TY - JOUR
AU1 - Croucher, Sheila
AB - Who are we? How did we come to be or to see ourselves as “we” and others as “they?” What or who else could, or should, “we” become? In today's world, few questions carry greater political weight than these. These are the questions that have and continue to fuel bloody clashes between clans, tribes, ethnic groups, regions, nations, and states around the globe. In less bloody but no less significant terms, these are the questions that underlie policy debates in the United States and elsewhere on topics ranging from immigration policy and affirmative action to dual citizenship, bilingual education, and the war on terror. These are also the questions that Europeans are debating as they continue down the rocky path of unification—a path made challenging not only by the persistent attachment to distinct national identities among and within member states, but also by the growing cultural diversity of those states as a result of migration into Europe. None of these questions is new, but various circumstances and events have catapulted these issues of “peoplehood” into political and academic prominence. These circumstances include the ending of the Cold War, which, despite predictions to the contrary, ushered in an era of global instability as existing constructions of peoplehood gave way to new configurations or reconfigurations of political and sociocultural belonging. Meanwhile, unprecedented migration of people across state borders has created diverse societies throughout the world and given rise to the politics of multiculturalism that accompany them. Advances in communications and transportation technology have facilitated the fostering and maintenance of transnational attachments and ties. A plethora of global organizations and linkages, from the European Union and an emergent international human rights regime to the countless groups and institutions that make up transnational civil society, provides new levels of attachment and identification. For increasing numbers of people, then, the nation-state, or one single nation-state, no longer comprises a primary source of political belonging. Finally, the events of September 11, 2001 and the war on terror that succeeded them also reveal, and have likely exacerbated, a complex array of identity configurations and clashes at the transnational, national, and subnational levels. The challenges that these phenomena pose to scholars and policymakers are profound, as is the need for practical solutions and theoretical advances. As Rogers Smith explains in Stories of Peoplehood, “the making, maintaining, and transforming of senses of political peoplehood” comprises “a quite basic dimension of all political activity, one that has not been so directly addressed by prevailing approaches” (Smith, p. 19). This neglect is now being rectified in several recent works that contribute theoretically and empirically to our understanding of identity and belonging. Joel Migdal's Boundaries and Belonging and Rogers Smith's Stories of Peoplehood respond to the question of how“we” and “they” come to be defined and separated. Both books recognize that the processes of separation and definition have taken on heightened significance in an era of globalization. Samuel Huntington's Who Are We? and Christian Joppke and Ewa Morawska's Toward Assimilation and Citizenship are reminders that some of the most intense political struggles tend to crystallize around the question not of how we are, but who. Huntington's book, in fact, illustrates the type of storytelling or people building that Smith analyzes. Focused on the definition and fortification of a “we” that encompasses peoplehood for the United States, Huntington, consistent with theories and practices of identity politics, relies upon externalizing a “them”—in his case, Hispanics. As an interesting counterpoint, Joppke and Morawska's edited volume demonstrates that, contrary to perceptions and theoretical propositions such as those of Huntington, immigrants in North America and Western Europe are interested in integrating into their host societies. Whether they do so depends heavily on the policies and politics of the receiving society. This emerging literature on belonging also offers guidelines for navigating, not only the muddy theoretical waters, but the practical and political ones as well. These books, some more explicitly than others, offer insights into the question of who or what “we” can or should become. Specifically, they engage the appropriate and likely parameters of belonging available to individuals, groups, societies, nations, and states in a globalizing world. Thus, John Burke's Mestizo Democracy draws upon Latin America's experience with mestizaje—an embrace of cultural mixing—as a model for how culturally diverse societies can recognize and respect difference while still retaining some form of unity. Smith calls for building moderate forms of political peoplehood, and Joppke and Morawska emphasize that state actions and policies are and will continue to be central to determining how immigrants integrate and how transnationalism affects political stability. As case studies, North America and Western Europe—large immigrant-receiving societies—figure prominently in these volumes. Because of its cultural diversity and long-standing claim to civic nationhood, many of these authors invoke the United States as a critical case, but they draw valuable comparisons with, and meaningful implications for, other cases as well. Europe provides a model of experimentation with political belonging beyond the level of the nation-state, and several European countries—The Netherlands, Germany, and Great Britain—offer illustrative case studies of immigrant adaptation. Canada's multiculturalism surfaces in several volumes as a contrast to the US melting pot, as does Latin America's mestizaje. The Migdal volume has the greatest geographic scope, including contributions that range in focus from the Ottoman Empire and Burma to China, Israel, Turkey, and the European Union. Explorations into the first question posed above—how do“we” come to be—are relatively recent in political science. This is due in part to the fact that the question itself presupposes that various formations of “we”—racial, ethnic, national, or other—are not “natural,” static, or pregiven in their form or content. Such a presupposition clashes with positivist strains of social science. Fortunately, the growing prominence of constructivism within the field has made it possible to treat phenomena such as “identity” as dependent rather than independent variables (Croucher 1997; Taylor 1999). Before this constructivist awareness, polarizing debates plagued the study of identity and belonging. Scholars were divided over the nature of ethnicity: whether it is primordial (a deeply rooted spiritual essence linked to blood) or instrumental (a rational calculation tied to the perception of economic or political gain) (Cornell and Hartmann 1998). They also debated whether nationhood is primordial or constructed, perennial or modern, and, in general, whether identity in its various manifestations is best conceptualized as essential or constructed (Smith 1998; Mortimer 1999). More recent theorizing, including the volumes by Migdal and Smith, aims to move beyond this stalemate by synthesizing or transcending the various approaches (Motyl 2002). Smith clarifies that “no political peoples are natural or primordial” (p. 32), but he also acknowledges “the forging of senses of peoplehood never takes place de novo, in a state of nature” (p. 34). In other words, identities are constructed, but the construction is never arbitrary; nor, significantly, are terms such as “construction” or “invention” intended to convey falsehood or delusion. For his part, Migdal maintains that “emotional ties prompt people to acts of personal sacrifice that cannot simply be explained by their instrumental considerations. Belonging, then, has both a formal, instrumental sense attached to it—that is, one's status—and an informal, affective component—that is, one's sense of identity” (p. 15). Migdal's work on states and societies is widely known, and Boundaries and Belonging revisits the topic in order to “bypass old binaries, such as between migration and stasis, state and society, public and private, national and transnational” (p. ix). “Today,” Migdal writes, “borders are much more commonly understood as contingent, porous, and in flux” (p. 3). Borders figure prominently in the analyses, but Migdal and his fellow contributors prefer the concept of “boundaries” to signify the symbolic and social dimensions associated with, but not determined by, a “school map of states” (p. 5). Boundaries, as Migdal conceptualizes them, incorporate “checkpoints” and “mental maps” that define where “we” ends and “they” begins. Checkpoints include the actual monitoring and surveillance that occurs via practices ranging from checking passports to racial profiling. Checkpoints can also be virtual, such as scrutinizing modes of dress or detecting language and accent differences. People's mental maps distinguish home from alien territory and the included from the excluded. Mental maps are comprised of “elements of the meaning people attach to spatial configuration, the loyalties they hold, the emotions and passions that groupings evoke” (Migdal, p. 7). Throughout Migdal's volume, the contributors seek to identify and better understand the sites and practices that constitute people's virtual checkpoints, the boundary markers used to identify members, the way boundaries can include and exclude, and the monitoring devices employed to interrogate people about their membership (p. 12). Emerging from the constitutive chapters is the realization that the state is central to the construction of peoplehood and to the creation and enforcement of boundaries of belonging. Yet, states are now also being challenged and transcended in unprecedented ways. States compete with transnational rights regimes and with neoliberal capitalism (Migdal, pp. 251–283). States must also contend with various transstate and substate forms of belonging. Europe is one case study that illustrates the complex interplay now taking place among citizens, states, and supranational belonging (Migdal, pp. 284–317); transnational advocacy communities, such as the one Nicole Watts labels “Virtual Kurdistan,” provide additional examples (Migdal, pp. 121–147). Despite these multiple and shifting vectors of belonging, Migdal's Boundaries and Belonging maintains repeatedly that the state remains at the center of the vortex. “In a world of strangers, states represent an institutional complex aiming to provide a basis for personal safety and, by means of that sense of safety, the most meaningful social boundaries in people's lives” (Migdal, p. 15). This explains the need to understand the mechanisms and practices states employ—legal, ideological, or some combination of both—in order to perpetuate their centrality as sites and sources of belonging and to define members and nonmembers. For example, Adriana Kemp's analysis of Israel's treatment of Arab-Israelis shows how states can simultaneously include groups via the mechanism of formal citizenship and exclude them from the community of fate, creating “trapped minorities” that are caught between “incongruent demarcation lines of state control and ethnocultural belonging” (Migdal, p. 74). Significantly, the contributors to Migdal's Boundaries and Belonging also recognize the importance of keeping the concepts of nation and state analytically distinct and of viewing nationalism as the “ideological alibi of the state” (Appadurai, 1996). In his chapter on “Belonging and Not: Rossland, BC during the Great War,” Kenneth Lawson makes this point exceptionally well: “When one stops to think about it, the popular internalization of the state as the embodiment of the nation is actually a rather remarkable achievement, resting both on the infrastructural power at the disposal of the state and on the opportunity to forge mass emotional bonds within significant segments of society” (Migdal, p. 177). Nationalism, then, is a mental map that fuses state and society. But as an ideology or mental map, nationalism has never operated in isolation from other ideological constructs, such as gender or race. Patricia Woods' chapter on Israel (Migdal, pp. 226–248) and Neil Diamant's study of China (Migdal, pp. 205–225) document how gender infuses the construction and maintenance of group boundaries. Both contributions add empirical support to the theoretical insights of scholars like Nira Yuvall-Davis (1993). Lauren Basson does the same with regard to race and nation in her chapter on mixed blood allotment disputes in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century (Migdal, pp. 151–176). Language figures prominently into the mental map of nationhood as well, as illustrated by Mary Callahan's chapter on Myanmar (Migdal, pp. 99–120) and Huntington's story of US peoplehood (Who Are We?). Callahan focuses on the elite struggle for political power in Burma in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Specifically, she shows how the state engineered a redefinition of belonging centered on an official language—now labeled “Myanmar.” Language imposition and repression were carried out primarily in education and religion, as “the military elevated language affairs to a national agenda” and used language as a primary tool to rebuild the state and pacify the population (Migdal, p. 101). For his part, Huntington places the English language at the core of US identity and characterizes Spanish as a primary threat. The policies and politics that Huntington's Who Are We? advocates with respect to English are not as draconian as those described in Callahan's analysis of Burma, but they are similar in tone. Migdal's Boundaries and Belonging pays welcome attention to the issue of borders and boundaries and to how the sense of cultural and political belonging is shaped in a changing world. In much the same way that Migdal employs the notions of “checkpoints” and “mental maps” to conceptualize how groups differentiate members from nonmembers, Rogers Smith (Stories of Peoplehood) uses the metaphor of stories and storytelling. Peoplehood, according to Smith, emerges from and is sustained through narratives that seek to define elements intrinsic to their members' identities and feelings of worth. Like Migdal, Smith is interested in the construction and maintenance of boundaries of belonging, but his analysis probes even more deeply and systematically into the mechanisms through which “we” and “they” come to be. Not only is Smith critical of political science for being slow to acknowledge the centrality of peoplehood, he is also concerned that the recent literature on identity and belonging does not devote sufficient attention to the politics through which senses of peoplehood are constructed. Recognizing that ethnicity and nation are not sociocultural givens, scholars must carefully examine the distinctly political circumstances and factors that give rise to such attachments and identifications. Not only are these circumstances and factors inherently political, but they are also, according to Smith, at least somewhat predictable. By introducing the concept of “peoplehood,” Smith attempts to move beyond a focus on particular phenomena (for example, race, ethnicity, gender, class, or nationhood) to address the generation of political identities per se. A group, according to Smith, constitutes a political people when “it is a potential adversary of other forms of human association, because its proponents are generally understood to assert that its obligations legitimately trump many of the demands made on its members in the name of other associations” (Smith, p. 20). The potency of existing peoplehoods can vary, depending on the number and extent of other associations their obligations override and the range of issues over which the group may assert its primacy. On the basis of this variation, Smith is able to classify peoples via a typology that ranges from strong and wide to weak and narrow. The United States and China qualify as examples of the former in that their officials depict “a distinct society entitled ultimately to override the claims of not just many but all other groups, and entitled to do so not just in regard to a few issues but all issues” (Smith, p. 22). At the other extreme are associations, such as Oxfam International, which Smith views as a weak and narrow form of peoplehood. In between are types of identity that range from Quebec peoplehood, which he describes as strong and midrange, to Belgian peoplehood, which is moderate and wide. Smith joins other scholars of nationalism, and the contributors to the Migdal volume, in emphasizing that leaders, or elites, play a primary role in constructing peoplehood—that is, in people-building. In doing so, however, they must work with preexisting senses of identity, interests, and ideals (Breuilly 1993; Brubaker 1996). The primary mechanism for people building, according to Smith, is storytelling. The use of the term “stories” is intended to suggest how accounts of political membership operate. “Narratives of peoplehood work essentially as persuasive historical stories that prompt people to embrace the valorized identities, play the stirring roles, and have the fulfilling experiences that political leaders strive to evoke for them” (Smith, p. 45). Importantly, and consistent with Smith's constructivist position, he emphasizes that stories do not merely serve interests, but they also help constitute those interests for both leaders and constituents. Smith identifies three types of stories, all of which aim to achieve senses of trust and worth. “Economic” stories are those that appeal to the economic interests, fears, well-being, and aspirations of their intended constituency. “Political” stories promise that membership in a people will enhance or preserve political power. The third type of story—the primary focus of Smith's analysis—is the “ethically constitutive” story, which refers to a wide variety of accounts that present membership in a particular people as somehow intrinsic to who its members really are, because of traits that are imbued with ethical significance. Such stories proclaim that members' culture, religion, language, race, ethnicity, ancestry, history, or other such factors are constitutive of their very identities as persons, in ways that both affirm their worth and delineate their obligations (Smith, p. 64). Although aspects of each of the three types of stories are typically present in efforts at people-building, ethically constitutive stories are particularly effective for three reasons. First, these stories alone present membership in a particular community as somehow intrinsic to who a person is. Second, these stories present the traits they emphasize as things that have tremendous, often priceless, ethical worth—to be a member of God's chosen ones, a part of a superior race, the descendent of heroic ancestors, a bearer of a brilliant culture. Third, ethically constitutive stories are less subject to tangible evidence than economic or political stories. This trait has and will likely continue to frustrate social scientists, but it explains the allure and potency of these stories for people-builders and their potential constituencies (Smith, pp. 98–100). Ethically constitutive stories have always been central to people making and, according to Smith, always will be. This position is significant in that it structures the range of solutions available for managing identity-based conflicts. In this regard, Smith aligns with scholars such as Bernard Yack (1996) who, in opposition to Jüergen Habermas (1996), rejects the myth of the civic nation as a feasible alternative to ethnic nationhood. The distinction between ethnic and civic nations has a long history, dating back to the work of Hans Kohn (1944). Some scholars continue to argue that, although the former type of nationhood—rooted in notions of ethnic or racial ancestry—is problematic, the latter holds out promise for benign nationalism among peoples whose voluntary membership is rooted in shared political principles. Smith engages this debate at length, concluding that “few modern citizens gain really strong senses of either security or pride from engaging in republican activities of self-governance” (Smith, p. 86). “Most if not all senses of nationhood or peoplehood invoke an account of unchosen, inherited, usually quasi-ethnic identity” (Smith, p. 65). The works by Migdal and Smith share some common theoretical ground with regard to how “we” come to be. Yet, Smith's point about the power and appeal of a “quasi-ethnic identity” speaks not simply to the mechanisms of peoplehood, but also to the related politics and passion that infuse it. Proponents of, or believers in, civic nationhood are likely to be disappointed by Smith's conclusion. However, one need look no further than to Samuel Huntington to confirm the persistent appeal of narratives of belonging that are rooted in cultural exclusion. Huntington answers his title question—“Who are we?”—in terms that are decidedly more ethnic than civic. Unlike the political scientists whom Smith faults for ignoring or downplaying identity politics, Huntington has gained widespread attention for analyses focused specifically on identity and culture. His “Clash of Civilizations” thesis argued that, in the post-Cold War era, world conflicts would not be rooted primarily in ideology or economics. Rather, “the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural” (Huntington 1993:22). Most of Huntington's work focuses on the realm of international relations. Yet, implicit in much of his scholarship on international affairs is a concern with the domestic affairs of the United States and, specifically, with the question of how immigration and “multiculturalism” threaten the political unity and cultural homogeneity of the United States (Aysha 2003). Who Are We? brings that concern with US peoplehood to the foreground. Huntington's Who Are We? offers little in the way of theory-building or conceptual innovation, but it does offer a poignant example of a story of peoplehood, or, in Smith's parlance, an act of “people-making.” In fact, Huntington acknowledges that, although his aim is “detached” analysis, the “selection and presentation of evidence may well be influenced by my patriotic desire to find meaning and virtue in America's past and in its possible future” (Huntington, p. xvii). Huntington attempts to clarify various challenges that now threaten the salience and substance of US national identity and to articulate what the core of US identity has been and should, with renewed focus, continue to be. The challenges to US nationhood include the loss of a common enemy (at least before September 11) to unite citizens of the United States, the denationalization of elites amid rapid globalization, and the related ascendancy of subnational and transnational loyalties that compete with and, in his view, increasingly supercede national loyalties. Of utmost concern to Huntington is immigration and the politics of multiculturalism that result. For Huntington, Hispanics, specifically Mexicans in the United States, bear the brunt of the blame. Critical to Huntington's thesis are the arguments that US national identity is, indeed, fragile and in crisis and that recent immigrants, with incompatible values and an unwillingness to adapt to US culture, are the source of the problem. He fails to make his case in either regard. In addition to distorting the dynamics of earlier immigration to the United States, Huntington fails to show that the culture and values of the newer immigrants differ substantially from those now prevalent in the United States. On this issue, in particular, Who Are We? is riddled with contradictions. Having bemoaned the disintegration of US identity and railed against immigrants for their inability to meld with the United States's core values, Huntington reports that “the increases in the membership of some non-Christian religions have not, to put it mildly, had any significant effect on America's Christian identity” (p. 100). He also notes the ease with which Catholics have reconciled Catholic universalism with US nationalism (p. 97) and the significant rate at which Latin American immigrants and Latin Americans are converting to evangelical Protestantism (p. 100, p. 241). Huntington's concern with US nationhood is also invalidated by his own admission that “with only minor variations Americans overwhelmingly and intensely identify with their country, particularly compared to other peoples” (p. 276). Presumably, immigrants, even Hispanic immigrants, figure among these “Americans.” Even with manipulated data, Huntington fails to make the case that US nationhood is under threat. Moreover, his analysis stands in sharp contrast to the assessment of Christian Joppke and Ewa Morawska in Toward Assimilation and Citizenship. On the basis of case studies of immigrant-receiving societies (including the United States, France, Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands), Joppke and Morawaska conclude that “there is no evidence that assimilation is not occurring” (Joppke and Morawska, p. 1). Instead, their studies suggest that in terms of intermarriage, educational attainment, and political behavior, immigrants and their children are assimilating. Joppke and Morawska also maintain, contrary to Huntington, that in the United States and Europe “the scope of official multiculturalism policies and programs has either been exaggerated … or, where such policies have actually been in place, there has recently been a covert or overt move away from them” (Joppke and Morawska, p. 1). Toward Assimilation and Citizenship is a slim volume, but the contributors do a persuasive job of debunking postnationalist claims regarding the transcendence of the nation-state (Soysal 1994; Jacobson 1996) and nativist claims, such as Huntington's, regarding threats of its fragmentation. In regard to Huntington's query (Who Are We?), Joppke and Morawska suggest that we are still predominantly citizens of states and that citizenship itself is currently being revalued, not devalued, in both the United States and Europe. This is not to suggest that belonging to a state precludes attachments to other states or to other forms of belonging. Joppke and Morawska readily acknowledge the prevalence of transitional ties, but they provide evidence that these ties coexist comfortably with economic, political, and cultural integration into a host society. This finding is consistent with other recent scholarship on immigration and integration in Europe and the United States, which finds that immigrants are willing to integrate into host societies and that the ties they maintain with their homelands do not interfere with their integration (Sackmann, Peters, and Faist 2003). Toward Assimilation and Citizenship also recognizes that, although the significance and centrality of citizenship are being invigorated in Europe and the United States, the nature of citizenship is not uniform. Europe seems to be moving toward more inclusionary forms of citizenship that are tied to territory rather than blood. By contrast, policies in the United States (such as the 1996 Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act), which serve to exclude “aliens” from the benefits and privileges of citizens, suggest a more exclusionary revaluing of citizenship. Understanding the construction of groups, peoples, or nations (how “we” come to be), and the contestation over the content that comprises those attachments (who “we” are) is fundamental. So, too, are proposals concerning the policies and practices that can mitigate potential tensions between groups. With regard to the question “what can or should ‘we’ become,” Huntington concludes Who Are We? by stating that neither cosmopolitanism nor imperialism answer the challenges (particularly immigration) that now threaten peoplehood in the United States. Instead, nationalism is the answer, and “nationalism devoted to the preservation and enhancement of those qualities that have defined America since its founding”—qualities that Huntington defines as “Anglo-Protestant culture” and “religiosity” (Huntington, p. 365). This stance seems to confirm Rogers Smith's claim that invocations of a “quasi-ethnic identity” are likely to permeate most senses of nationhood. But, this is not, in Smith's view, a necessarily dismal prognosis, and he devotes substantial attention to how the potential perils of peoplehood can be navigated. The primary solution, according to Smith, is to promote and facilitate “benign and morally defensible forms of political life” (Smith, p. 70). For example, leaders can either advance stories that are positive about their proffered peoplehood or emphasize negative traits and portrayals of rival groups or conceptions of community. The positive approach is preferable. Smith concludes, albeit tentatively, that the potential for ethically constitutive stories to advance unjust and exclusionary political projects can be diminished (Smith, p. 125). Seeking to create “moderate” political peoples is the goal. “‘Moderate’ political peoples are communities that assert some significant claims on the loyalties of their constituents and some significant authority over various phases of their lives. … But they do not claim absolute sovereignty over all aspects of their members' lives or primacy over all alternative communities to which their constituents may also belong” (Smith, p. 130). In pursuit of forms of political membership that eschew an absolutist sense of allegiance, Smith proposes a two-part strategy that would moderate particularistic stories and strengthen more universalistic ones, although he does not intend that the latter will or even should replace the former. First, particularistic stories of peoplehood can be managed through a pluralistic, Madisonian engagement of competing and overlapping stories. This diversity will have the effect of checking excesses and encouraging moderating modifications. (In Mestizo Democracy, John Burke also turns to Madisonian pluralism to solve the dilemmas of entrenched peoplehood.) In this regard, Smith is clear that he is opposed to what some might describe as a political correctness that seeks to keep certain stories out of the political arena because they are deemed uncivil or unreasonable. Second, Smith maintains that we must insist that particularistic political memberships tie into larger species-wide constitutive stories. Particular peoplehoods can be tolerated, respected, even celebrated, but they are justifiable only if they also contribute to and remain cognizant of the good of the human species. In this regard, he calls for clearer and more persuasive ethically constitutive stories of human identity than those advanced by Kantian doctrines of human worth. Although Smith is generally skillful at situating and defending the philosophical underpinnings of his position, he is less clear about the practical or institutional mechanisms through which the balances he proposes will be achieved. In fact, Smith acknowledges that “not a great deal in the way of general institutional recommendations can be drawn from the account of the politics of people-making I have provided” (Smith, p. 130). Nonetheless, he does extend his analysis to some specific policy debates. He maintains, for example, that democratic political participation requires space for noncitizens as well as citizens. He supports affirmative action and such devices as redistricting and cumulative voting that promote the political representation of excluded groups. He is encouraged by the emergence of democratic transnational and international institutions and the capacity for “plural citizenship.” Ultimately, however, he concludes that “there simply are not immediately available transnational or international forms of political community that can hope to be as effective in meeting a wide variety of human needs as the United States is” (Smith, p. 204). As such, people in the United States and elsewhere must continue to work toward constructing morally defensible political communities. According to Smith, the United States has a central role to play in this endeavor not only because it is a superpower, but also because it is a political community whose historical identity is rooted in relatively inclusive narratives of peoplehood. In contrast to Smith's Stories of Peoplehood, John Burke's Mestizo Democracy engages directly with the construction of morally defensible political communities. The exclusionary form of citizenship, openly advocated by Huntington, is of central concern to Burke. In fact, Huntington's primary fear—that Mexican immigration is “promoting the emergence of a blended society and culture” (Huntington, p. 221)—is, for Burke, the most significant hope for the future of democratic politics in the United States and elsewhere. Burke's analysis invokes the Latino heritage of mestizaje as a model for how culturally diverse immigrant societies can recognize and respond to the unprecedented and multifaceted border crossing now occurring. Burke proposes a model of “mestizo democracy” that “can effect a unity-in-diversity which enables diverse cultural heritages not only to intersect but also to transform one another in ways that enrich their particular identities and revitalize the overarching political community” (Burke, p. xii). This model represents an effort to move beyond the conceptual impasses between individuality and community and between assimilation and separatism. Political life, according to Burke, is and should be more than the sum of disconnected individual parts. Yet, the formation and maintenance of political community must eschew homogenizing and exclusionary emphases on ethnicity, race, religion, and language. The dilemma of how to achieve a degree of political unity and commonality without erasing cultural differences or imposing hegemonic uniformity has consumed the energies of many theorists, although Burke sees much of their work as flawed. According to Burke, Will Kymlicka's (1995) highly influential attempt to reconcile liberalism and multiculturalism falls short by emphasizing cultural membership but not shared cultural meanings. Neither Kymlicka nor fellow Canadian Charles Taylor (1994) allow for the mutual transformation of diverse cultures that mestizaje promises. Similarly, Benjamin Barber's (1995) treatise on “Jihad versus McWorld” downplays the importance of cultural identities and the positive role they can play in shaping civic participation and the cultivation of a common good. Burke claims to find much affinity between his ideas and Homi Bhabha's notion of “hybridity,” including the latter's conceptualization of nations as “ambivalent creations composed of many cultures that daily engage and transform each other” (Bhabha 1990:161). Ultimately, however, Burke sums up his own proposal for mestizo democracy in a manner that is fundamentally incompatible with the postmodern bent of Bhabha's work. “The hermeneutics of mestizaje,” Burke writes, “never abandons comprehensive notions of a transcendent God, universal reason, or even a political common good” (Burke, p. 163). The invocation of a “transcendent God” and “universal reason” suggests that the mixing Burke has in mind will occur within relatively specific confines. It is also not clear whether this nuanced carving out of space amid a large and varied body of political theory allows Burke to arrive at something fundamentally new. Burke may simply weaken existing works into a theoretical compromise that is too good and too vague to be true. Moreover, for many students of identity politics, what matters more than philosophical insights or compromises are the implications of such ideas for practical policy. When Burke turns his attention to the practical applications of his position, he delivers a concrete analysis of existing political debates and of policy proposals designed to address these issues in a manner supportive of mestizo democracy. He focuses on the politics of language, political participation and representation, equal opportunity (specifically affirmative action), and the politics of immigration. Some of Burke's conclusions are similar to those of Smith in Stories of Peoplehood, but they stand in stark contrast to those offered, or eluded to, by Huntington. With regard to language, Burke posits that in the United States, mestizo democracy will require multilingualism because the sole use of English in decision-making forums artificially enables some to participate more easily than others (Burke, p. 207). He defends bilingual education, although, like Huntington who takes the opposite view, Burke offers little empirical evidence to support his claims. Burke proposes dual language education designed to assist both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking students to become bilingual. These proposals are consistent with the theory that Burke builds. However, they are more likely to threaten than persuade people like Huntington who hold more nativist views on the value of assimilation to the United States's Anglo-Protestant cultural core. With regard to political participation and representation, Burke, like Smith, is critical of electoral systems, such as those in the United States, that have “at-large” and “winner-take-all” electoral districts. Yet, consistent with his critique of separatism, Burke is equally critical of racial gerrymandering. Like Smith, Burke advocates cumulative voting to foster the crossing of borders and the transformation of political community that mestizo democracy requires and reflects. On the issue of affirmative action, Burke proposes a reframing of the discussion. “Quotas,” he maintains, is a possessive term that focuses on individuals and overlooks the relational, “win–win” aspects of fostering equal opportunity. Instead, we should focus on the contributions that currently excluded or underrepresented groups bring to various professions and recognize that “detecting and eradicating patterns of discrimination in community life leads to more democratic relations among its members” (Burke, p. 219). This same argument—that the eradication of discrimination can build and sustain democratic polities—is expressed and supported repeatedly by the contributors to Joppke and Morawska's Toward Assimilation and Citizenship. For example, Ruud Koopman and Paul Statham's analysis of Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands illustrates how the form and structure of a given state's citizenship regime shapes the transnational politics and ties of its immigrant population. Joppke and Morawska insist that “rather than being disempowered by the transnational participation of its foreign-stock population, the receiving state continues to influence the intensity, forms, and directions of transnationalism” (Joppke and Morawska, p. 21). Restrictive citizenship practices on the part of receiving states lead immigrants and their children to sustain ties with their homeland and impede the incorporation of immigrants into the host society. By contrast, tolerance of transnational ties, promotion of political rights, and inclusion in the economic and social life of the receiving society can encourage immigrants to assimilate or “ethnicize.” Overall, these five volumes offer reason for optimism regarding the politics of identity and belonging. At the same time, they raise frustrating questions about how to explain what is occurring and how to improve upon the political processes and practices that characterize the world in which we live. After many years and countless pages devoted to the debate between primordialism and instrumentalism, it is refreshing that these works agree, at least in principle, with the contention that peoples are not born but made (Gellner 1999). Migdal and Smith take the constructedness of peoplehood as their guiding premise. Even Huntington acknowledges that “one can, however, change one's culture. People convert from one religion to another, learn new languages, adopt new values and beliefs, identify with new symbols, and accommodate themselves to new ways of life” (Huntington, p. 31). Implicit in Burke's call for Mestizo Democracy and Joppke and Morawska's analysis of integration is the belief that nations and national identities are highly malleable. Nonetheless, some of the same analytical traps that have perpetuated the divide between essentialism and constructivism surface in these books as well. In particular, having eschewed the crude assumptions of primordiality, some of these authors still fall back on essentialist renderings of identity to some degree. For example, consistent with his previous work, Huntington relies heavily on culture as an independent variable. Despite having paid lip service to the fluidity of culture, Huntington's constant invocations of “Anglo,”“Hispanic,” and “Asian” culture, values, and identity is essentialist at best and racist at worst. Although much more positive, Burke's position on Latino culture is not necessarily less essentialist. For example, Burke's assertion that Latinos possess a distinct world view, in which “no clear demarcation exists between spirituality and everyday life” (Burke, p.14), is no better substantiated by his data and potentially no less problematic than Huntington's assertion that the “acceptance of poverty as a virtue necessary for entrance into heaven” is one of several “central Hispanic traits” (Huntington, p. 254). Even Smith's treatment of identity and belonging, although more sophisticated and thorough, is problematic in certain respects. In Smith's case, the problems stem less from conceptual sloppiness than from the inevitable circularity that arises from any attempt to firmly establish the origin of identity. “Peoples” are, in his view, clearly made and not born. But, his contention that people-building starts with a priori populations with “preexisting senses of identity, interests, and ideals” (Smith, p. 34) seems to beg the question of the essence of peoplehood. Moreover, it is not always clear that introducing the notion of “peoplehood” has actually solved the terminological and conceptual chaos surrounding the use of such terms as “nations,”“ethnic groups,” and so on. What is clear is that a conceptualization of identity-based conflict in terms of clashing “stories” as opposed to Huntington's clashing “civilizations” provides a richer and more nuanced understanding of the politics involved in the clashes. At least in theory, it also opens up greater space for managing and resolving such conflicts. If, as Huntington has argued, civilizations will clash because the differences between them are real and basic, there is little room left for negotiation. On the other hand, if civilizations themselves are the products of storytelling, then altering the form, tone, and content of stories (or, for Migdal, the mental maps), offers hope for lessening conflict. This is Smith's intention when he offers specific proposals, such as the need for moderate peoplehood and more inclusive narratives of political community. What remains unclear, however, is how a more moderate and inclusive storytelling can be encouraged or accomplished, and how various stories are to be evaluated or assessed. Focusing on the United States, Smith advises citizens to embrace fundamentally historical accounts of their national identity, as opposed to cultural, religious, or familial accounts. By “historical” stories, he means “only those positions that present the American political community as something that exists because it has been constructed and maintained through time by the political actions of human beings” (Smith, p. 187). The problem here is twofold. First, history, as is well known, is not an objective set of facts against which competing stories can be compared or evaluated. Holding storytellers accountable for historical accuracy can be futile. Huntington, for example, sees no need to discuss the central role of racism in nation-building in the United States—a reality clearly delineated in Basson's contribution to the Migdal volume. Second, as Smith himself acknowledges, civic accounts of political membership have rarely been sufficient to satisfy the needs that ethically constitutive stories, with their invocation of ethnic or quasi-ethnic identity, do. It is not clear why purely civic themes would become any more compelling in fundamentally historical form, or why, in a world that for many people is increasingly unstable, the appeal of a particularistic ethnic or quasi-ethnic identity and community would lessen. In this regard, the Madisonian solutions offered by both Smith and Burke also seem naïve. For reasons ranging from corporate control of the media and the growing concentrations of wealth and power to the decline of civic culture identified by such scholars as Robert Putnam (1995), it is not at all clear that the contemporary political context in most countries is as conducive to the open and public exchange of competing voices and views as Smith and Burke would have us believe. In fact, there is reason to believe that globalization is further narrowing the purview of and access to the public realm. Turning to Huntington and Burke, both of whom are telling (or proposing a retelling of) stories of peoplehood, the value and the difficulty of applying Smith's suggestions become more clear. Smith, for example, would presumably disapprove of Huntington's reliance upon religion and Anglo culture as the centerpieces of US peoplehood. Moreover, Huntington's characterization of Hispanic immigrants as a threatening “other” clearly does not qualify as an inclusive narrative of belonging of the type advocated by Smith. The problem is that Huntington's view garners a great deal of support among large numbers of people in the United States. This reality is made all the more evident by the fact that a generally well-respected Harvard political science professor would publish such a book and that Foreign Policy (May–June 2004) would excerpt a chapter from it for its cover story. Huntington's story will likely continue to find a receptive audience for the very reasons that Smith identifies. Meanwhile, Burke's very different story, which celebrates the multicultural history of the United States and the contributions of the multicultural inhabitants who now populate it, seems generally consistent with the proposals that Smith advocates. Burke is clearly supporting a moderate form of peoplehood in which the nation-state continues to serve as a focus of political and cultural attachment, but it does so in tandem with other transnational and subnational attachments and identifications. Burke's narrative is more inclusive than Huntington's, although Smith should be concerned about Burke's essentialist rendering of Latino identity and culture. Nonetheless, we still have no specific insights into how this story could be made more appealing. In fact, many of Burke's claims, such as that democracy in the United States will require multilingualism (p. 207), will only inflame the Huntingtons of the world (not to mention the state-building elite in Burma and elsewhere) who see a distinct, shared language as a central component of peoplehood, and who see peoplehood rooted in a distinct culture and language as compatible with democracy. Burke's suggestion also contradicts evidence presented by Joppke and Morawska that official multiculturalism is in retreat in Western Europe and North America. Ultimately, and when read together, these five books offer valuable analytical and policy-related insights. They agree that the contemporary global context has heightened the political centrality of belonging and challenged conventional theoretical and practical strategies for managing identity-based differences. They agree, at least in theory, that identities are not natural or static, but rather that they are malleable human constructions. In this regard, the contributors also wisely avoid wading too far into the morass that has characterized debates between primordialism and instrumentalism. The essence of that debate, however, still manages to haunt some of these analyses. On the whole, the authors also avoid the terminological chaos that has long surrounded the concepts “nation,”“state,” and “ethnicity,” although analytical pitfalls related to this definitional dilemma also remain (Tishcov 2000). Readers looking for a radical departure from the state-centric models of the past will find the state challenged and in heightened competition with other sources or sites of belonging, but it is still at the center of the analysis. Additionally, although globalization looms as a backdrop to the processes and problems being addressed, its constituent processes are not clearly specified. Nor are the links between globalization and belonging as clearly articulated as they might be. To what extent, for example, does the contemporary availability and spread of advanced communications technology affect storytelling? How are states not just resisting but also utilizing, contributing to, and rechanneling global forces in ways that influence identity (Croucher 2003)? The persistent analytical reliance upon and centering of the state limits deeper exploration regarding emergent nonstate boundaries and belongings that these texts acknowledge (most thoroughly in the case of Migdal) but do not fully engage. Nonetheless, each of these works adds something significant to the burgeoning literature on identity politics, and together they provide a sophisticated and comprehensive picture of the advances made and the work that remains to be done—both theoretically and politically. References Appadurai Arjun . ( 1996 ) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization . Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press . Aysha Emad El-Din . ( 2003 ) Samuel Huntington and the Geopolitics of American Identity . International Studies Perspectives 4 : 113 – 132 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Barber Benjamin . ( 1995 ) Jihad vs. McWorld . New York : Times Books . Bhabha Homi , ed. ( 1990 ) Nation and Narration . New York : Routledge . Breuilly John . ( 1993 ) Nationalism and the State . Manchester : Manchester University Press . Brubaker Rogers . ( 1996 ) Nationalism Reframed . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . Cornell Stephen Hartmann Douglas . ( 1998 ) Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World . Thousand Oaks : Pine Forge Press . Croucher Sheila . ( 1997 ) Imagining Miami: Ethnic Politics in a Postmodern World . Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia . Croucher Sheila . ( 2003 ) Globalization and Belonging: The Politics of Identity in a Changing World . Lantham : Rowman and Littlefield . Gellner Ernest . ( 1999 ) Adam's Navel: Primordialists vs. Modernists . In People, Nation, State , edited by Mortimer Edward . London : I.B. Tauris . Habermas Jüergen . ( 1996 ) Between Facts and Norms . Cambridge, MA : MIT Press . Huntington Samuel . ( 1993 ) The Clash of Civilizations . Foreign Affairs 72 : 22 – 49 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Jacobson David . ( 1996 ) Rights Across Borders: Immigration and the Decline of Citizenship . Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press . Kohn Hans . ( 1944 ) The Idea of Nationalism . New York : Macmillan . Kymlicka Will . ( 1995 ) Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights . Oxford : Clarendon Press . Mortimer Edward , ed. ( 1999 ) People, Nation, and State: The Meaning of Ethnicity and Nationalism . London : I.B. Tauris . Motyl Alexander . ( 2002 ) Imagined Communities, Rational Choosers, and Invented Ethnies . Comparative Politics 34 (2) : 233 – 250 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Putnam Robert D. . ( 1995 ) Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital . Journal of Democracy 6 (1) : 65 – 78 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Sackmann Rosemarie Peters Bernhard Faist Thomas , eds. ( 2003 ) Identity and Integration: Migrants in Western Europe . Aldershot : Ashgate . Smith Anthony . ( 1998 ) Nationalism and Modernism . London : Routledge . Soysal Yasemin . ( 1994 ) Limits to Citizenship . Chicago : University of Chicago Press . Taylor Charles . ( 1994 ) The Politics of Recognition . In Multiculturalism , edited by Gutman Amy . Princeton : Princeton University Press . Taylor Robert . ( 1999 ) Political Science Encounters “Race” and “Ethnicity.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 19 : 884 – 895 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Tishcov Valery . ( 2000 ) Forget the “Nation”: Post-Nationalist Understanding of Nationalism . Ethnic and Racial Studies 23 : 625 – 650 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Yack Bernard . ( 1996 ) The Myth of the Civic Nation . Critical Review 10 : 193 – 211 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS Yuvall-Davis Nira . ( 1993 ) Gender and Nation . Ethnic and Racial Studies 16 : 621 – 632 . Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS © 2006 International Studies Review
TI - The Politics and Perils of Peoplehood
JF - International Studies Review
DO - 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2006.00554.x
DA - 2009-09-09
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/the-politics-and-perils-of-peoplehood-ohKfZQEMCb
SP - 1
EP - 89
VL - Advance Article
IS - 1
DP - DeepDyve
ER -