Nations beyond nationalism

Inquiry

Volumn 50, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 378-394

  De Schutter, Helder ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEUVEN   (Belgium)

^b Centre for Ethics Social and Political Philosophy   (Belgium)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34548301768     PISSN: 0020174X     EISSN: 15023923     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00201740701489468     Document Type: Review

References (47)

1. This way of phrasing the principle of nationality is derived from David Miller, who has defined it as follows: "it is valuable for the boundaries of political units (para-digmatically, states) to coincide with national boundaries", see David Miller (1995) On Nationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press) p. 82.
2. Here I omit the insertion "(paradigmatically, states)", since not all liberal nationalists will subscribe to it, see Chaim Gans (2003) The Limits of Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) chapters 1 & 3;
3. and Will Kymlicka (1995) Multicultural Citizenship. A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press) pp. 73, 186.
4. I thus focus on national identities, which are often based on language. "National" forms of diversity differ from, other forms of cultural diversity in that they frequently contain national groups that question political authority as opposed to political content, or policy. They thereby differ from groups who mainly question actual policies, such as groups based on caste, racial, religious or ethnic identities. The latter identity groups can often be accommodated by changing (some) policies or by influencing certain forms of societal behaviour that are perceived to be harmful to those who affirm these identities. Let me explain this. Take the claims coming from racial-based groups that their job opportunities are significantly harmed by forms of racism, The solution that is most straightforward here and also desired by such groups is to be found in implementing or improving (antiracial or group-differentiated) policies aimed at advancing their situation. Such groups do not normally ask for significant redrawing of political boundaries, or for secession. That is how they differ from, situations where different nationalities come into play. By claiming a separate context of political decision-making, ational groups demand a change in political authority, as the Scots, the Québecois, the Catalans, the Flemish, etc. have done. These groups do not just demand policy changes (like equal respect, affirmative action or group-differentiated policies): what they want is authority changes; they claim forms of self-government. I thank Christopher Zurn for pressing me on this point.
5. See Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, p. 18;
6. Miller, On Nationality, pp. 18-19.
7. As I discuss below, one form, this may take is constitutional patriotism.
8. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, p. 111.
9. Gans, The Limits of Nationalism;
10. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship;
11. Miller, On Nationality;
12. Margaret Moore (2001) "Normative justification for liberal nationalism.: justice, democracy and national identity", Nations and Nationalism, 7 (1) pp. 1-20;
13. Yael Tamir (1993) Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
14. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, p. 83. Kymlicka's term "societal culture" refers to the culture of a nation or a people.
15. See Miller, On Nationality,
16. and Will Kymlicka (2001) Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press) chapter 11.
17. David Miller, On Nationality, p. 91.
18. Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular, pp. 226-227;
19. Miller, On Nationality, p. 97.
20. For the first view, see Miller, On Nationality, p. 82,
21. for the second view, see Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship;
22. Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism.
23. See Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular, pp. 91-119
24. and Will Kymlicka, "Territorial Boundaries: A Liberal Egalitarian Perspective" in David Miller and Sohail H. Hashmi (Eds.) (2001) Boundaries and Justice. Diverse Ethical Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University Press) pp. 249-275.
25. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, pp. 45-48.
26. This holds primarily for Will Kymlicka, Yael Tamir and Joseph Raz (1994) "Multiculturalism.: a liberal perspective", Dissent Winter, pp. 67-79.
27. In principle national identities are not always territorial identities. Strictly speaking, then, accommodating national cultures might avoid including territorial rights or rights to territorial autonomy, for instance through non-territorial federalism. Yet, very often, national identities are territorially concentrated, and the demands of national groups almost always include territorial claims. This is also how most liberal nationalists understand national identities (see Gans, The Limits of Nationalism;
28. Tamir, Liberal Nationalism;
29. Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular). Accordingly, they understand territorial autonomy as a corollary of self-government rights.
30. David Miller appears to be an exception here. He seems to believe that national identities can hold a shared conception of the good life. See Miller, On Nationality, chapter 2.
31. Bart Maddens, Jaak Billiet, and Roeland Beerten, "De (sub)nationale identiteit en de houding tegenover vreemdelingen in Vlaanderen en Wallonie" in Kas Deprez and Louis Vos (Eds.) (1999) Nationalisme in België. Identiteiten in beweging 1780-2000, (Antwerpen: Houtekiet) pp. 298-313.
32. In presenting national pluralism, I draw on the work of, among others, Rainer Bauböck, Seyla Benhabib, Joseph Carens, and Alan Patten. See Rainer Bauböck, "Why Stay Together? A Pluralist Approach to Secession and Federation" in Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman (Eds.) (2000) Citizenship in Diverse Societies (Oxford: Oxford University Press) pp. 366-94;
33. Seyla Benhabib (2002) The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in a Global Era (Princeton: Princeton University Press);
34. Joseph Carens (2000) Culture, Citizenship and Community. A Contextual Exploration of Justice as Evenhandedness (Oxford: Oxford University Press);
35. Alan Patten (2001) "Liberal Citizenship in Multinational Societies" in Alain-G. Gagnon and James ully, Multinational Democracies (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) pp. 279-298.
36. See for an account of this different conception of neutrality Alan Patten (2003) "Liberal neutrality and language policy" Philosophy & Public Affairs, 31(4) pp. 356-86.
37. In principle, one might extend this "bi-national" model to "multinational" models for constellations with more than two nations. It should be acknowledged, however, that institutionally accommodating national diversity will become increasingly practically difficult, if not impossible, as the number of groups increases. In such cases the normative national pluralism model clearly faces practical limits, for which practical solutions need to be sought. Yet it is hard to conceive of any normative model that avoids such practical drawbacks, as non-lingual schools or hospitals are impossible and nationalistic mononational and monolingual solutions are bound to result in injustice and conflict.
38. Jürgen Habermas (1998) Die postnationale Konstellation (Suhrkamp, Verlag).
39. Miller, On Nationality, pp. 160-163;
40. Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular, pp. 323-326.
41. Miller, On Nationality, p. 101.
42. Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular, pp. 317-326.
43. Ibid., p. 326.
44. What forms of nation-building would be appropriate at the European level? Clearly these should be limited to liberal and moderate forms of nation-building. Examples may include some of the following: granting more powers to the EU Parliament; starting up European-wide political parties; implementing a European-wide history course in schools that focuses on European history; maintaining and honouring the equal respect language policy; creating funds for writers or historians for projects about European culture; subsidizing the creation of European-wide public media (such as the existing bilingual French-German Arte channel).
45. Similar arguments might be developed for different levels. One might expect, for instance, that states characterized by internal cultural diversity would benefit from raising their internal cohesion through fostering a shared national identity (which is not incompatible with the simultaneous granting of minority rights).
46. My account of why European redistribution (which might ultimately imply the implementation of a European-wide Rawlsian difference principle) is desirable rests on a prior, positive answer to the question whether there is something like global distributive justice, which should be distinguished from both mere beneficence to the global poor and from global rights to subsistence. An additional way of grounding non-identity related functions, to which I am sympathetic, is by referring to the need to extend forms of liberal democracy beyond the level of the existing nation-states because of globalization pressures (like security, economic and ecological concerns). Given the powerful (even if only instrumental) link between liberal democracy and nationality, we should extend our level of nation-building accordingly.
47. I thank Charles Beitz, Jan-Werner Müller, Alan Patten, Theodore Schatzki, André Van de Putte, Antoon Vandevelde and Christopher Zum for their useful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper.