Resisting Liberal Nationalism

This is an earlier version of: Peter Balint, ‘Resisting Liberal Nationalism’ in Balint & Guérard de Latour (eds), Liberal Multiculturalism and the Fair Terms of Integration (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), 73-97.

5

Resisting Liberal Nationalism

Peter Balint

In both the political theory and the public policy of multicultural societies, there has

been a convergence of the good of social cohesion and, more particularly, of national

identity as being one of the most important ties of social cohesion.<xen>1</xen> On

the theoretical front, this push has been led by liberal nationalism – the idea that the

state should promote and protect an overarching national identity in order to foster

public goods, in particular distributive justice – while on the policy level, perhaps the

most prominent of several possible examples are the citizenship tests that most

Western states now employ, and which were almost unheard of a decade ago. In both

cases, concern over integration, or lack thereof, is commonly phrased in terms of its

potential to undermine social cohesion.

If we understand social cohesion as being a connection between citizens then

it is plausible that a decline may make the achievement of certain social goods

extremely difficult. Yet it is worth noting that social cohesion, particularly at a

national level, is not always a benign good. In many of its guises, it can have a

significant impact on something of fundamental importance for liberals: the space for

individual freedom – that is, for individuals to live their lives as they see fit. This can

be for two linked reasons. First, if social cohesion is maintained by state-sanctioned

norms, particularly those involving identity, this move from state neutrality can

favour some ways of life over others; those who are more aligned with these norms

will generally find life easier and freer than those who are not. Second, as J. S. Mill

famously observed, among the biggest threats to individual freedom are the social

sanctions that the majority of a community can impose on those ‘not in harmony with

its ways’, which he described as a form of ‘social tyranny more formidable than many

kinds of political oppression, since … it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating

much more deeply into the details of life’ ([1859] 1998a, pp. 8–9).<xen>2</xen>

Examining social cohesion from a liberal perspective means that because of the

importance of freedom of association, there is not much that can be said about social

pressures and conformity per se. But when these social pressures are sanctioned by

the state or the state privileges certain ways of life over others, this is a question for

liberal political theory, at least of the type that concerns me here.

This is not to suggest that the recent concern with social cohesion and the

imperative of integration is entirely misplaced, but to acknowledge two things. First,

that we should not simply assume that social cohesion is some good that should be

maximised, and second, there may be more than one way of realising social cohesion.

When the state is involved in creating and fostering social cohesion, great care needs

to be taken about both the methods used to achieve it and the strength that is aimed

for. Ties of social cohesion that are the least likely to impact on individual freedom

are to be preferred, and we should not necessarily accept ties – such as national

cultural identity favoured by liberal nationalists – that appear to be sufficient. Other

candidates exist and their ability to produce sufficient social cohesion to achieve key

social goods needs to be taken seriously, and thus there are other ways of achieving

sufficient integration on fair terms.

Liberal nationalists favour the existence of a national identity both for its

intrinsic value (for example, Miller, 1995; Hurka, 1997) and for its importance for

achieving key social goods, such as welfare redistribution. In what follows, I am


interested in the instrumental goods of national identity and social cohesion, rather

than the intrinsic ones. This is not because being part of a community with which one

keenly identifies is not intrinsically significant, but there is no reason to assume such

identification must be at a national level; this type of identification can take place in a

whole range of ways (cf. Moore, 2001, pp. 31, 47–50). Indeed, it might be that having

this tie at a national level undermines its realisation: freedom of association (and

movement) within a state allows individuals to seek the intrinsic good of community

in their own way and, crucially, to avoid it when a tie of community is stifling rather

than enabling.

Instead, I want to focus on instrumental justifications for social cohesion, and

their role in helping to realise cooperative projects. More specifically, I will focus on

support for welfare redistribution. This is not only an explicit goal of liberal

nationalism, but it also seems a high bar: welfare redistribution, by deliberately

allocating benefits and burdens disproportionably, is likely to be more demanding on

citizens than most other cooperative projects, which generally benefit all (or at least

most) citizens. If it can be shown that the importance of national cultural identity is

overstated here then this implies it may be overstated for other, perhaps less

demanding, social projects too.<xen>3</xen>

My aim in this chapter is not to give an exhaustive empirical account, but to

suggest that if liberals are to contribute to the discussion over social cohesion, and

with it the fair terms of integration, they should not simply be seduced by ties of

identity, particularly national cultural identity; other types of tie exist, and their

impact on individual freedom may be easier to justify. In what follows, I begin with

national cultural identity, before then discussing the ties of civic identity, targeted

trust building and generalised trust. I conclude that while the first three types of tie

may lead to social cohesion and thus seemingly support welfare redistribution, it may

be that welfare redistribution itself (by fostering generalised trust) provides the most

satisfactory tie.

Ties of identity

National cultural identity

When social cohesion is strong, national identity has been assumed to be its key

support, and when weak, strengthening national identity is commonly seen as the

solution. Liberal nationalists put forward the building of a national identity and

culture with an explicit aim of maintaining support for redistributive polices. David

Miller, for example, writes: ‘Social [distributive] justice will always be easier to

achieve in states with strong national identities and without internal communal

divisions’ (1995, p. 96).<xen>4</xen> For Miller, ‘a national identity requires that the

people who share it should have something in common … which I prefer to describe

as a common public culture’ (1995, p. 25). Elsewhere, he writes: ‘the kind of

underpinning for a welfare state that socialists will look for can only be provided

through a widespread sense of common membership throughout the society in

question … it is worth stressing that this common identity must exist at the national

level’ (Miller, 1988, p. 243; my emphasis).

Moreover, it is ‘not only the strength of national identity … but also the

character of national identity that matters from the point of view of social

[distributive] justice’ (Miller, 1995, p. 94; emphasis in original). This picture of state

policies of national identity-building is one in which the state is involved in

encouraging the maintenance of a shared common public culture and, with it, a


national identity that is particular to that state and binds people in the right type of

way.

Yet common identities can have costs for individual freedom. Communities

centred on a common identity and norms can, for some individuals, have a

constraining effect on their freedom to live their lives as they see fit. A national

identity, as Miller says, involves a shared public culture, which he describes as

a set of understandings about how a group of people is to conduct its life

together. This will include political principles such as a belief in democracy or

the rule of law, but it reaches more widely than this. It extends to social norms

such as honesty in filling in your tax return or queuing as a way of deciding who

gets on the bus first. It may also embrace certain ideals, for instance religious

beliefs or a commitment to preserve the purity of the national language. (1995, p.

26)

This conception of public culture contains, then, an element of, to put it colloquially,

‘this is the way we do things around here’. As a liberal, Miller is obviously keen to

point out that private subcultures should not be ‘obliterated’ (1995, p. 26, note 13 and

ch. 5), that free speech should remain protected and that private self-regarding actions

should be tolerated (1988, p. 248). Moreover, the details of what constitutes a

particular national culture are not fixed, but ‘ideally … should consist in a collective

conversation in which many voices can join. No voice has a privileged status: those

who seek to defend traditional interpretations enter the conversation on an equal

footing with those who wish to propose changes’ (1995, p. 127).

While this ‘way we do things around here’ norm can be enabling – it can

allow efficient interaction and known expectations (as in the example of queue

forming), as well as fostering a sense of belonging – it can also involve ‘ways’ that

are not desirable to all. If a national culture involves beliefs, practices and sensibilities

(Miller, 1995, p. 85, cf. ch. 2) then there will always be those who do not share the

beliefs, enjoy the practices or exhibit the sensibilities. And while the process of

defining a national identity and culture is intended to be inclusive and deliberative, it

is still likely to favour a majority, or at least elitist, view, with its attendant social

pressures and sanctions on those who do not conform.

Miller acknowledges that no national culture will have all members participate

in all elements equally; he describes them as ‘a set of overlapping cultural

characteristics … which different members exhibit in different combinations and to

different degrees’ (1995, p. 85). The precise characteristics of particular national

cultural identities will be hard to pin down; identities, as is now commonly

acknowledged, are notoriously difficult to accurately capture – they are moving,

changing and overlapping things. Yet the argument for cultural identity approaches to

building and maintaining social cohesion involves asking the state to use its power to

promote a national cultural identity, and if a national identity is an amorphous,

overlapping and slippery thing, what should the state do? To promote some aspects of

a shared national cultural identity – for example, interest in particular sports or

particular cultural traditions – would be to favour a way of doing things that will not

be shared by all those who subscribe to the identity. This is not simply encouraging

those who do not subscribe particularly strongly to a national identity to come into the

fold, but also would be almost perversely telling those who do actually subscribe to

the identity that they are somehow inauthentic. This problem – a ‘we’re not all like


that’ argument – was at least one of the motivations behind some of the strong

criticism (for example, Allison, 2007) of the first version of the Australian citizenship

test and its accompanying booklet, which, among other things, devoted a paragraph to

the cricketer Don Bradman and another to the racehorse Phar Lap.<xen>5</xen>

When particular forms of identity are chosen for promotion, they will most

likely be those that are (believed to be) the most commonly held, which will make

conforming to these markers easier for some than for others; it is hard to imagine a

national cultural identity being chosen that is equally difficult for all citizens to

embrace. With perhaps the exception of ‘territory’, all state attempts to articulate and

push an identity will involve promoting ideas that are easier for some than others and

will thereby not only curtail the freedom of some citizens but also do so in unequal

ways. This problem is not solved by state policies simply being about creating space

for a ‘collective conversation’ if the result of the conversation is then turned into state

policy. It is hard to see how even if liberal nationalists favour more ‘collective

conversation’ than standard nation-building exercises, the result would not still be

both broadly majoritarian or elitist,<xen>6</xen> as well as favouring those most

interested in joining the ‘collective conversation’ in the first place.

For those individuals whose identities do not line up with those of the national

culture, there are three basic problems for their freedom to live their life as they see

fit. The first is the one I have just been describing: the unequal difficulty of

conforming. The second is that they may end up being excluded from national

belonging, which may not only involve some serious social difficulties, but could also

involve political difficulties. Third, if they are to avoid these types of exclusion and

try to adopt the national cultural identity then they have done something they would

not have done otherwise as the result of a state policy and something which may not

have been necessary – they may have supported redistribution anyway.

I am not arguing that multiple identities are not possible – indeed, liberal

nationalists with their desire to protect the private sphere clearly acknowledge this. It

is simply that for a public identity to operate as Miller and other liberal nationalists

wish it to, it will need to mean something sufficiently strong for the individual

citizens who hold it. It is hard then to see how it will not have a constraining effect on

individual freedom. This is not an argument that national cultural identity should be

completely ignored by the state, but that if national cultural identity is found to be the

tie of social cohesion that is necessary to undergird redistributive justice, the state

needs to be very careful in fostering such an identity as there seems to be little way of

avoiding its impingement on some citizens’ freedom to live their lives as they see fit.

It is here that the strength as well as the type of tie matters, too; but it is also

here that this strength may be hardest to control. Indeed, this is the usual liberal fear

of nationalism: once it starts, it is very difficult to keep under control, or at least keep

liberal. Yet, even if this problem of control was somehow avoidable, problems of

strength remain. We can imagine a state deciding it does not have sufficient national

cultural identification and thus implementing policies to encourage and affirm such

identification – in other words, trying to strengthen this tie. What seems likely is that

those who would now feel closer national bonds are those who already had such

bonds, and it is certainly not obvious that helping these already-bonded individuals

feel even more patriotic will lead them to including those whose identities and

practices are less mainstream; it may well have the opposite effect. There is a danger

that increasing the strength of a particular identity tie may increase its concentration at

a greater rate than its distribution. So while strengthening this type of tie may lead to


more social cohesiveness among some citizens, it would need to include almost all

citizens in roughly equal strengths if it is to help with general support for welfare

redistribution. This is particularly true if, as is commonly the case, those who are

being helped the most are seen to not fully belong to the national group.

I am not arguing, at this stage at least, against an empirical link between

national cultural identity and welfare redistribution. Instead, I am arguing that the

costs of this type of tie need to be acknowledged, and, equally importantly, that we

should not simply presume that it is the only possible type of tie that can achieve this

goal.

Civic identity

One move by those who have resisted the cultural identity tie of liberal nationalism is

to instead stress the need for a civic, rather than a cultural, identity. This is the

approach taken in broad terms by civic nationalism, constitutional patriotism

(Habermas, 1996a; Ingram, 1996; Lacroix, 2002; Müller, 2007) and civic

republicanism (Honohan, 2002; Laborde, 2002a). Yet while this may solve some of

the above problems, it does not solve all of them. And, in addition, it faces the extra

challenge of whether a purely civic national identity would be strong enough to

generate the real social bonds necessary to underpin a welfare state; this, of course, is

the primary reason liberal nationalists wish to add some extra cultural element to

national identity. I want to leave this issue aside and assume for now that civic

identification has the potential to form at least some social bonds, and that these could

support redistributive projects. Instead, I want to briefly suggest that this type of

approach is not without its own potential problems of ‘over-demandingness’ and

potentially unnecessary intrusion on individual freedom.

For a civic identity to work, it must garner sufficient allegiance. If the

prescribed values are simply minimal – perhaps something like ‘citizens should

respect each others’ right to live their lives as they see fit’ – then, while still being a

demand for some, this seems quite reasonable. Yet not all interpretations are so

minimal, and many who advocate civic identification demand significantly more.

While the list of values does vary, it is their method of generation that seems the most

problematic.

The constitutional patriotism of Jürgen Habermas (1996a), for example,

involves citizens converging around the set of values instantiated in their constitution

rather than a particular history and national cultural practices.<xen>7</xen> Here,

being a good citizen means identifying with these values, and it is the identification

with the particular instantiation of the liberal values in a country’s constitution that is

intended to sustain social cohesion while tolerating diversity. Yet Habermas (1996a)

also stresses the good of active citizenship as opposed to the ‘passive enjoyment of

rights’. In even stronger terms, Patchen Markell describes constitutional patriotism

‘not as a safe and reliable identification with some pure set of already available

universals, but rather as a political practice of refusing or resisting particular

identifications … for the sake of the ongoing, always incomplete, and often

unpredictable project of universalization’ (2000, p. 40).

On these stronger readings, civic identification may necessitate a continual

democratic and critical role for the citizen – that is, allegiance to, and involvement in,

the ongoing process of determining constitutional or civic values, rather than (or as

well as) the constitutional or civic values themselves. If this is required then this is a

demanding form of citizenship – and perhaps even more so than taking part in

national-day parades or joining colleagues in singing national songs.


Even if a less active form of civic identification is opted for – that is, one

where the values are universal and more settled – questions of demandingness remain.

With this more passive type of civic identification, a good citizen should be in

agreement with the liberal principles embodied in the constitution. From a

multicultural perspective, such a position may not be tolerant of a deeper diversity of

ways of life, and may result in the process of exclusion of those with divergent

values.<xen>8</xen> Of course, this may not be seen as an objection. But it is worth

stressing that such an approach relies on one interpretation of liberal citizenship, and

one that is antithetical to deep multiculturalism at least.

Once again, none of this is to say that civic identification is necessarily the

wrong policy path to take, but simply to highlight that it is also not without potential

costs. In a liberal response to social cohesion, the limitations on those practising their

non-other-harming ways of life need to be considered, even if they do not always win

out.

Ties of trust

Identity, either cultural or otherwise, may not actually be necessary for the support of

welfare redistribution. The concern for a national identity, and often a shared public

culture, is commonly viewed as a tool to enable the requisite trust needed to support

social cooperation. Miller, for example, writes:

I take it as virtually self-evident that ties of community are an important source

of trust between individuals who are not personally known to one another and

who are in no position directly to monitor one another’s behaviour … Trust

assumes particular importance if we ask about the conditions under which

individuals will give their support to schemes of social justice, particularly

schemes involving redistribution. (1995, pp. 92, 93)

If sufficient trust is the deeper concern, perhaps it is worth focusing on this, rather

than, or at least as well as, on ties of identity. While my main interest in this section

will be trust at this general level, I want to begin by arguing that it is false to assume

problems of trust are always general or national in nature, before then discussing the

mechanisms that support a generalised conception of trust.

Targeted trust building

One way of thinking about social trust relations in conditions of diversity is in the

form: A trusts B as an X to Ø, where X can be seen as ranging over roles or

‘politically salient identities’ (Weinstock, 1999, p. 297). If we think of trust in this

way, a reasonably targeted approach by programmes and institutions in trust building

(and maintaining) may be achievable.<xen>9</xen> Potential strategies of

institutional design may then affect A (the truster) by, for example, making it more

rational for them to trust B, or by aiming to improve their attitudinal trust of B. They

may instead work on the trusted (B) by, for example, creating incentives for them to

act in a trustworthy manner through rewards or punishments. Or finally, they may

focus on the object or action (Ø) that A wants by, for example, making it easier to

attain (Weinstock, 1999, pp. 300–05). One might, for example, design a house-

building project in which two groups with low levels of trust towards each other have

incentives to work together. While the method to use and how to put it into action will

be context dependent, it seems possible to work on trust issues in a reasonably

targeted fashion, and where building and maintaining trust are a problem, institutions


(and if necessary policies) may be designed to target the specific trust variables that

need improving or maintaining.

There are at least two potential negatives of this type of trust approach to

building and maintaining sufficient social cohesion. The first is that this type of trust

is malleable. While A’s trust of B to Ø is quite likely to extend to other actions too,

conversely A’s distrust of B to Ø is likely to involve distrust with other actions as

well. As Annette Baier writes, ‘trust comes in webs, not in single strands, and

disrupting one strand often rips apart whole webs’ (1994, p. 149). While this points to

issues of fragility, more positively it suggests that if one wishes to increase trust

relations in a diverse society, some part of the web must be intact (Weinstock, 1999,

p. 299). While this may prove too serious a problem for trust-building approaches to

social cohesion, it seems only the most divided societies would have no trust web

intact at all. Most diverse Western liberal societies already have some trust networks

in place, and the problem is more how to maintain and improve them and to stop them

deteriorating, rather than how to bring them about in the first place. Indeed in many

Western liberal societies, the specific instances of distrust form one of the biggest

issues – for example, the situation between Asian and non-Asian residents in several

towns in northern England or between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in

many western NSW country towns. Trust issues commonly do not involve all citizens

of a polity and can often be quite focused.

The other potential problem with this type of targeted trust approach is that

trust has been described as a ‘willing that cannot be willed’ (Elster, 1983). That is,

like sleep or spontaneity, the more we try to consciously make trust occur, the less

likely it is to come about. Trust may only be possible as the result of an action

undertaken for some other end. While this seems true of individuals willing

themselves to trust others – trust here does seem to be more of a by-product than an

achievable goal – it seems less true of institutional design, particularly when the

endpoint of such design is not fully disclosed. In other words, there are at least two

potential strategies that may avoid this problem – we can either (a) know that trust is a

by-product of a certain policy or institution and/or (b) not explicitly promote trust as a

social goal.

One of the advantages of this type of trust approach to building social

cohesion is that it can be very targeted. National identity building is intended for the

whole population and is quite likely to affect a significant number of people who may

have had no problem supporting common projects such as welfare redistribution in

the first place. If there are targeted ways of maintaining sufficient support for

common projects with less cost to individual freedom, these methods seem preferable.

There is always a danger with projects such as nation-building that it will ‘over

insure’ – that is, while these projects might have legitimate ends, they may do much

more than is necessary to achieve these ends and thereby involve all citizens for the

sake of the few who could have been targeted.

It might seem that this type of more finely tuned approach would be far more

expensive to execute than a more generalised approach. While this, if true, would be

of some concern, it would not be a strong objection; the financial cost of a programme

should certainly not be the only normative consideration. Yet this type of approach

may not be more expensive at all. An effective (as opposed to a short-term, politically

expedient) approach to trust building may have to be very engaging, which would

mean the fewer citizens involved the better, for both individual freedom and public

finances. Superficial marketing slogans and events should not be confused with real


and directed institutional and policy processes. The targeted approach seems much

more likely to achieve actual results for less resources, as opposed to minimal results

for less resources.

Until this point, I have assumed along with liberal nationalists that once a tie

of social cohesion was both strong and broad enough, it would be sufficient to support

welfare redistribution. But it is worth questioning this assumption. Even if identity

and targeted trust-building approaches are successfully used to build social cohesion,

and citizens now feel more a sense of togetherness or even trust towards those who

may previously have been excluded, it is not certain that this would actually then

motivate support for welfare redistribution. These forms of social cohesion might well

lead to support for redistributive policies, and then again they might not. It is not hard

to think of examples of people who have strong national feeling and who may even

trust their neighbours, yet fail to support common projects. This could be for a range

of reasons, from political ideology through to self-interest and apathy. So while the

proponents of these methods may hold them to be necessary for the success of

common projects, they may not be sufficient – and, as I have argued in relation to

national identification, they may not be necessary either.

So far, the concern has been to find a tie for social cohesion that supports

welfare redistribution, and I have identified three main problems. First, any causality

might be quite weak, and even if a particular approach is successful in building a tie

of social cohesion, there remains the question of whether this particular tie of social

cohesion is likely to actually lead to welfare redistribution. Second, these approaches,

particularly those of identity, are not costless. Third, if the desired end is not seen to

be achieved, there is temptation and a tendency to push the policy lever harder – to

strengthen the tie – and this is generally not costless either. There is, however, a very

different way of looking at the problems of social cohesion and welfare redistribution,

and one which seemingly answers these problems, particularly that of motivation.

Generalised trust

Instead of welfare redistribution being an outcome of social cohesion, there is good

reason to think that this relationship can actually be reversed. The Federal

Government Social Cohesion Research Network, set up by Canada in the late 1990s,

found that ‘social cohesion derives … from the very social outcomes (e.g., health

results, security, economic well-being, education) that it contributes to. If a society

fails to distribute its social outcomes equitably, social cohesion deteriorates and social

outcomes suffer’ (Stanley, 2003, p. 8).

Essentially, the network found that social cohesion and social outcomes are in

a reciprocal relationship, where improved social outcomes increase social cohesion

and vice versa. If individuals feel they are getting their fair share, they are more likely

to cooperate with others and enter joint enterprises, and if individuals feel they are

excluded from fair outcomes, this lowers their probability of cooperating (Stanley,

2003, p. 13). This is a model of social cohesion that has little to do with national

identity, particularly in the liberal nationalist sense and is, in fact, reinforced by the

very thing it is trying to achieve: a fair distribution of resources (cf. Jupp, 2007, pp.

10, 18).

Bo Rothstein and Eric Uslaner provide a deeper explanation of this link

between fair outcomes and social cohesion. By focusing on social or generalised trust

(that is, that a citizen is likely to trust someone they do not know who may not be

from their in-group), Rothstein and Uslaner (2005) argue that inequality, of either

incomes or opportunities, undermines generalised trust and that equality supports this


type of trust.<xen>10

</xen> This is the second, and seemingly more fundamental,

type of trust required for the success of welfare redistribution projects. Whereas

Weinstock (1999) is interested in trust in relation to particular variables (that A trusts

B as an X), this view focuses on trust in its most general form: the trust of strangers –

those whom we know very little about. Liberal nationalists have tried to make the X

‘one of us’ – that is, ‘someone who shares our culture and values’. In this sense they

have simply tried to widen the particular group to the nation<xen>11

</xen>; however,

as Uslaner argues, general trust is a moral disposition that is much less dependent on

the particular characteristics of people; it simply involves a person having a trusting

disposition. Put simply, that ‘A trusts’ (Uslaner, 2002, ch. 2). Citizens who are

generalised trusters have many positive characteristics, including that they tend to be

more optimistic, more tolerant of minorities, give more to charities, have a more

positive view of their democratic institutions and be more active in both politics and

civic organisations (Rothstein and Uslaner, 2005, p. 41); they are also more likely to

support welfare redistribution.

Because generalised trust is much less contingent on experience, it is highly

stable and is less likely than particularised trust to be affected by particular

experiences. Nevertheless, it is not immovable, and it is here that equality plays a key

role. Uslaner gives, among several others, the example of Italy, where generalised

trust rose from 24 per cent in 1960 to 35 per cent in 1990, while income inequality fell

from 0.410 in 1974 to 0.322 in 1990 (2002, p. 253).<xen>12

</xen> So while there are

serious risks of a ‘social trap’, whereby countries with low levels of generalised trust

may not have the requisite trust to be able to implement the policies required to

address inequality and then increase generalised trust (Rothstein, 2005), Rothstein and

Uslaner are clear about the sorts of welfare policies that raise trust and those that

lower it. Perhaps somewhat ironically, many liberal political theorists have been

concerned that welfare programmes are specifically targeted at those in real need, and

that, for reasons of fairness, those who are already well off should not receive welfare

support.<xen>13

</xen> As Rothstein argues, this concern over fairness with its

targeted welfare and means testing can actually lead to greater economic inequality

and less equality of opportunity and thus decreased generalised trust, than simply

universalising welfare. Scandinavian countries that have a high number of universal

welfare programmes have much greater generalised trust (and less economic

inequality) than countries that have a predominance of targeted welfare programmes

(Rothstein, 1998, ch. 6).

Not only are fair economic outcomes and a real sense of equality of

opportunity among the citizenry necessary for social trust, but also policies to achieve

this trust need to be open to all members of a polity, and not just those who are

relatively disadvantaged. This, then, is unlike the case of targeted trust building,

where particular social issues were overcome with particular solutions. Here,

generalised trust can be improved and maintained if almost all members of a society

feel they can benefit from a collective welfare programme. Universal welfare

programmes have the double advantage of first allowing those lower down the

economic scale to feel less stigmatised and less like the state is prying in increasing

detail into their affairs – something that leads to a drop in their generalised trust

(Rothstein and Uslaner, 2005, pp. 43, 59–63; Rothstein, 1998) – and second, those

much higher up the scale who would not usually receive welfare payments (or free

access to schools, universities, hospitals and so on), feel that they too are part of the

same programme, and are likely more willing to support it with their tax dollars.


Significantly, then, providing universal welfare is a more effective, though less direct

way of redistributing welfare than targeted welfare programmes, and it is also a more

effective way of building and maintaining the generalised trust required to maintain

such programmes in the first place. Further, it can result in greater redistribution than

targeted welfare, especially, but not only, with a system of progressive taxation

(Rothstein, 1998, ch. 6). One final implication of this argument is that, if correct, the

social goal of welfare redistribution may be much better achieved (and marketed) as

just another cooperative scheme, without the explicit end of redistribution.

Of course questions of demandingness remain, as citizens are required to pay

for the cost of these schemes. But when the scheme is universal, they are still getting

something back – even if in many cases it is less than their contribution. And more

importantly, a large part of the extra burden that some citizens must contribute is

simply consistent with the demands of justice, and thus its demandingness is entirely

justified.

These alternatives to the shared national culture and/or identity approaches to

social cohesion appear quite promising; they are more targeted, or at least more

directly relevant to the particular problem, and appear to have less cost for individual

freedom.

Conclusion

One of the principal reasons liberal nationalists are concerned about social cohesion is

its importance for the achievement of common projects and, in particular,

redistributive justice. They are concerned that all citizens are integrated into the polity

and that an overarching national cultural identity is in place. Yet fostering a national

cultural identity has costs for individual freedom that may not in the end be

justifiable. Even if the importance of welfare redistribution is accepted, the building

and maintaining of a common culture, decided by citizens in the public sphere, has the

potential to excuse the imposition of a ‘this is the way we do things around here’

mentality, which may go further than is required. This is of particular concern in the

case of outlying citizens, many of whom may have actually supported common

projects in the first place. If we replace the cultural identity tie with common values

instead, there remains a potential issue of over-demandingness – and even more so

when active citizenship is required. These identity approaches, particularly liberal

nationalism, are further weakened when it appears that viable and more liberal

approaches exist. While it may seem tempting to use a common national identity as a

direct path to social cohesion and integration, it is a path that should be taken very

warily, particularly when there other methods that, used either singularly or in

concert, have the potential to build sufficient social cohesion to support common

projects with less cost to individual freedom. Indeed, perhaps the most promising tie

of social cohesion – building generalised trust by ensuring fair social outcomes –

seemingly bypasses identity altogether and seems a reasonably fair and functional

method of integration.

Endnotes

1 Perhaps, somewhat surprisingly given its prominence, the term ‘social cohesion’ is

actually relatively new, dating back not much further than the first half of the 1990s in

Europe and Canada (Beauvais and Jenson, 2002, p. i).

2 Despite Mill’s worry about social pressures, it is worth noting that he was still an

ardent nationalist of sorts, seeing ‘fellow-feeling’ as particularly important for the

emergence and existence of free institutions (Mill, 1998b, pp. 428, 443).


3 See Balint (2013) for a discussion of national defence.

4 I primarily focus on the work of David Miller here as his are the clearest and most

influential statements of the liberal nationalist position. For other examples, see

Kymlicka (1995); Tamir (1993); or, more recently, Soutphommasane (2012); and

Lenard (2010).

5 In mid-2009, this type of cultural question was removed from the test, though not

completely from the accompanying booklet.

6 Jamie Mayerfeld (1998, pp. 572–73), in the context of a hypothetical discussion

over what a particular national history in liberal nationalist terms should be, argues

that by using Miller’s own logic, ‘the deck will always be stacked in favour’ of those

who want a ‘bowdlerized version’ of the nation’s history, rather than those who wish

to point out lapses and shortcomings.

7 There is disagreement over whether Habermas’s version of constitutional patriotism

involves culture or not. Although here I assume the ‘popular’ view – that it is entirely

civic – there is a strong argument that Habermas has at least a shared political culture

in mind (Markell, 2000; Laborde, 2002a; and Lacroix, 2002).

8 Müller (2007, pp. 66–7), for example, acknowledges that there is no guarantee that

constitutional patriotism would not lead to intolerance.

9 Weinstock is explicitly interested in institutional design rather than policymaking,

arguing that: ‘Institutions structure citizens’ relations within civil society in a much

more foundational and subterranean view than do policies. Fostering trust through

institutional design might thus give rise to stabler long-lasting results. What is more,

they will not risk being as counterproductive as might policies which are more

explicitly geared to the task, and toward which members of a divided society might be

more wary and cynical’ (1999, p. 300).

10 See also Uslaner (2002); Rothstein (1998, 2005).

11 This is rarely an explicit move; for an exception, see Lenard (2010).

12 The other key underminer of social trust Rothstein and Uslaner (2005) identify is

corruption among public officials and in institutions.

13 This is the basic drive behind the responsibility-sensitive ‘luck egalitarianism’.

See, for example, Arneson (1989); Cohen (1989); Dworkin (2000).

Resisting Liberal Nationalism

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