We have talked a little bit about assimilation. What I believe is important for strengthening our democracy is what I call "patriotic assimilation. I'm going to sketch this out a little. What is “patriotic assimilation”? First, it does not mean giving up all ethnic traditions, customs, cuisine, and birth languages. It has nothing to do with the food one eats,...
John wonders if I'm being too deterministic in my analysis, and Cristina also clearly sees some possibilities in citizenship policymaking. I agree that there are some important policy choices on the table, such as the ones Cristina discusses in the context of circular migration. But at the core I think there is zero chance of moving citizenship practice...
I want to wrap up my participation in this on-line symposium by thanking Peter again for his great contribution, and the occasion for what has been for me an engrossing discussion. I also want to chime in on two of the issues raised yesterday. 1. Peter, I think that many, if not most, Americans have come to value their citizenship precisely because...
I have blogged from time to time about the trial of Alberto Fujimori, the former President of Peru. Interested readers now have a new — and far better — source of information about the trial: Fujimori on Trial, a new bilingual Spanish/English blog sponsored by the Praxis Institute for Social Justice. Here is the blog's self-description:Praxis Institute for...
I would like to return to the theme of how we should approach the dynamics of erosion Peter has identified and to reiterate that I think we should be asking not whether these forces are inevitable, but rather: what are their real costs, and what might be the costs of trying to reverse them? First, even if the overinclusiveness of...
I'm not going directly to take on Jon's latest post on naturalization rates. It's quite complicated, and Jon's correct that it has to take into account flows and stock. It's clear that the rate has been rising. For those interested in a detailed analysis, check out this report by Jeffrey Passel from the Pew Hispanic Center. ...
Greetings, everyone - Ken Anderson here. My thanks to Peter and all my friends at Opinio Juris for inviting me as a guest. I am actually guest-blogging next week on Opinio Juris, and am quite fascinated with this book discussion. Peter kindly invited me to join in, but I have been lobbying an editor to let me...
Peter, you argue that there is no core of American identity beyond the popular and political culture (Snoop Dogg, anyone?) that we share with the world. The culture of New York, in other words, is not meaningfully different than that of New Delhi; or in any event, it's no more distinctively and meaningfully American. I'm wondering, though: if...
One very quick point on Alex's argument (discussed by Peter in the post,"Translating citizenship outside the State") that, in effect, "citizenship will move up the territorial chain." I agree with Alex descriptively that new kinds of post-national citizenship would be established with new political entities, norms, coercive authority and the like. My problem is normative. It has not been explained...
A quick point to Cristina. Even strong supporters of the European Union recognize that the institution has a "democracy deficit." For decades most of the power and authority of the EU has been exercised within the European Commission (EC), the bureaucracy in Brussels. Legislation is initiated by the EC, not the Parliament or the Council of Ministers which can...
Peter suggested in a post last night that while there's been a recent resurgence in naturalization applications, we shouldn't see that as a resurgence in "the institution of citizenship" because many of those applications may have been instrumentally motivated. There are two things wrong with that, I think. First, near as I can tell, naturalization applications never weakened...
I'd like to take up Cristina's proposition that "it is precisely the thinness of American citizenship that makes it so valuable to its members." This is an intriguing possibility but in the end I'm not sure I'm on board. The characterization is consonant with the traditional understanding of American citizenship as being an open affair, and not amounting to much...
