Nation State And Immigration

In Part 2, the author 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 schemes of multiculturalism."--Jacket.

This book surveys a new trend in immigration studies, which one could characterize as a turn away from multicultural and postnational perspectives, toward a renewed emphasis on assimilation and citizenship. Looking both at state policies and migrant practices, the contributions to this volume argue that (1) citizenship has remained the dominant membership principle in liberal nation-states, (2) multiculturalism policies are everywhere in retreat, and (3) contemporary migrants are simultaneously assimilating and transnationalizing.

In Home Rule Nandita Sharma traces the historical formation and political separation of Natives and Migrants from the nineteenth century to the present to theorize the portrayal of Migrants as “colonial invaders.” The imperial-state category of Native, initially a mark of colonized status, has been revitalized in what Sharma terms the Postcolonial New World Order of nation-states. Under postcolonial rule, claims to autochthony—being the Native “people of a place”—are mobilized to define true national belonging. Consequently, Migrants—the quintessential “people out of place”—increasingly face exclusion, expulsion, or even extermination. This turn to autochthony has led to a hardening of nationalism(s). Criteria for political membership have shrunk, immigration controls have intensified, all while practices of expropriation and exploitation have expanded. Such politics exemplify the postcolonial politics of national sovereignty, a politics that Sharma sees as containing our dreams of decolonization. Home Rule rejects nationalisms and calls for the dissolution of the ruling categories of Native and Migrant so we can build a common, worldly place where our fundamental liberty to stay and move is realized.

First Published in 2016. In this book starts with the discussion located at the crossroads between two basic political principles. The first one is the democratic idea of representative government, based on elections by general suffrage. The second is the nation-state principle which says that the world is divided into sovereign states and that only those who are citizens can claim a right to take part in political life, in other words that foreign citizens are not allowed to participate in political elections. Democracy is honoured almost everywhere, at least as a principle, but the modern system of states presupposes that as a general rule only those who are citizens are entitled to vote, to stand for election, to join parties, and to participate in political debate and give voice to their political demands and interests. Both these basic political principles are young, and their pre sent confrontation is therefore also new to us.

This volume presents the latest research by some of the world's leading figures in the fast growing area of immigration studies. Relating the study of immigration to wider processes of social change, the book focuses on two key areas in which nation-states are being challenged by this phenomenon: sovereignty and citizenship. Bringing together the separate clusters of scholarship which have evolved around both of these areas, Challenge to the Nation-State disentangles the many contrasting views on the impact of immigration on the authority and integrity of the state. Some scholars have stressed the stubborn resistance of states to relinquish territorial control, the continued relevance of national citizenship traditions, and the `balkanizing' risks of ethnically divided societies. Others have argued that migrations are fostering a post-national world. In their view, states' immigration policies are increasingly constrained by global markets and an international human rights regime, membership as citizenship is devalued by new forms of postnational membership for migrants, and national monocultures are giving way to multicultural diversity. Focusing on the issue of sovereignty in the first section, and citizenship in the second, this compelling new study seeks to clarify the central stakes and opposing positions in this important and complex debate.

For the last two centuries, the nation state has posed a formidable challenge to multinational empires. It has served as a base for modernisation, secularisation and democratisation -- and also for the formation of totalitarian regimes. Today, the nation state faces challenges from multiple directions. National minorities demand self-determination while religious forces challenge secular governments, and global migration movements undermine the cultural uniformity once considered essential for the formation and preservation of nation states. This is the third of a three-volume set (detailed below) which addresses key challenges facing the contemporary nation state from a global perspective but with special emphasis on the Middle East and Israel. Publication reflects research conducted under the auspices of The Israel Democracy Institute's "Nation State Project", which analyses Israel's complex reality in which a Jewish majority contends with an Arab minority, ultra-Orthodox religious forces reject the authority of the nation state, and an immigrant society exhibits substantial cultural and ethnic variance. Volume III explores the cultural, social and political effects of immigration on the contemporary nation state -- its character, cohesion, and possible future, as well as on contemporary liberal democracy. Contributions deal with such issues as different liberal approaches to the issue of immigration and immigrant integration, nation-building narratives and their implications for immigrants and minorities, citizenship tests and integration policy in the United States and in Europe, as well as Israel's Law of Return and the debate about it and other aspects of immigration policy.

The third title of a three-volume set, The Nation State and Immigration addresses key challenges facing the contemporary nation state from a global perspective but with special emphasis on the Middle East and Israel. This volume explores the cultural, social, and political effects of immigration on the contemporary nation state--its character, cohesion, and possible future, as well as on contemporary liberal democracy. Contributions deal with such issues as different liberal approaches to the issue of immigration and immigrant integration, nation-building narratives and their implications for immigrants and minorities, citizenship tests and integration policy in the United States and in Europe, as well as Israel's Law of Return and the debate about it and other aspects of immigration policy.

This volume presents the latest research by some of the world's leading figures in the fast growing area of immigration studies. Relating the study of immigration to wider processes of social change, the book focuses on two key areas in which nation-states are being challenged by this phenomenon: sovereignty and citizenship. Bringing together the separate clusters of scholarship which have evolved around both of these areas, Challenge to the Nation-State disentangles the many contrasting views on the impact of immigration on the authority and integrity of the state. Some scholars have stressed the stubborn resistance of states to relinquish territorial control, the continued relevance of national citizenship traditions, and the `balkanizing' risks of ethnically divided societies. Others have argued that migrations are fostering a post-national world. In their view, states' immigration policies are increasingly constrained by global markets and an international human rights regime, membership as citizenship is devalued by new forms of postnational membership for migrants, and national monocultures are giving way to multicultural diversity. Focusing on the issue of sovereignty in the first section, and citizenship in the second, this compelling new study seeks to clarify the central stakes and opposing positions in this important and complex debate.

In A Forgetful Nation, the renowned postcolonialism scholar Ali Behdad turns his attention to the United States. Offering a timely critique of immigration and nationalism, Behdad takes on an idea central to American national mythology: that the United States is “a nation of immigrants,” welcoming and generous to foreigners. He argues that Americans’ treatment of immigrants and foreigners has long fluctuated between hospitality and hostility, and that this deep-seated ambivalence is fundamental to the construction of national identity. Building on the insights of Freud, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida, he develops a theory of the historical amnesia that enables the United States to disavow a past and present built on the exclusion of others. Behdad shows how political, cultural, and legal texts have articulated American anxiety about immigration from the Federalist period to the present day. He reads texts both well-known—J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass—and lesser-known—such as the writings of nineteenth-century nativists and of public health officials at Ellis Island. In the process, he highlights what is obscured by narratives and texts celebrating the United States as an open-armed haven for everyone: the country’s violent beginnings, including its conquest of Native Americans, brutal exploitation of enslaved Africans, and colonialist annexation of French and Mexican territories; a recurring and fierce strand of nativism; the need for a docile labor force; and the harsh discipline meted out to immigrant “aliens” today, particularly along the Mexican border.

The book questions how modern migration and globalisation have impacted upon notions of belonging and identity within nation-states across the world. This book provides theoretical and empirical accounts of the relationship between identity, rights nationalism, race and ethnicity. The authors cover the complexity of the topic as identification has become much more multifaceted. The authors cover difficult and cutting edge issues relating to citizenship, nation formation, identity, remittances, transnational families, migration and asylum in the context of Australia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. These critical issues inform and shape key policy and program responses of many governments and are subject of topic in international relations forums between nation states.