Liberal nationalism, citizenship and integration

Liberal nationalists such as Will Kymlicka and David Miller have endorsed the “revaluation of citizenship” currently expressed in more stringent naturalisation requirements across western states. Kymlicka and Miller claim that such measures are “nation-building” policies and only make sense as attempts at “cultural integration” of immigrants. The chapter discusses liberal nationalism as a view that assigns normative significance to one sort of group membership, nationality, for the purpose of regulating access to another kind of group, namely the political community of citizens. The chapter discusses in which ways the recent “revaluated” naturalisation requirements might be related to the aims of liberal nationalism. It is argued that “revaluated” naturalisation requirements can indeed be characterised as a kind of nation-building policies and as attempts at cultural integration, but that the applicable sense of nationality is too “thin” to serve the functions shared nationality is supposed to according to liberal nationalism. Even if the there is no positive connection between liberal nationalism and revaluated citizenship, such policies might still be preferable on the basis of liberal nationalism. The paper raises some doubts about this possibility as well, however, since “revaluated” naturalisation requirements are exclusionary in a way that might be counterproductive from a liberal nationalist point of view. 2011 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.