4 - End of Liberalism?

Summary

Chapter 4 situates changing immigration and citizenship policies within a larger crisis of liberalism. I defend Francis Fukuyama`s (1989) much-ridiculed claim that the “liberal idea” (yet not practice) is without competitor today. However, internal deficiencies of “liberal meritocratic capitalism” (Milanovic 2019), most importantly the elite-generating and -insulating principle of meritocracy itself, will continue to feed a populist challenge. This challenge, paradoxically, is fought more on the cultural than the economic terrain, and liberals are well-advised not to follow the populists into it too quickly. I close with the question what a “liberal” immigration and citizenship policy, unimpeded by the “nexus”, might look like, and the answer is: not much different from the policies that are in place today.