Democracy and the Nation State

Tomas Hammar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351945370
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

First Published in 2016. In this book starts with the discussion located at the crossroads between two basic political principles. The first one is the democratic idea of representative government, based on elections by general suffrage. The second is the nation-state principle which says that the world is divided into sovereign states and that only those who are citizens can claim a right to take part in political life, in other words that foreign citizens are not allowed to participate in political elections. Democracy is honoured almost everywhere, at least as a principle, but the modern system of states presupposes that as a general rule only those who are citizens are entitled to vote, to stand for election, to join parties, and to participate in political debate and give voice to their political demands and interests. Both these basic political principles are young, and their pre sent confrontation is therefore also new to us.

Part 1
International Migration and Nationalism

1 Three Entrance Gates into the New Country

Democracy and sovereignty are symbolic words, acknowledged by everyone in authoritarian and totalitarian countries as well as in those where democratic government is actually practised. Both are paid at least lip service in capitalist systems as well as in socialist peoples' republics, in developing countries as in highly industrialised ones.

Each sovereign state has the right to regulate the entrance of foreign citizens to its territory. This right is in fact generally accepted both in international law and in political practice, and while it is considered to be a human right to be able freely to leave one's country, there is no corresponding human right to enter another country. Instead it is the receiving country that is given the right to decide whether to admit those foreign citizens who ask for entrance.

Regulation of Immigration

Everywhere goods are distributed by political decisions, and all those who are citizens of a particular country are entitled to share in this distribution of goods while most foreign citizens have no right to anything. They are instead supposed to be given their share in the country where they are citizens. In a well-functioning democracy, where opinions are formed freely and political decisions are based on elections and referenda, the electorate decide directly or indirectly through their representatives on the distribution that is valid for them. And the same democratic procedures are normally used to decide about the general principles for the admittance of new members to the country, and for the naturalisation of foreigners who will thereafter, as citizens, have a right to take part in the distribution of goods.

One major cause of international migration is economic inequality between countries. But because of many obstacles, international population movements get underway only when special preconditions are met. Information must be available about opportunities and gains that can be hoped for, and a certain standard of living must already be achieved, for otherwise emigration is far too expensive and perhaps almost outside realistic imagination. An increase in applications for immigration to the Western industrialised countries may signify that an improvement in living standards in some third-world countries has widened the group of people for whom emigration may be an option in the 1980s. And as a result these Western countries have reinforced their systems of regulation and control.¹

During the first part of the 1970s, the recruitment of foreign labour was interrupted everywhere in Western Europe. This did not mean that all immigration was absolutely stopped, but only those were admitted who could claim that they had special reasons to come. Border controls, visa regulations, special checks of the airline routes and of ferries between some countries etc. were directed to a control of persons who arrived from countries with presumed large latent immigration: Turkey, the North African states, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and in the USA of course, primarily Mexico.²

It is interesting to note what kind of special reasons for immigration are most often accepted. First, almost everywhere, family reunion is granted, at least after several years of stay. It is seen as a moral obligation for a host country not to force families to live divided by territorial borders. There is also a common feeling that persons previously admitted deserve special treatment, as they are already related to groups and individuals in the country's population. People have already learnt to know each other. They may even have fallen in love and plan to get married. Pupils may be in the same class as children of foreign citizens, or their parents may themselves have worked together with some foreigners etc. The more international travel and communication expand, and the more there is of personal ties between citizens and foreigners, the harder it will be to maintain the distinction between those who are citizens and those who are not, and consequently also to enforce an absolutely strict stop for immigration.

In Western countries, immigration is also granted to political refugees, even if the control has become more and more restrictive everywhere. The right of asylum, as stated in the Geneva Convention of 1951, was based on the experience of Jews during the Second World War and of refugees during the Cold War that had followed. Asylum shall be granted all those who fear persecution for political, religious, national or racial reasons, and not only, as during the interwar period, to those who have committed political crimes. Still, many of those who claim that they are political refugees and should be given asylum are, after more or less thorough checks, refused and deported. An intense discussion has gone on during the 1980s, whether the gate-keepers fulfil their moral obligations and whether the asylum seekers are actually persecuted as they themselves maintain, or perhaps only concealed economic immigrants.

All these are exceptions to the rather rigid immigration stop that has lasted since 1972 - 1974. It is a generally accepted norm that sovereign countries have the right to regulate their own future population, its size and its composition. It does not matter that the density of the population and the gross national product per capita can vary from very low to very high. This may be used as an argument when pleading for economic aid or increased assistance to refugees, but no country can be forced to give up its independent decisions about the regulation of immigration or, for that matter, birth control. Other states may of course make their complaints and ask for solidarity with their problems. As an example of this, the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees (the UNHCR) in Geneva is constantly asking states to admit more refugees, at least in proportion to their material ability to take responsibility for the world's growing refugee problems.³

The Status as Denizen

Foreign citizens who have been allowed to enter a state's territory, are usually not allowed to stay on without restrictions. States have full power to regulate the length of stay and to expel any foreign citizen when this is deemed to be in the state's interest. The reasons can be manifold: the behaviour of the foreigner himself, e.g. a criminal offense or an immoral act; or unemployment and consequent social welfare costs. Or there may be political reasons: a persona non grata, a threat of disturbance of public order or a threat to national security, etc. According to traditional international law theory, full residence rights are given to citizens alone (in some countries only to citizens born in the country, and not even to all naturalised citizens).

In practice, however, many foreign citizens have also gained a secure residence status. Even if they are not citizens of the country, they can for example only be deported in extreme emergency situations. They may have lived such a long period in the host country (15 -20 years or more), their family ties may be so strong (parents or children are citizens) or they may hold such an honoured position ( as scientists, artists or sportsmen etc.) that they in fact constitute a new category of foreign citizens whose residence status is fully guaranteed or almost so. Those who belong to this category have also in several countries been entitled to equal treatment in all spheres of life, with full access to the labour market, business, education, social welfare, even to employment in branches of the public service, etc. A new status group has emerged, and members of this status group are not regular and plain foreign citizens anymore, but also not naturalised citizens of the receiving country. They are a group of alien residents that we will call "denizens".

The need for a new and special term for this category of alien residents has also been emphasised by the Norwegian professor of international law, Atle Grahl-Madsen. Commenting on a proposal of an Aliens Act, he suggested a number of amendments that would further strengthen the legal position of foreign citizens in relation to the police, the courts and the administration in Norway. His argument is that the traditional definition of who is a foreigner and who is a citizen no longer corresponds with the actual situation. In many immigration countries, great numbers of foreign citizens have established intense and close relations to the country. Some have lived there most of their lives. Some may even have been born there by parents of foreign citizenship. They may have grown up in the country and gone to school there. They may be absolutely fluent in the language, which may be their mother tongue. They may own property in this host country, and some may be influential businessmen or professionals, while others may hold other high positions. They have permanent residence permits, but for various reasons, they have remained foreign citizens, and perhaps also prefer to retain their original citizenship.

In German and in Scandinavian languages the word for foreigner is Ausländer or utlänning, where "Aus" and "ut" means from the outside, while Inländer or inlänning than refer to persons who are from the inside, belong to those who are permanent residents etc. Grahl-Madsen suggests that a differentiation should b...