is a political, not a psychological, argument: it involves a claim about the sustainability of social solidarity and allegiance at the aggregate level, not at the level of the individual. There are, in fact, studies that suggest that there is no necessary psychological tension between dual political allegiances, nor is there a clear diminution of political participation among individual dual nationals. For a discussion see Chaudhary (2016), Guarnizo, Portes, & Haller (2003), and Schlenker, Blatter, & Birka (2017).

8. Kymlicka, for example, is notable for his distinction between minority nations and ethnic minorities, with differing collective rights within the multicultural state—minority nations have the right to self-determination, while ethnic minorities have the right to recognition and accommodation.

9. On the similarity between Miller’s typology and Kymlicka’s approach in particular, see Kymlicka (2011) () and Miller (2011).

10. As Kymlicka writes, ‘British politicians may promote a common British identity in a way that downplays the significance of regional identities; Scottish politicians may promote a sense of Scottish nationhood that views British authority as usurped or derivative; and EU politicians may imply that both British and Scottish national identities are anachronisms in an increasingly post-national European demos. And yet citizens themselves seem able to reconcile these loyalties, and get on with the business of building multi-level political orders that are democratic and free.’ (2011, 288).

11. In addition to the three cases described here, Miller also mentions (in a footnote) the possibility of aboriginal or indigenous peoples as a fourth category—not quite ethnic groups, certainly not nested, but also less than rival nationalities. This suggests that this typology may not be exhaustive, as is exemplified in Kymlicka’s treatment of minority nations. I leave this complication aside for the sake of clarity.

12. Again, this may be extended to associative accounts of political obligation more broadly (e.g. Horton, 2007). See note 2 above.

13. Similarly, classifying a state as mono-national or multi-national is in itself a questionable classification, which arguably cannot be made purely theoretical. On this point, see Levy (2000) and, from a more methodological perspective see Stojanovic (2011).

14. See also Miller’s discussion of ‘symbolic identity’ (Miller, 2000a: 69–70). This solution is proposed by some legal scholars as a model of dual legal citizenship, where one can maintain a ‘dormant’ citizenship which is activated only when certain conditions of residence apply, as is the case with Spanish citizens who naturalise and are residing in Iberoamerican countries.

15. In his discussion of the treatment of Japanese- and German-Americans during the Second World War, Miller writes that ‘the state should act towards immigrants on the basis that they are committed citizens, until in the case of any particular individual there is clear evidence to the contrary’ (Miller, 2008)—wouldn’t refusing to serve in a war be such evidence?.

16. I thank an anonymous reviewer for pressing me to clarify this point.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lior Erez

Lior Erez is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Edmond J Safra Center for Ethics, Tel Aviv University, working on international political theory, cosmopolitanism, and citizenship. His work appeared, most recently, in the British Journal of Political Science, Ethics & International Affairs, and Social Theory and Practice.