Neoliberal Nationalism
Immigration and the Rise of the Populist Right

Shows how liberal, neoliberal, and nationalist ideas have combined to impact Western states' immigration and citizenship policies.

Christian Joppke (Author)

9781108710763, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 7 January 2021

220 pages
23 x 15.3 x 2 cm, 0.4 kg

'This book is an impressive achievement. It is a work of wide-ranging synthesis - drawing on political theory, immigration studies, and political economy - and of penetrating analysis. Swimming against a mighty current, Joppke rejects the term 'populism' as so varied in meaning to be devoid of content and instead explains immigration and citizenship policy with reference to two concepts: nationalism and neo-liberalism. Brexit, Trump, and the far-right are the triumph of an ugly and exclusivist nationalism, and all three are both products and critiques of neo-liberalism. Contemporary immigration and citizenship are anti-nationalist but neo-liberal: qualifications-based, rights-denuded, and increasingly temporary in the former, earned rather than automatically acquired in the latter. Liberalism, both bloodied and bowed, will survive the dual onslaught, but it will never be the same. Analytically powerful and beautifully written, this is the best book on immigration and citizenship available.' Randall Hansen, University of Toronto

The Brexit and Trump shocks of 2016 mark a deep caesura in the history of liberal societies. It is no longer sufficient, if it ever was, to look at Western states' immigration and citizenship policies through the single lens of advancing liberalism. Instead, two additional forces need to be reckoned with: a new nationalism, but also the neoliberal restructuring of state and society in which it is generated. Joppke demonstrates that many of the new policies have their roots in neoliberalism rather than the new nationalism. Moreover, some of them, such as 'earned citizenship', are the product of neoliberalism and nationalism working in tandem, in terms of a neoliberal nationalism. The neoliberalism-nationalism nexus is complex, its elements sometimes opposing but sometimes complementing or even constituting one another. This topical book will appeal to students and scholars of populism, nationalism, and immigration and citizenship, across comparative politics, sociology and political theory.

Preface
1. The Neoliberalism-Nationalism Nexus
2. Courting the Top, Fending Off the Bottom: Immigration in the Populist Storm
3. More Difficult to Get, Easier to Lose, Less in Value: The Rise of Earned Citizenship
4. End of Liberalism?
Endnotes
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Nationalism [JPFN], Conservatism & right-of-centre democratic ideologies [JPFM], Liberalism & centre democratic ideologies [JPFK], Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP], Social theory [JHBA], Sociology [JHB]