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Integration, Cohesion and National Identity: Theoretical Reflections on Recent British Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2010

Andrew Mason
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Abstract

Recent policy documents in Britain that have emphasized the importance of integration can be understood as addressing the question of what conditions are required in order to achieve and sustain a just society. The answer they give is that minority cultural groups need to be integrated into society, and that this involves community cohesion, secured through ‘meaningful contact’, and sharing a national identity based on common values. Here, it is argued that although meaningful contact between members of different cultural groups may promote trust between them, this does not warrant the key role which has been given to the idea of community cohesion. It is suggested instead that policies should aim to foster a widespread sense of belonging to the polity, and that this is not the same as sharing a national identity.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 857 - 874
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 See Blair, Tony, ‘Our Nation’s Future – Multiculturalism and Integration’, a speech delivered on 8 December 2006, available at http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page10563.asp, accessed on 30 June 2008.Google Scholar

2 Home Office, Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team Chaired by Ted Cantle (London: HMSO, 2001)Google Scholar, hereafter referred to as the Cantle Report.

3 The text of his speech delivered in December 2001 is available from http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/dec/11/immigrationpolicy.race, accessed on 30 June 2008.

4 For a comprehensive account of how (up until the mid-1980s at least) English law accommodated ethnic minority practices, see Poulter, Sebastian, English Law and Ethnic Minority Customs (London: Butterworth, 1986).Google Scholar

5 For an illustration of this approach, see McGhee, Derek, The End of Multiculturalism: Terrorism, Integration and Human Rights Maidenhead, Berks.: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill, 2008).Google Scholar

6 As representative examples of this literature, see Kymlicka, Will, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Barry, Brian, Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism (Cambridge: Polity, 2001).Google Scholar

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9 See Phillips, Trevor, ‘After 7/7: Sleepwalking to Segregation’, a speech delivered on 22 September 2005, available at http://83.137.212.42/sitearchive/cre/Default.aspx.LocID-0hgnew07s.ReflocID-0hg00900c002.Lang-EN.htmtop, accessed on 30 June 2008.Google Scholar

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12 Some might say that assimilation essentially involves changing values, but that seems to me to be too restrictive. For example, members of a group may decide that in order to fit in better they should stop speaking the language of their ancestors and instead use the established language of the polity to which they now belong, both at home and in public, and we should surely regard that as involving a degree of assimilation even if it involves no change of values.

13 Although on this way of drawing the distinction it would be mistaken to say that assimilation is necessarily a one-way process whilst integration is necessarily a two-way process, it is true that assimilationist policies are directed towards cultural minorities, whilst integrationist policies may be directed towards either cultural minorities or the cultural majority, or both.

14 For relevant discussion, see Mason, Andrew, Community, Solidarity and Belonging: Levels of Community and Their Normative Significance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 123–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Even coercive assimilationist policies need not be unjust; for example, a requirement that those seeking citizenship should pass an English language test before it is granted does not prevent them from speaking their first languages at home or in public spaces.

16 See Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar, sections 69 and 76. In fact, Rawls thinks that principles of justice are inadequate unless they can be realized in a stable way in the best of foreseeable circumstances. He thereby forges a conceptual connection between justice and stability in such a way that it becomes a necessary truth that adequate principles of justice will generate their own support when they are widely accepted and embodied in institutions. But we do not need to assume that justice and stability are conceptually connected in this way. For relevant discussions, see Copp, David, ‘Pluralism and Stability in Liberal Theory’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 4 (1996), 191–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mason, Andrew, ‘Just Constraints’, British Journal of Political Science, 34 (2004), 251–268CrossRefGoogle Scholar, pp. 252, 259–60; G. A., Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 327–330.Google Scholar

17 The Cantle Report strongly influenced the government’s 2002 White Paper Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain, Cm 5387 (London: HMSO, 2002). These together informed the 2004 Strength in Diversity consultation document and the 2005 Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society strategy document which emerged from the consultation process. See Home Office, Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society: The Government’s Strategy to Increase Race Equality and Community Cohesion (London: HMSO, 2005)Google Scholar. But this has led to the emergence of a much broader definition of a cohesive society that encompasses a number of different ideas. In a progress report published one year after the strategy had been in operation, a cohesive society was defined as one in which ‘there is a common vision and a sense of belonging for all communities; diversity is appreciated and valued; people from different backgrounds have similar life opportunities; and strong and positive relationships are being developed between people from different backgrounds’ (Department for Communities and Local Government, Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society: One Year On: A Progress Report on the Government’s Strategy for Race Equality and Community Cohesion (London: DCLG, 2006), p. 50). This new, much broader, definition also appears in Commission on Integration and Cohesion, Our Shared Future (London: CIC, 2007), pp. 40–3.

18 The Cantle Report, p. 10.

19 ‘The fact that people from the same background or culture choose to live or work together is not in itself a sign of breakdown in cohesion. But it is important that we foster mutual understanding and respect between people from different backgrounds and cultures. Communities are better equipped to organise themselves to tackle their common problems if they are not divided by mutual suspicion and misunderstanding of diverse cultures and faiths’ (Home Office, Strength in DiversityGoogle Scholar, section 5.3). These ideas are presented more rigorously in Cantle, Ted, Community Cohesion: A New Framework for Race and Diversity, revised edn (Basingstoke, Hants.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), esp. pp. 50–67Google Scholar, in which he also emphasizes the elements of the broader definition of community cohesion (see fn. 17), according to which community cohesion requires not just meaningful contact between communities but also an end to discrimination.

20 Note that these two claims are perfectly consistent and could be held jointly.

21 Indeed, this is one of the themes of the Cantle Report: see pp. 9, 28.

22 Home Office, Strength in DiversityGoogle Scholar, section 2.1.

23 Commission on Integration and Cohesion, Our Shared Future, sections 8.1–8.2.

24 See the Home Office press release in Dec 2006, ‘English Language Tests For Those Seeking to Settle’, available at http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/press-releases/migrants-english-tests, accessed on 30 June 2008. The intention to introduce a new language requirement for applicants for naturalization was signalled in Home Office, Secure Borders, Safe HavenGoogle Scholar, sections 2.11–2.18.

25 The Cantle Report, p. 33.

26 The Cantle Report, p. 37.

27 The Cantle Report, pp. 35, 49.

28 See McGhee, , The End of Multiculturalism, p. 96.Google Scholar The quotations are from an article on the BBC website, ‘In quotes: Jack Straw on the veil’, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5413470.stm, accessed on 30 June 2008.

29 Blair, , ‘Our Nation’s Future’.Google Scholar

30 David Blunkett, in a speech delivered in December 2001, available from http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/dec/11/immigrationpolicy.race, accessed on 30 June 2008.

31 Home Office, Secure Borders, Safe HavenGoogle Scholar, sections 2.2–2.3.

32 Brown, Gordon, ‘The Future of Britishness’, available at http://fabians.org.uk/events/speeches/the-future-of-britishness, accessed on 30 June 2008.Google Scholar

33 See Blair, , ‘Our Nation’s Future’.Google Scholar

34 Trevor Phillips goes even further, arguing that in a truly integrated society ‘who people work with, or the friendships they make, should not be constrained by race or ethnicity’ (Phillips, ‘After 7/7’).

35 For influential defences of liberal nationalism, see Tamir, Yael, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Miller, David, On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Moore, Margaret, The Ethics of Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For critiques, see Abizadeh, Arash, ‘Does Liberal Democracy Presuppose a Cultural Nation? Four Arguments’, American Political Science Review, 96 (2002), 495–509CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mason, , Community, Solidarity and BelongingGoogle Scholar8, chap. 5; Vincent, Andrew, ‘Liberal Nationalism: An Irresponsible Compound?’ Political Studies, 45 (1997), 275–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Home Office, Improving Opportunity, Strengthening SocietyGoogle Scholar, chap. 4, section 4.

37 See Blair, , ‘Our Nation’s Future’Google Scholar. The last of these might seem to involve something distinctively British but only because it is an attitude towards Britain rather than a specific value.

38 See Brown, , ‘The Future of Britishness’Google Scholar. In his speech on ‘Managed Migration and Earned Citizenship’ (20 February 2008), Brown added ‘internationalism’ to his list, understood as a kind of outward-lookingness (available at http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page14624.asp, accessed on 30 June 2008).

39 Phillips, , ‘After 7/7’.Google Scholar

40 The Commission on Integration and Cohesion’s Our Shared Future report highlights the point that these values are not distinctively British: see section 5.12.

41 Home Office, Governance of Britain, Cm 7170 (London: HMSO, 2007), pp. 57–59.Google Scholar

42 This would have resonances with Habermas’s idea of constitutional patriotism: See Habermas, Jürgen, ‘Appendix II: Citizenship and National Identity’, in his Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, translated by William Rehg (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996), 491–515.Google Scholar

43 See Home Office, Governance of Britain, p. 57Google Scholar, and Brown, , ‘Future of Britishness’.Google Scholar

44 If B regards himself as having such a reason, then we might also say that, from A’s point of view, B is trustworthy.

45 See Hardin, Russell, ‘Trusting Persons, Trusting Institutions’, in Richard J. Zeckhauser, ed., Strategy and Choice (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991), 185–209, especially pp. 201–5.Google Scholar

46 See Newton, Kenneth, ‘The New Liberal Dilemma: Social Trust in Mixed Societies’ (paper prepared for the ECPR Workshop on Social Capital, The State and Diversity, Helsinki, 2007)Google Scholar; Putnam, Robert, ‘E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century: The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 30 (2007), 137–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 In Robert Putnam’s terms, the idea is that cross-cultural contact creates bridging social capital: see Putnam, Robert, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), pp. 22–23Google Scholar. See also Cantle, , Community Cohesion, pp. 200–201Google Scholar. On the basis of empirical evidence, Putnam expresses scepticism about contact theories of this sort (see Putnam, , ‘E Pluribus Unum’, pp. 148–9)Google Scholar, but the evidence is inconclusive against community cohesion hypotheses when they are carefully formulated, since so much will depend on the proviso that the contact between cultural groups has to be of the right kind or quality, for example, that it must be meaningful. As Putnam implies, however, there is a danger of making the hypothesis impossible to falsify, for example, by dismissing apparent counter-evidence on the grounds that there is a lack of the required meaningful contact (Putnam, , ‘E Pluribus Unum’, n. 14)Google Scholar. Eric Uslaner avoids this pitfall, marshalling evidence for the claim that in the United States at least the contact that whites enjoy living in diverse neighbourhoods boosts their generalised trust, with additional increases occurring when they have friends from other backgrounds or belong to the same groups, whereas for African-Americans having friends from different backgrounds increases generalised trust, though merely living together in the same neighbourhoods does not. See Uslaner, Eric, ‘Segregation, Mistrust, and Minorities’, Ethnicities, forthcoming.Google Scholar

48 A secondary mechanism might also be postulated: the kind of meaningful contact which the community cohesion approach aims to promote may generate a sense amongst citizens that they are ‘in it together’, which may in turn raise levels of trusting behaviour.

49 The costs here may not all be financial, especially if, for example, faith schools or the wearing of a veil are regarded as barriers to it.

50 When citizens share a sense of belonging together, this may also mean that they are more inclined to support redistributive policies on grounds of social justice as a result of greater fellow feeling. See Miller, , On Nationality, pp. 93–6Google Scholar.

51 Weinstock, Daniel discusses some of these ways in ‘Building Trust in Divided Societies’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 7 (1999), especially pp. 300–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 See Mason, , Community, Solidarity and Belonging, p. 127Google Scholar. Some have seen this as at least a partial basis for a distinction between ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism: see Barry, , Culture and Equality, p. 80Google Scholar. This is not how I see the distinction, however. Even under civic nationalism, the idea is that people have a sense of belonging together, fostered by, for example, national myths or shared values. The distinction between a sense of belonging together and a sense of belonging to the polity might, however, form the basis of a distinction between nationalism and patriotism. And I do not have any deep objection to saying that those who share a sense of belonging to the British polity have a ‘British identity’, provided that this is not taken to imply that they have a sense of belonging together in the technical sense I have identified.

53 It might be thought that there is a whiff of circularity here: identifying with an institution is being explained, in part, as a consequence of trusting it to follow its rules, and then that is supposedly playing a role in explaining why individuals will be inclined to trust each other. But there is no real circularity here. Of course, trusting an institution involves trusting the individuals who occupy the positions within that institution to apply its rules properly, but this is still a different kind of trust to the trust that may exist between strangers whose interactions are not being mediated by any particular institutional roles, and which I am claiming identification with institutions and practices may help to facilitate.

54 In this respect, my proposal differs from the one which might be derived from Habermas’s model of constitutional patriotism, for according to that model the identification with major institutions derives from agreement on fundamental universal principles. See Habermas, , ‘Appendix II: Citizenship and National Identity’.Google Scholar

55 At the risk of proliferating distinctions unnecessarily (but in the interests of clarity), it is also worth pointing out that a further distinction might be drawn between a sense of belonging together and a sense of belonging to the same polity as others: both necessarily involve recognition of others as fellow citizens, but the former unlike the latter invokes the idea that there is some reason why this group of citizens should associate together – that is, work together politically – other than that they happen, for a variety of different reasons – to be citizens of the same state. Cf. Barry, , Culture and Equality, p. 80.Google Scholar

56 David Miller defends an ideal of social equality distinct from that of justice. See Miller, David, ‘Equality and Justice’, in Andrew Mason, ed., Ideals of Equality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), pp. 21–36.Google Scholar

57 See Lawrence Blum’s instructive example of a white customer who refuses to put their money into the hands of a black cashier in order to avoid physical contact with her: Blum, Lawrence, ‘Race, National Ideals, and Civic Virtue’, Social Theory and Practice, 33 (2007), 546–551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 See Mason, , Community, Solidarity and Belonging, chap. 6.Google Scholar

59 This idea is gestured towards in Charles Clarke’s Foreword to Improving Opportunity: ‘This strategy is not about putting all people from minority ethnic communities in one category and those from the majority in another. That fails to recognise the progress of many, and can fuel the politics of division’. See McGhee, , The End of Multiculturalism, pp. 100ff. and pp. 113ff.Google Scholar, for further discussion.

60 See McGhee, , The End of Multiculturalism, pp. 64ff.Google Scholar; Modood, , Multiculturalism, p. 150.Google Scholar