Citizenship and National Identity E-Book

David l. Miller

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 497

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

A good political community is one whose citizens are actively engaged in deciding their common future together. Bound together by ties of national solidarity, they discover and implement principles of justice that all can share, and in doing so they respect the separate identities of minority groups within the community.

In the essays collected in this book, David Miller shows that such an ideal is not only desirable, but feasible. He explains how active citizenship on the republican model differs from liberal citizenship, and why it serves disadvantaged groups better than currently fashionable forms of identity politics. By deliberating freely with one another, citizens can reach decisions on matters of public policy that are both rational and fair. He couples this with a robust defence of the principle of nationality, arguing that a shared national identity is necessary to motivate citizens to work together in the name of justice. Attempts to create transnational forms of citizenship, in Europe and elsewhere, are therefore misguided. He shows that the principle of nationality can accommodate the demands of minority nations, and does not lead to a secessionist free-for-all. And finally he demonstrates that national self-determination need not be achieved at the expense of global justice.

This is a powerful statement from a leading political theorist that not only extends our understanding of citizenship, nationality and deliberative democracy, but engages with current political debates about identity politics, minority nationalisms and European integration.

Leseprobe

For Don Fowler whose warmth and friendship I shall miss so much and also for Peta

Citizenship and National Identity

DAVID MILLER

Polity Press

Copyright © David Miller 2000

The right of David Miller to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2000 by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Reprinted 2005

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miller, David.

Citizenship and national identity/David Miller.

  p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0–7456–2393–X—ISBN 0–7456–2394–8—ISBN 978-0-7456-6793-5 (ebook)

1. Citizenship. 2. Nationalism. I. Title

JF801 M55 2000

323’.04—′de21

99–058780

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Marston Book Services Limited, Oxford

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1   Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice

2   In Defence of Nationality

3   Citizenship and Pluralism

4   Group Identities, National Identities and Democratic Politics

5   Bounded Citizenship

6   Communitarianism: Left, Right and Centre

7   Secession and the Principle of Nationality

8   Nationality in Divided Societies

9   Is Deliberative Democracy Unfair to Disadvantaged Groups?

10 National Self-Determination and Global Justice

Notes

Index

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank the editors and publishers of the following essays for permission to reprint them in this book.

‘Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice’, Political Studies, 40 (1992), Special Issue on Prospects for Democracy, 54–67.

‘In Defence of Nationality’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 10 (1993), 3–16.

‘Citizenship and Pluralism’, Political Studies, 43 (1995), 432–50.

‘Group Identities, National Identities and Democratic Politics’ in J. Horton and S. Mendus (eds), Toleration, Identity and Difference (London, Macmillan, 1999).

‘Bounded Citizenship’ in K. Hutchings and R. Dannreuther (eds), Cosmopolitan Citizenship (London, Macmillan, 1999).

‘Communitarianism: Left, Right and Centre’ in D. Avnon and A. de-Shalit (eds), Liberalism and its Practice (London, Routledge, 1999).

‘Secession and the Principle of Nationality’ in J. Couture, K. Nielsen and M. Seymour (eds), Rethinking Nationalism (Calgary, University of Calgary Press, 1998) (Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 22).

‘Nationality in Divided Societies’ in A. Gagnon and J. Tully (eds), Struggles for Recognition in Multinational Societies (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Introduction

The essays collected in this book were all written during the last ten years, and together represent my attempt to throw some light on two central issues: what citizenship can mean in today’s world, and whether nationality remains a defensible principle around which to organize our politics. I regard these issues as closely connected, in the sense that the form of citizenship that I advocate, which I call republican, is feasible only where it can call upon the ethical resources of a national community. So the defence of republican citizenship and the defence of nationality are closely linked, and I therefore believe that the essays included here, although composed for separate occasions, set out a coherent political theory.

Politically speaking, the position from which they are written is broadly social democratic. A concern for social justice, and the conditions under which it can be achieved, is never far below the surface, and indeed during the period in question I have been working in parallel on a restatement of my views on that topic, which has now appeared in book form as Principles of Social Justice (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1999). But the 1990s have been a difficult decade for those who share my general stance (the spate of electoral victories by social-democratic parties in Europe and elsewhere notwithstanding). Three developments in particular have appeared to threaten the idea of social justice pursued by democratic means within national boundaries, which I believe stands at the heart of social democracy as a political project.

The first of these is economic and cultural globalization – the set of processes which, it is argued, entail that the state is losing the capacity to control economic activity within its borders, and also the capacity to determine the cultural make-up of its citizens. Free international movement of both capital and labour means that all states are forced to pursue essentially similar economic policies internally if they are not to scare away investors or lose skilled labour to other states, while flows of information of all kinds across borders mean that citizens everywhere are increasingly exposed to the same barrage of cultural messages – they watch the same television shows, listen to the same news programmes, see the same advertisements, buy the same commodities and so on. As a result of all this, the argument goes, the power of the state is ebbing away, and it matters less to individual citizens what character their state has, or where its boundaries are drawn. So the effect of globalization is on the one hand to make social justice as it is usually understood harder to pursue, and on the other to make traditional concerns about citizenship and nationality increasingly marginal to the lives of ordinary people.

The second tendency runs in a sense directly counter to the first, but it too has disturbing implications for the nation-state in its traditional form. This is the emergence, in many parts of the globe, of sub-state nationalisms that challenge the legitimacy of existing states. Whether the challenge is violent or peaceful, the claim made is that established states are unable to satisfy the interests and the cultural demands of smaller, more local communities. Unfortunately, however, these claims may be very difficult to meet, not least because of territorial disputes between different national groups of the kind we have witnessed in former Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, Israel and many other places. So the problem here is not that people are becoming economically or culturally cosmopolitan, but that they are engaging in forms of politics (and political violence) that bring to mind Isaiah Berlin’s image of nationalism as a bent twig that when released lashes back uncontrollably at those who are seen as the oppressors and tormentors of the minority nations.

The third tendency has something in common with each of the first two. This is the appearance, within liberal democracies, of new forms of identity politics, whereby groups formed on the basis of shared ethnicity, religion, gender or sexuality enter political arenas in search of recognition and a remoulding of citizenship so that it comes to reflect these more fractionalized forms of personal identity. The message appears to be that political identity does indeed matter in politics, but that the identities that count are not the old identities stemming from nationhood and common citizenship, but new, more fragmented identities that are often shared with others outside the boundaries of the state. So identity politics appears in part to reflect the transmission of different cultures across national borders, and in part to reflect the desire for stronger, more direct forms of political identity that sub-state nationalisms also embody.

That these three tendencies are proceeding apace has been more or less the received wisdom of the last decade, and as with received wisdom generally, we ought to look carefully and critically at how far these claims are borne out by the facts. But even if they turn out to be exaggerated, it remains true that in many quarters the ideas of nationhood and common citizenship are under attack – whether on the grounds that they were flawed from the very start or on the grounds that they may once have been valuable, but have now been sidelined by historical change. So I have tried to bring out some of their virtues, and also some of the ways in which they can be adapted to respond to the trends outlined above. I accept, in other words, that the claims made about globalization, sub-state nationalism and identity politics are at least partly true; they reflect changes in the political landscape that are real enough, even if the arguments made about them are overstated. But how we should respond, normatively, to these changes, is another question. The argument here is that we should reassert the underlying values of republican citizenship as a form of politics and nationhood as a form of political identity, while simultaneously thinking creatively about how best to implement these values in the contemporary world.

I explain what I mean by republican citizenship in chapter 3, where I contrast the republican conception of the citizen as someone who is actively involved in shaping the future direction of his or her society with two other views: the liberal view, which understands citizenship as a set of rights and obligations enjoyed equally by everyone who is a full member of the political community in question, and the libertarian view, which represents the citizen as someone who chooses between different bundles of (public) goods and services, in the same way as the consumer chooses between different sets of commodities in the market. At first sight it might appear that these two latter ideas are better adapted to the circumstances of culturally plural societies than the republican idea, which in its traditional form emerged from the experience of relatively small and homogeneous city-states, such as Athens and Florence. I argue, however, that republican citizenship is actually better able to respond to cultural diversity than these other versions, by virtue of its ability to draw groups who initially have very different priorities into public debate, and to find compromise solutions to political issues that members of each group can accept.

This argument relies upon a model of democratic decision-making that has come to be called ‘deliberative democracy’. A democratic system is deliberative to the extent that the decisions it reaches reflect open discussion among the participants, with people ready to listen to the views and consider the interests of others, and modify their own opinions accordingly. The contrast here is with forms of democracy in which people simply pursue their own interests or preferences when deciding how to vote. In a deliberative democracy, the final decision taken may not be wholly consensual, but it should represent a fair balance between the different views expressed in the course of the discussion, and to the extent that it does, even those who would prefer some other outcome can recognize the decision as legitimate. If republican citizenship is to function successfully among people with very different styles of life and cultural values, it is essential that decision-making bodies, at whatever level they operate, should come as close as possible to this deliberative ideal.

I describe deliberative democracy in greater detail in chapter 1, whose main aim is to defend the model against problems thrown up by social choice theory. Social choice theorists such as William Riker have argued that democratic procedures are always liable to produce arbitrary results, essentially because where there are several options to choose between, and people’s preferences differ significantly, it may be impossible to identify one of these options as the unique democratic choice. I respond to this argument by suggesting that deliberation itself may in a variety of ways alter the political preferences of those who engage in it, so that the final decision reached does genuinely represent the majority will, at least, of the participants.

In chapter 4 I consider another challenge to republican citizenship and deliberative democracy, that represented by new forms of identity politics, or what is sometimes called ‘the politics of recognition’. Advocates of politics in this mode argue that a primary aim of democratic politics should be to endorse and promote, both symbolically and materially, the group identities of historically disadvantaged groups, such as women and ethnic minorities. In order for this to occur, republican forms of citizenship, as traditionally understood, must be replaced by a new style of politics in which group identities are given formal recognition, for instance by reserving places on political bodies for group members, or giving them rights of veto over policies that affect them directly.

I believe that this perspective both misconceives the nature of group identities in contemporary societies and is potentially damaging to the interests of the groups it is meant to serve. I present evidence that these identities are very much more open and fluid than defenders of identity politics recognize, and maintain that because of this instability proposals to give them formal recognition in political arenas will simply have the effect of fixing and privileging some identities at the expense of others. I also argue that by turning their backs on forms of identity, particularly national identities, that can bond citizens together in a single community, advocates of identity politics would destroy the conditions under which disparate groups in a culturally plural society can work together to achieve social justice for all groups. Minority groups are likely to have little bargaining power, so they must rely on appeals to the majority’s sense of justice and fairness, and these will be effective only to the extent that majority and minorities sympathize and identify with each other.

I develop this argument further in chapter 9, which returns to deliberative democracy and considers the charge, brought by some recent advocates of identity politics, that deliberative procedures are not neutral, but biased in favour of white, middle-class males and against women and disadvantaged minorities. These critics claim that the interests of these groups are best served not by deliberation as normally understood, but by new forms of political communication – greeting, rhetoric and storytelling – that are better able to convey their distinct perspectives and distinct interests. I argue in reply that this critique of deliberation rests on an unnecessarily restrictive view of the kind of reasoning that is required in deliberative settings, while the proposed alternatives have serious defects of their own. A political system governed by the ideal of deliberative democracy still seems to offer the best prospect of combating the injustices suffered by disadvantaged groups.

The question whether republican citizenship requires citizens to share a common identity is taken up again in chapter 5, which takes the form of a critique of cosmopolitan theories of citizenship: that is, theories advocating forms of citizenship that transcend conventional political boundaries, particularly boundaries between nation-states. To assess these theories, I look more closely at the virtues required by republican citizens, and argue that these virtues are likely to be cultivated only within national borders. If this argument is correct, transnational forms of citizenship must be either parasitic on national forms or else not genuine forms of citizenship at all. This I try to show by looking briefly first at European citizenship, and second at what is sometimes called ‘global civil society’, or the idea that people can act as citizens through participating in international political movements of various kinds.

The defence of republican citizenship I have offered in these essays might in a broad sense be called communitarian. However, I regard this label as potentially very misleading if it is left unqualified, and in chapter 6 I draw some distinctions that I hope clarify the position that I want to defend. Specifically, I contrast right, liberal and left versions of communitarianism, and align myself with the third. In doing so, I reject the idea that ‘liberalism’ and ‘communitarianism’ stand as two opposed political philosophies, as is so often assumed. I also criticize communitarianism as a political movement for its unwillingness to choose between the different versions, leaving itself open to the charge that it tries to be all things to all people, and ends up lacking any distinctive political programme.

All of the arguments so far outlined rely on the premise that nationality is a primary source of identity for citizens in contemporary democratic states, and the remaining essays in the book focus more directly on this issue. Chapter 2 presents a concise statement of the arguments in favour of nationality that were later spelt out at greater length in my book On Nationality (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995). The principle of nationality as I understand it comprises three interlinked propositions: that a national identity is a defensible source of personal identity, that nations are ethical communities that impose reciprocal obligations on members which are not owed to outsiders, and that nations have a good claim to be politically self-determining. The essay explains what distinguishes national identities from identities of other kinds, and attempts to rebut a number of criticisms that are frequently levelled at the principle of nationality just outlined.

In chapter 7 I focus on a particular issue that is often thought to raise insurmountable problems for the principle of nationality, namely demands by national minorities within existing states that they should be permitted to secede and form independent states of their own. The spectre that appears here is of a host of conflicting secessionist claims which are impossible to satisfy simultaneously, and whose political expression is liable to take a violent form. I argue in this chapter that the nationality principle dictates a discriminating response to such demands, one that balances the claims of would-be secessionists against the equally strong claims of minority groups whose interests and identities would be less adequately protected if a secession were to occur. So although secession is sometimes justified, in many other cases the demands of minority groups are better met by dispersing political authority through federalism, regional devolution and other such means.

The following chapter examines the particular case of states whose members have dual-level national identities, thinking of themselves as belonging both to a smaller nation and to a larger, more inclusive one (Belgium, Canada, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are the examples I have particularly in mind). These I describe as states with ‘nested nationalities’ and I contrast them both with ethnically plural states and with states composed of rival nations. Using the Anglo-Scottish relationship as my main example, I explore the processes through which such nested identities have arisen, and I argue that in such cases constitutionally protected devolution, rather than independence, is the appropriate way to respect the national identities of the smaller nations.

Taking these three chapters together, what I hope to have shown is that the principle of nationality is not only philosophically defensible, but also politically viable, in the sense that it can guide us towards solutions to the problems created by the existence of sub-state nationalisms and other movements that challenge the nation-state in its traditional form. My argument is that we cannot in general hope to preserve or create simple, culturally homogeneous nation-states, given the multi-layered array of national identities that we encounter in today’s world, but that the nation-state model can be creatively adapted to deal with this complexity.

The final chapter in the book examines the claim that national self-determination must always yield to the demands of global justice: national communities are never justified in pursuing projects and goals that fail to give equal weight to the needs and interests of human beings world-wide, so the scope of self-determination must be construed quite narrowly. My view is that such claims misunderstand the demands of global justice. In particular, they overlook the fact that notions of social justice vary from one community to the next, so that justice at the global level must be interpreted in a way that respects these differences. I suggest that it imposes three core requirements on political communities: an obligation to respect and safeguard basic human rights everywhere, an obligation not to exploit other communities and individuals, and an obligation to help create the conditions under which all nations have the chance to achieve their own regimes of justice internally. Understood in this way, global justice sets certain limits on what nation-states can decide to do, but still leaves them with a wide range of options.

All of the essays assembled here, and especially perhaps the last, raise as many questions as they answer, and there is a great deal more to be said about each of the main topics of the book – nationality, republican citizenship, identity politics, democracy, global justice and so forth. My hope is that the perspective developed in the book is sufficiently clear and coherent that those who disagree with me on one topic will see that their disagreement must extend to other areas too. I have learnt a great deal from friendly critics – I have recorded individual debts of gratitude in the notes to each chapter – and I look forward to further lively exchanges now that the full extent of my heresies is revealed.

1

Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice

If we are in the business of thinking about liberal democracy and possible alternatives to it, we must begin by drawing a distinction between institutions and their regulative ideals. Liberal democracy may be taken to refer to the set of institutions – free elections, competing parties, freedom of speech – that make up the political system with which we are familiar in the West; or it may refer to the conception of democracy that underlies and justifies that system. The relationship between institutions and regulative ideals is not necessarily simple or one-to-one. The same institution may be justified from different points of view, although characteristically those who favour contrasting regulative ideals will aim to shape the institution in different ways. Thus, to take a familiar case, the practice of electing representatives to a legislative assembly may be seen as a way of subjecting legislators to popular control; alternatively, it may be seen simply as a means of removing visibly corrupt legislators from office. Which of these views you take will affect your preferences as to the form of the practice. (How frequent should elections be? Should the voting system be first-past-the-post or something else? And so forth.)

The argument that follows has mainly to do with competing regulative ideals of democracy. In comparing liberal democracy with what I shall call deliberative democracy, my aim is to contrast two basic ways of understanding the democratic process. In favouring deliberative democracy, therefore, I am not recommending wholesale abolition of the present institutions of liberal democracy, but rather a reshaping of those institutions in the light of a different regulative ideal from that which I take to be prevalent now. I shall only address the institutional questions briefly. My main aim is to bring out what is at stake between liberal and deliberative democracy, particularly in the light of social choice theory, which appears to challenge the cogency of anything beyond the most minimal of democratic ideals.

Liberal democracy and deliberative democracy

Let me now sketch the contrast between liberal and deliberative democracy as regulative ideals. In the liberal view, the aim of democracy is to aggregate individual preferences into a collective choice in as fair and efficient a way as possible. In a democracy there will be many different views as to what should be done politically, reflecting the many different interests and beliefs present in society. Each person’s preferences should be accorded equal weight. Moreover, preferences are sacrosanct because they reflect the individuality of each member of the political community (an exception to this arises only in the case of preferences that violate the canons of liberal democracy itself, such as racist beliefs that deny the equal rights of all citizens). The problem then is to find the institutional structure that best meets the requirements of equality and efficiency. Thus liberal democrats may divide on the question of whether majoritarian decision-making is to be preferred, or whether the ideal is a pluralist system which gives various groups in society different amounts of influence over decisions in proportion to their interest in those decisions. This, however, is a family quarrel in which both sides are guided by the same underlying ideal, namely how to reach a fair and efficient compromise given the many conflicting preferences expressed in the political community.