Immigration in the populist crucible: Comparing Brexit and Trump

The successful Brexit referendum and the election of Trump in 2016 mark the breakthrough of populism in the West. Opposition to immigration has been central to both events. However, it has been central in different ways. This paper maps these differences and the implications of both populisms for a liberal immigration policy. Driven by hostility to free mobility within the EU, the ironic consequence of Brexit will be an immigration policy that is less discriminatory than previously, in the sense that favoritism for other Europeans is now ruled out. By contrast, Trump’s immigration policy is openly and brazenly discriminatory. In particular, its Muslim Ban breaches the “anti-populist norm” (Freeman 1995) and thus the essence of a liberal immigration policy

Narodziny nabytego obywatelstwa

The author examines the concept of “citizenship” and shows how the definition of the concept and its scope have changed. “Citizenship” entered the social science lexicon as a code word for the capacity of post-WWII capitalism to reform itself by providing formal, and even a modicum of substantive equality for those who were initially at its losing end: workers or the “proletariat.” Citizenship connoted rights and equality as counterforce to a simultaneously wealth- and inequality-producing capitalism. It was then generalized beyond its original meaning as counter-concept to class, to other types of equality-seeking movements. Citizenship thus became a metaphor and platform for intra-societal claims-making by excluded groups. The author traces the development of citizenship in the altogether different context of international migration, from being a “right” to something that needs to be “earned.”Autor artykułu analizuje pojęcie „obywatelstwa” oraz ukazuje, jak zmieniała się sama jego definicja oraz zakres przedmiotowy. Termin „obywatelstwo” wszedł do leksykonu nauk społecznych jako słowo kluczowe określające zdolność powojennego kapitalizmu do zreformowania się poprzez zapewnienie choćby w minimalnym stopniu formalnej równości materialnej tym, których początkowo postrzegano jako osoby przegrane: robotnikom lub „proletariatowi”. Obywatelstwo kojarzyło się z prawami i równością i jednocześnie stało w opozycji do kapitalizmu, który wytwarza bogactwo i nierówności. Termin ten został następnie uogólniony, wychodząc poza swoje pierwotne znaczenie jako kontrkoncepcja wobec społeczeństwa klasowego, i przeniesiony na inne rodzaje ruchów dążących do równości. W ten sposób obywatelstwo stało się metaforą i platformą do wewnątrzspołecznego wysuwania roszczeń przez wykluczone grupy. Autor śledzi rozwój koncepcji obywatelstwa w całkowicie nowym kontekście migracji międzynarodowych, reflektując nad nim jako nad „prawem” do czegoś, na co trzeba „zapracować”

Explaining the Populist Right in the Neoliberal West

With the 2016 double shock of Brexit and Trump, the populist right has become a game- changing force on both sides of the North Atlantic. A proper explanation needs to combine political, economic, and cultural elements. Qua populism, the populist right addresses a political condition, which is neoliberalism’s endemic democracy deficit. However, the illiberal democracy that populists advocate is not a cure for it. Cleavage theory in the Lipset–Rokkan tradition sheds light on the rightist orientation and the nationalist content of this populism. The main explanatory challenge remains the combination of economic and cultural factors in the rise of populism. In economic respect, middle- class decline under a neoliberal order seems to be the root cause of populism. However, its agenda is culture-focused, amounting to a nationalist opposition to immigration and cosmopolitanism. This “cultural deflection” is a persistent puzzle. The minimum to conclude is that one-sided accounts of populism in exclusively economic or cultural terms are unconvincing

Double Standards? Veils and Crucifixes in the European Legal Order

Comparing the treatment of Islamic veils and Christian crucifixes by the European Court of Human Rights, this paper re-examines the charge of "double standards” on the part of this guardian of the European legal order, which is seen as disadvantaging Islam and favoring Christianity. While this is proved partially correct, the paper calls for a more differentiated treatment of the issue. For one, there is a modicum of consistency in the European Court's decisions, because they are all meant to further "pluralism”. Only, Islam and Christianity fare differently in this respect, as "threat” to and "affirmation” of pluralism, respectively. This distinction hinges on Islam's compatibility with the liberal-secular order, on which the jury is out. A possible way out of the "pluralism v. pluralism” dilemma, I argue, is signaled in the European Court's recent decision in Lautsi v. Italy (2011), which pairs a preference for "culturalized” Christianity with robust minority pluralis

Islam in Europa - Integration durch Recht und ihre Grenzen

Zusammenfassung: Die Integration des Islam ist vor allem über unabhängige Rechtssysteme erfolgt. Dieser Artikel verfolgt Wegmarken und rekurrierende Konflikte in diesem Prozess, vergleicht einen individualrechtlichen und korporativen Pfad der Integration im Hinblick auf ihre Möglichkeiten und Grenzen, und weist auf durch selbstläufig rechtliche Integration evozierte Spannungen zwischen Recht und Politik hin. Es besticht die Elastizität liberaler Institutionen gegenüber einer Religion, die in nicht geringem Maß Irritation für diese sein mus

Islam and the legal enforcement of morality

Over 60years ago, British high court judge Patrick Devlin and legal philosopher H.L.A. Hart fought out a famous debate over the legal enforcement of morality, which was generated by the question of whether homosexuality should be legalized or not. Jurists agree that this debate was won by Hart, also evidenced in the fact that the state has since been retreating from its previous role of moral watchdog. I argue in this article that the two most conflicted and essentially unresolved issues in the integration of Islam, the regulation of the female body and of free speech, have reopened this debate anew, pushing the liberal state toward the legal regulation of morality, thus potentially putting at risk its liberalness. I use the Hart-Devlin debate as a template for comparing and contrasting the Muslim quest for restricting free speech with the host-society quest for restricting the Islamic veil. Accordingly, there is a double threat to liberalism, which this paper brings into view in tandem, one originating from Islam and another from a hypertrophied defense of liberalism

War of Words: Interculturalism v. Multiculturalism

This article tackles the relationship between interculturalism and multiculturalism from the points of view of both. Interculturalism owes its existence to a critique of multiculturalism, but of highly distorted visions of it. I distinguish between two versions of interculturalism, a majoritarian (practiced in Québec) and a post-majoritarian (in Europe), which yield diametrically opposed visions of multiculturalism, as either footloose cosmopolitan or parochial-segregationist. Among the problems of interculturalism is the vacuity of the local as its preferred site of intervention, and its rushed embracing of “diversity” that is also a central plank of neoliberal ideology