Ethnic return migration and the nation‐state: encouraging the diaspora to return ‘home’

ABSTRACT. Countries of immigration are generally faced with a dilemma: they wish to accept immigrants for economic purposes, but also to restrict immigration for ethnonational reasons. This is especially true in ethnic nation‐states, where immigration is seen as a threat to ethnonational unity more than in civic nation‐states. However, in recent decades, various ethnic nation‐states have adopted immigration policies that have encouraged their diasporic descendants born and raised abroad to return to their ethnic homeland. Ethnic return migration apparently solves the immigration dilemma by providing ethnic nation‐states with a much‐needed unskilled labour force without causing ethnonational disruption because the immigrants are co‐ethnic descendants. After comparing ethnic return migration policies in European and East Asian countries, this article analyses the development of such policies in Japan and their eventual failure to solve the country's immigration dilemma. As a result, Japan (and other ethnic nation‐states) have imposed restrictions on ethnic return migration.     

National Alcohol in Hungary’s Reform Era: Wine,Spirits, and the Patriotic Imagination

Abstract

Hungarian elites saw wine consumption as a matter of national pride. The glorification of wine, and particularly of the luxury vintage Tokaji, reflected the economic interest and social customs of the Hungarian aristocracy, whose members tended to see themselves as the Hungarian nation. When liberal reformers began rationalizing the wine sector for mass production and export in the early nineteenth century, wine patriotism also became merged with the economic nationalism of Hungary’s Reform Era. Hungarian wine patriotism involved the denigration of alcoholic beverages other than wine, such as beer and spirits, since Hungarian public opinion associated these other alcoholic beverages with non-Magyar minorities in the Kingdom of Hungary, such as Slovaks, Croats, Germans, or Jews. Hungarian wine patriotism thus also illustrates the rise of Magyar chauvinism, anticipating ethnic conflict in the Kingdom of Hungary.     

Reconciling custom,citizenship and colonial legacies: Ni‐Vanuatu tertiary student attitudes to national identity

Nation‐building remains a key challenge in Vanuatu. From the origins of this new nation in 1980, it was clear that creating a unifying sense of national identity and political community from multiple languages and diverse traditional cultures would be difficult. This paper presents new survey and focus group data on attitudes to national identity among tertiary students in Vanuatu. The survey identifies areas of common attitudes towards nationalism and national identity, shared by both Anglophone and Francophone Ni‐Vanuatu. However, despite the weakening ties between language of education and political affiliation over recent years, the findings suggest that there remain some key areas of strong association between socio‐linguistic background, and attitudes to the nation, and national identity. These findings cast new light on the attitudes of likely future elites towards regional, ethnic, intergenerational and linguistic fault lines in Vanuatu and the challenges of building a cohesive sense of political community and national identity.     

Why is the Nation-State so Vulnerable to Ethnic Nationalism?

Abstract. The strength of national identity derived from the belief that state elites would be the agents of equitable development. Their invented ideology of the social justice community resonated with the psychological needs of individuals in search of an imagined kinship community able to replicate the security of the family. From the late 1960s, the inability of state elites to fulfil their developmental promises led to a decline in state authority, which then translated into the erosion of its main legitimatory ideology – the myth of the assimilating nation. This generated the new legitimacy of countervailing ethnic nationalisms. Instead of looking to the state as the imagined kinship community, disillusioned citizens became receptive to new social justice claims by aspiring political elites, which depicted ethnicity as the alternative imagined kinship community. Attempts by state elites to manage these new ethnic claims face problems relating to the neutrality of the state and to the resonance of myths of the multicultural nation.     

Cultural legacies and electoral performance of ethnic minority parties in post‐communist Europe

Although there are numerous contributions on ethnic electoral politics, relatively little research has been devoted to explain the scope of success of ethnic minority parties. This article addresses the issue within the bounds of post‐communist Europe, paying particular attention to the effect of cultural legacies. It was confirmed, first of all, that ethnic parties are likely to emerge only if their titular minority has a number of voters larger than what is necessary to obtain parliamentary representation. Otherwise, the most successful were the ethnic parties representing the minorities characterised by legacy of regional domination, that is, those whose members had once enjoyed a dominant position as a ruling nation on a given territory (e.g. Hungarians in Slovakia). The second‐successful were the parties representing homeland minorities, that is, those which have resided on a given area for more than two centuries, but have never been members of a ruling nation. The parties representing diaspora or immigrant minorities were the least successful. Further research could assess the importance of these factors in other regions of the world.     

SOCIOECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF TEMPORARY LABOUR MIGRATION IN INDIA

Temporary labour migration has rarely been studied at macro level despite its high prevalence in India. Drawing from the recently available Indian National Sample Survey (2007–08), this paper aims to study the basic differentials between temporary and permanent labour migration at the national level and examines the socioeconomic determinants of temporary labour migration at the state level. The study shows that temporary migration is seven times larger than permanent migration, and is largely a rural phenomenon dominated by rural to urban migration. A regional pattern in temporary labour migration is evident in the low-income Central and North Indian states. Low economic, educational and social status significantly induces temporary labour migration in contrast to permanent labour migration. As such, temporary labour migration appears to be a survival strategy of the rural poor in India.     

Transnational identities and immigrant spaces of Polish professionals in London,UK

It has been estimated that about 700,000 Poles moved to the UK after Poland joined the European Union in 2004, with London receiving a large portion of Polish immigrants. In agreement with the British perception of migrants from Eastern Europe, the majority of Polish immigrants can be generally classified as labor migrants with close cultural and national ties to Poland. However, Polish migration to the UK also includes a growing group of professionals and social and financial elites who are often overlooked by academic research. This paper analyzes the migrant experiences of Polish professionals and elites in London, and the relationships between their transnational identities and immigrant spaces such as ethnic enclaves, private and social spaces. Furthermore, this paper uses Polish elites in London as a foundation to explore concepts of cosmopolitanism and transnationalism, suggesting that global elites can maintain strong national affiliations, and their global ambitions can be fueled by local contexts and standards.     

Nationalism,ethnic conflict,and job competition: non‐Russian collective action in the USSR under perestroika†

ABSTRACT. The article examines the effects of job competition on ethnic relations within a multinational state. It argues that demographic increase leads to competition for blue‐collar jobs while an increase in the number of graduates from higher education leads to competition over elite jobs. In the first case, people risk unemployment, in the second, blocked career opportunities. Mass‐level unemployment may lead to anger‐driven mass riots, while an intelligentsia will formulate more rational strategies to eliminate threatening competitors from the labour market. One such strategy is to insist that the state ought to be a national state, in which the national elites will be in control. While questions of identity no doubt also may have an enormously mobilising power in times of national resurgence, identity issues are normally intimately intertwined with interest politics. These mechanisms are traced in the history of ethnic mobilisation in the Soviet Union and the post‐Soviet states during and after perestroika.     

Dilemmas of autonomy and liberal pluralism: examples involving Hungarians in Central Europe*

Abstract. Liberal pluralists have argued that minority cultural communities are necessary for the liberty of minorities. On the premise that individual rights are insufficient to protect these cultural communities, they argue that ethnic and national groups should be allocated some type of collective autonomy. In this article, we critically examine this claim through a discussion of policies regarding Hungarian minorities. We show that liberal pluralist approaches (1) privilege ethnic and national identities over other types of communal identities, (2) require that ethnic and national communities be clearly bounded, but do not address how lines should be drawn, and (3) increase the power of cultural communities over their members. Policies based on liberal pluralist ideas therefore violate principles of equality and are likely to harm the autonomy of individuals. Rather than looking to liberal pluralist theories as a panacea for minority concerns, we demonstrate why we should be sceptical about this effort to move beyond minority protections based on individual rights.     

Nationalism and National Movements: Comparing the Past and the Present of Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract. This article compares the ‘new nationalism’ in post-communist countries since the 1980s with the ‘classical’ national movements o the nineteenth century. Looking for analogies and differences between these two processes, it seeks to achieve a better understanding and more profound interpretation of contemporary ‘nationalism’. Most important analogies are: both national movements emerged as a result of (and as an answer to) the crisis and disintegration of an old regime and its value system; in both cases we observe a low level of political experience among the population, the stereotype of a personalised nation, and of a defensive position. Similarly both movements define their national border by both ethnic and historical borders: in both cases, the nationally relevant conflict of interests plays a decisive role. Among the differences are: the extremely high level of social communication in the twentieth-century movements, combined with a ‘vacuum at the top’ (the need for new elites) and with deep economic depression. The ‘contemporary’ national movements fought for the political rights of undoubtedly pre-existing nations (above all, for full independence), while the ‘classical’ ones fought for the concept of a nation-to-be, whose existence was not generally accepted. Nevertheless, in both cases, similar specifics of the nation-forming process under conditions of a ‘small nation’ can be observed. The author does not view nationalism as a ‘disease’ or external force: but rather as an answer given by some members of the nation to new challenges and unexpected conflicts of interests, which could be interpreted as national ones.     

Diverse unity: creole contributions to interethnic integration in Guinea‐Bissau

The paper explores how creole categories of people who have constituted a small but influential minority in Guinea‐Bissau for centuries contributed to a countrywide, integrated national culture since the eve of independence in 1974. Since independence, several cultural representations previously exclusive to creole communities have been – driven by the nationalist independence movement and the early postcolonial state – transformed into representations of a new national culture, crossing ethnic and religious boundaries. The fact that creole identity and culture had been transethnic – i.e. creole identity brings together individuals of heterogeneous cultural, ethnic and geographic descent – during the colonial period, has fostered in postcolonial times the countrywide spread of previously exclusively creole cultural features. I argue that this ‘transethnicisation’ of creole cultural representations has unified Bissau‐Guineans across ethnic lines, causing a strong commitment with their nation ‘from below’.     

The Identity of Capitalists and the Legitimacy of Capitalism: Sri Lanka since Independence

In many Asian countries, the early decades of independence after World War II were marked by tension between ‘indigenous’ political elites and business elites that were in large part alien, or from minority ethnic groups. This tension was one reason for the preference that most governments showed for statist and nationalist economic policies. It has abated in most cases; political and business elites now tend to pursue more co-operative strategies. Much of the explanation for this lies in changes in the international political economy that made market-oriented economic policies more attractive to political elites. There are in addition internal political reasons for this rapprochement. These vary from case to case, and have been explored in most detail by scholars in relation to the Southeast Asian countries where Overseas Chinese have dominated larger scale business. This article extends this literature by examining the causes of the gradual rapprochement between ‘majority’ politics and ‘minority’ business in Sri Lanka.     

Migration and ethnic nationalism: Anglophone exit and the ‘decolonisation’ of Québec

This article explains the effects of ethnic nationalism on Anglophone and Francophone migration. The rise of Québec ethnic nationalism in the 1960s dismantled the cultural division of labour, which created new opportunities for Francophones but threatened Anglophones' traditional dominance over the Québec economy. This had negative consequences for Anglophones but positive outcomes for Francophones, which in turn accounts for differences in migration patterns. Drawing from the internal colony model as well as migration and exit‐voice theories, and using ecological census data, micro‐census data and election panel data, I find that the key variables that increase the likelihood of Anglophone out‐migration either do not explain Francophone out‐migration or have opposite effects. This is because ethnonationalist policies decreased the economic return particularly for well‐educated, higher‐earning, professional Anglophones in Québec, while increasing the economic position of Francophones and in particular well‐educated professionals.     

The nation as the cradle of nationalism and patriotism

This paper argues against dismissing as ‘populist nationalism’ every positive view of one's nation and ignoring patriotism as its antithesis. The European nation exists in two senses: as a large ‘social group’, a community of real people, and as an abstract community of cultural values promoted by intellectual elites grounded in a humanities‐based education. The widespread prejudice that condemns every positive expression of one's relationship to the nation has proved counterproductive because it has prompted ever stronger spontaneous reactions in the form of primitive nationalistic egoism. This has weakened the commitment people feel towards their nation and the humanistic potential that the nation possesses as a cultural community of values. Consequently, anti‐national European intellectual elites bear some responsibility – along with those preaching neoliberal individualism – for the success of populist demagogues and the decline in patriotic values. Given the state of education today, a revival of humanist culture for national elites seems impossible, making the continued rise of primitive nationalism appear unstoppable.     

Demography,diversity and nativism in contemporary Africa: evidence from Uganda

ABSTRACT. The relationship between population growth, ethnic diversity and conflict in the developing world is little understood but highly relevant to a large number of countries. In order to understand this relationship, I focus on a case study of local conflict in the district of Kibaale in western Uganda. Uganda's unusually high population growth rate and high level of ethnic diversity are often seen to have led to communal violence in Kibaale. Yet I claim that while this conflict was indeed sparked by population growth and resultant internal migration, it has nothing to do with ethnic diversity per se. Rather, the conflict in Kibaale has much more to do with nativism and the salience of claims to indigeneity at the local level. Kibaale may thus prove something of a warning sign for other parts of Uganda and other developing countries with similar high population growth and little success in nation‐building.     

Deserving to Whom? Investigating Heterogeneity in the Impact of Social Constructions of Target Populations on Support for Affirmative Action

The social construction of target populations has emerged as an influential framework for understanding the public policy process. In particular, target populations have been shown to shape the allocation of benefits and burdens by political elites. However, existing studies focus on the elite level, which overlooks whether public preferences are aligned with the allocation of policy benefits and burdens by political elites. Moreover, many studies treat social constructions as homogenous, which this paper calls into question. Using a nation‐wide survey experiment, I investigate variation in public support for affirmative action policies with randomly assigned target populations. The findings indicate that the public formulates policy preferences on the basis of perceived deservingness of target groups similar to political elites. In addition, the findings uncover heterogeneity in the effect of targeting on public opinion based on ideology and racial/ethnic group identity.     

The Politics of Reconstructing National Identity: A Corporatist Approach

In both liberal democracies like Australia and Canada and autocracies like Singapore, the state has stepped in to try to manage ethnic claims that had hitherto been marginalised or suppressed. Once the concept of corporatism is rescued from its recent economic-focused excursion, it provides a framework within which to examine new state strategies for managing ethnicity, and the resultant politics of national identity. The states have sought to license or create ethnic institutions as channels for ethnic interest articulation, for ethnic elite cooptation, and for the funding and political control of ethnic assertions. The corporatist strategies for ethnic management imply also attempts by the states to unify the disaggregated polyethnic societies by seeking new myths of organic national unity. The attempts to manage ethnic politics within these new institutional and ideological parameters generate tensions which exacerbate rather than ameliorate the decline in state authority.     

Ethno‐traditional nationalism and the challenge of immigration

The rise of the populist right in the West is emerging as the most discussed manifestation of nationalism in the world today. In this paper, I argue that this ‘new nationalism’ is largely driven by immigration, which affects ethnic majorities within nation‐states. This in turn alters the ethnic character of the nation, challenging what I term the ethno‐traditions of nationhood. Our inherited concepts of ethnic and civic nationalism were developed in an earlier period when immigration was limited and territorial revisionism animated nationalist movements. Only on the furthest reaches of the extreme right is the worldview one of ethnic nationalism. In our demographically churning yet territorially static western world, we need a new term to describe the cultural nationalism of the anti‐immigration right. I characterise this as ethno‐traditional nationalism, a variety of nationalism which seeks to protect the traditional preponderance of ethnic majorities through slower immigration and assimilation but which does not seek to close the door entirely to migration or exclude minorities from national membership.     

Towards a mighty union: how to create a democratic European superpower

A strong European Union is needed today more than ever: to act as a reliable partner to the United States, Great Britain and the other great democracies; to deal with the growing threats on her southern and eastern periphery; and most pressingly of all, to deal with the euro sovereign debt crisis. In order to do so, Europeans will have to abandon the gradualist fallacy that union will be achieved in small incremental steps and learn the lesson of history that all successful mergers, such as the British and the American, have been carried out in one fell swoop at a time of extreme crisis. They will have to recognize that the road to unity took a fatal turn when the failure of the European Defence Community caused a bifurcation between politico‐military and economic integration. Today, as we face potential fiscal and economic meltdown and as the external threats to Europe mount, we have another opportunity. We can only seize it, however, if we realize that full European union, if there is to be one, will be an event, not a process. It must follow more or less the American example with a directly elected presidency, a house of representatives elected by population and a senate, which represents the former nation‐states and regions. There is no need for the United Kingdom to be part of this project, but it is essential that both unions work together for the common good. Because the existing political elites are incapable of rising to the occasion—and in many cases are actually antipathetic to it—the task must fall to a new pan‐European party: the Party of Democratic Union.     

The good migrant: Everyday nationalism and temporary migration management on New Zealand dairy farms

Migration regimes that prioritise temporary and restricted work status have become increasingly prevalent globally. Temporary migration schemes that prioritise labour market flexibility, skills assessment and a reduced social burden, insert both legal and social stratification into the workplace and community through the restricted rights and future pathways available to migrants. Our contention in this paper is that in addition to their economic rationalities, such stratifications also take shape around governmental and popular articulations of nationalism that support and justify the differential inclusion of migrants as labour. In order to explore this intersection between nationalism and temporary migration management we focus on dairy farming in New Zealand, a key export industry that is often closely tied to national futures and identities, yet has come to rely on the presence of a substantial labour force of work visa holders who have limited rights and only very narrow pathways to longer term residence. We draw on interviews with people holding work visas, employers and intermediaries to draw attention to the way national stereotypes are created, accepted, and used to legitimise workplace inequalities within temporary migration schemes. National stereotyping had significant impacts on workplace hiring queues and segmentation, with key migrants, host communities and immigration practices commonly ignoring or downplaying the significance of the socio-cultural assumptions on which national stereotypes rest. This account demonstrates the need for greater understanding of the socio-cultural basis of ostensibly economically oriented migration regimes, the legitimation of stratification and the role of identity in negotiating temporally constrained labour migration.