“Liberal Nationalism”

Abstract

Liberal nationalists such as Kymlika, Tamir, and Miller argue that a central mechanism for motivating citizens in liberal democratic states to act beyond their narrow self-interest is a shared national culture. In Canovan’s words, for instance, nationalism is the underlying “battery” by which liberal democracies run. By the same token, they argue that Rawls’ normative arguments based on justice as fairness are insufficient and too inert to engender the necessary motivation along with the required social trust and solidarity to maintain the historical continuity and unity of human collectives. This chapter first examines the roots of these issues in Hellenistic philosophy and then distinguishes normative from motivational arguments in recent liberal nationalist theories. If nationalism is primarily a useful motivational strategy, however, the question arises whether nationalism ultimately is able to motivate individuals to value impartiality and liberty. Hellenistic philosophers thought that commitments to liberty and equality could only arise by valuing them in their own right and that any real commitments to their value could support minarchies at best. It remains unclear that their central arguments can be addressed sufficiently by contemporary liberal theorists of many stripes, including Rawlsians and liberal nationalists. Whatever the benefits of nationalism, its relation to liberty and equality is deeply contingent and, however much it motivates individuals in liberal states, those motivations are theoretically independent of liberty and equality.