The increasingly multicultural fabric of modern societies has given rise to many new issues and conflicts, as ethnic and national minorities demand recognition and support for their cultural identity. This book presents a new conception of the rights and status of minority cultures. It argues that certain sorts of 'collective rights' for minority cultures are consistent with liberal democratic principles, and that standard liberal objections to recognizing such rights on grounds of individual freedom, social justice, and national unity, can be answered. However, Professor Kymlicka emphasises that no single formula can be applied to all groups and that the needs and aspirations of immigrants are very different from those of indigenous peoples and national minorities. The book discusses issues such as language rights, group representation, religious education, federalism, and secession - issues which are central to understanding multicultural politics, but which have been surprisingly neglected in contemporary liberal theory.

Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights

Nordic penal regimes are Janus-faced: one side relatively mild and benign; the other intrusive, disciplining and oppressive. This paradox has not been fully grasped or explained by the Nordic Exceptionalism thesis which overstates the degree to which Nordic penal order is based on humaneness and social solidarity, an antidote to mass incarceration. This essay examines the split in the foundation of the Swedish welfare state: it simultaneously promotes individual well-being in the social sphere but enables intrusive deprivations of liberty and in some cases, violates the principles of human rights. The backbone of the welfare state, Folkhemmet, the People’s Home, is at once demos, democratic and egalitarian and ethnos, a people by blood, exclusionary and essentialist. The lack of individual rights and an ethno-cultural conception of citizenship make certain categories of people such as criminal offenders, criminal aliens, drug offenders and perceived ‘others’, particularly foreign nationals, vulnerable to deprivation and exclusion.

Nordic Exceptionalism Revisited: Explaining the Paradox of a Janus-Faced Penal Regime

Nordic penal regimes are Janus-faced: one side relatively mild and benign; the other intrusive, disciplining and oppressive. This paradox has not been fully grasped or explained by the Nordic Excep...

Nordic Exceptionalism revisited : Explaining the paradox of a Janus-faced penal regime

In Sweden, control of the mobile poor is often driven by the needs and demands of the welfare state itself and follows a different logic outside the neoliberal paradigm. By examining the case of th ...

Nordic Vagabonds : The Roma and the Logic of Benevolent Violence in the Swedish Welfare State

This thesis investigates the topic of sport and integration (SAI) and discusses the role that sport plays in both uniting and dividing groups in lower and middle income settings. In particular, this thesis addresses the effect of sport on ethno-racial division by exploring the effect of sport on intergroup distance. This in-depth study applies rigorous social science to local voices and ways of knowing, to improve understanding of the role of sport in divided societies. In doing so, this thesis proposes a new framework to map the way in which the practice of popular sports can influence intergroup relations.
The research draws from three distinct but interrelated areas of literature: identity formation, intergroup relations and the effect of sport on these fields. The first two areas are discussed in relation to the role of ethno-racial and social identity in group relations, along with strategies to reconcile intergroup difference. Sport then emerges as an emblematic site for solidifying identity, hegemonic power relations and group categorisation, while also facilitating positive social change in the form of the sport for development and peace (SDP) field. It is shown that our current understanding of SDP is restricted in its focus on development and/or peacebuilding goals, and that an extension to this field is required: sport and integration (SAI). In short, SAI also encompasses sport for social change but it is not orientated towards meeting specific development goals or curating peace in the wake of violence.
The Pacific Island nation of Fiji presents an ideal place for SAI research due to the cultural prominence of sport as well as underlying divisions between Indigenous Fijians and Fijians of Indian descent. Utilising a qualitative mode of enquiry that employs social constructivist logic in its design, the empirical research followed an approach described as ‘Short Term Ethnography’. This approach foregrounds local agency and ways of knowing an immersive research journey designed specifically to gain in-depth knowledge. The research took place in a number of locations across Fiji at the community (micro), institutional (meso) and decision making (macro) levels to develop a holistic impression of Fijian sport and society.
The approach I have taken acknowledges that sport is a powerful cultural commodity in Fiji and finds that in some practices, such as rugby sevens fandom and soccer participation, sport serves as a focal point of unity. However, there are other elements of Fijian sport which seem to maintain unequal power relations, perpetuating separatism between Fiji’s two main groups. The framework which was built to research SAI in Fiji therefore, functions to expose the exclusive social, cultural and structural mechanisms within Fijian sport and highlights a locally envisaged agenda for change. Based on the initial insights provided by this thesis, this study points to further application of the SAI framework in other societies troubled with division, in both low and high income settings.

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Sport and integration : an exploration of group identity and intergroup relations in Fiji

The development of supranational (European) social rights, and therefore social citizenship, is undermined by strong, direct relationships between citizens and national welfare states. Social policies contribute to national identities because they entail direct relationships between states and citizens. In well-developed European welfare states strong relationships between citizens and their member-states are expected. This may prevent the development of a similar relationship at the European level. The U.S. provides a comparison case, wherein a successful transference of citizenship identity from a lower to higher level has occurred, partly as a result of the building of national-level social citizenship, at least for certain classes of people. Revolutionary War Pensions provide an example of how social policy influences national identity. The lack of EU-level social policy precludes the possibility of this type of identity formation. Finally, the interplay of social citizenship and democracy in both cases is explored. T.H. Marshall’s work regarding citizenship as the basis for democracy is used to understand how the inability to create a common social policy in the EU is harmful to democracy.

Is the Problem of European Citizenship a Problem of Social Citizenship? Social Policy, Federalism, and Democracy in the EU and United States*: IS THE PROBLEM OF EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP A PROBLEM OF SOCIAL CITIZENSHIP?

The Rise and Fall of the Miraculous Welfare Machine: Immigration and Social Democracy in Twentieth-Century Sweden

This paper attempts to explain Swedish Social Democrats' consolidation of power between 1928 and 1932 through an examination of idioms of nation. Qualitative analysis of articles and editorials from a Social Democratic and a liberal newspaper is carried out. The analysis focuses on how civic, ethnic and, a mixed civic-ethnic idiom of nation were deployed in order to expand the Social Democrats' electoral base. The Social Democrats could combine egalitarianism/democracy with ethnic nationalism because ethnic bases for the nation were more inclusive than other, especially class, bases available to them. Two challenges for the literature on nationalism and the welfare state are raised: (1) the civic-ethnic distinction must be rethought to accommodate the Swedish case, wherein ethnic nationalism was used for “civic” ends; and (2) the focus on the Social Democrats as promoting working class interests may be misplaced given the party's mobilization on the basis of nation.

(Social) Democracy in the Blood? Civic and Ethnic Idioms of Nation and the Consolidation of Swedish Social Democratic Power, 1928–1932

This paper examines the creation of ‘national day’ in Sweden in order to understand how such a holiday works to shape the Swedish nation's relationship with diversity. Analyzing parliamentary debates and press coverage, the author finds that official national day coverage tends to invest the nation with progressive and multicultural meanings, foregrounding immigrant voices. However, this multiculturalism is polysemic, vague and subject to contestation, both from far right ‘traditionalists’ seeking to ‘protect’ Swedishness from outside influences and cosmopolitans who see the nation as outdated and dangerous. The creation of a new national holiday can be seen as a ‘democratic iteration’ wherein democracy is restated and reinvested with meanings, and new lines of cleavage are drawn, and also as a ‘multicultural iteration’ where multiculturalism is invested with new meaning. Finally, the author argues that multiculturalism benefits from polysemy in that the concept can then adapt to changing circumstances, and, thus, survive.

Carly Elizabeth Schall

Papers

Is the Problem of European Citizenship a Problem of Social Citizenship? Social Policy, Federalism, and Democracy in the EU and United States*: IS THE PROBLEM OF EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP A PROBLEM OF SOCIAL CITIZENSHIP?

The Rise and Fall of the Miraculous Welfare Machine: Immigration and Social Democracy in Twentieth-Century Sweden

(Social) Democracy in the Blood? Civic and Ethnic Idioms of Nation and the Consolidation of Swedish Social Democratic Power, 1928–1932

Multicultural iteration: Swedish National Day as multiculturalism-in-practice

The Rise and Fall of the Miraculous Welfare Machine