Nationalism, Patriotism, and Nativism

A few terms often come up in discussions about citizenship and nationality: nativism (usually used in a derogatory way in the U.S.), nationalism (depends on the context, but often has negative connotations), and patriotism (usually seen as a good thing).  The similarities and distinctions among these terms, however, aren't always explicitly drawn.

Mirriam-Webster provides the following definitions:

Nationalism: loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially: a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.

Nativism: a policy of favoring native inhabitants as opposed to immigrants.

Patriotism: love for or devotion to one's country.

Note that the dictionary definition of nationalism incorporates the definitions of both nativism and patriotism.  Likewise, in the immigration context, neither nativism nor patriotism can be fully understood without reference to nationalism.  To properly examine nationalism, it's necessary to step outside the context of a particular country for a moment.

Political scientist Benedict Anderson discusses nations as socially constructed "imagined communities," so called because "the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion."  Most Americans will never meet or even know the names of 99.99% of their co-nationals.  Yet Americans are famously patriotic and most feel bound together by common ideals, especially in the face of attack or criticism from outside.

Patriotism in the U.S. as a positive value is rarely questioned in the public discourse, and when it is, the political damage is swift and quickly quarantined.  It is not kosher in the U.S. to too closely examine the ways that nationalism and patriotism are connected.  Again, it helps to step outside of the U.S. national context.  Two countries where a particularly chauvinistic, aggressive form of patriotic nationalism found full expression during World War Two-Germany and Japan-now have two of the least patriotic societies in the world.  Until recently, Japanese schools were legally limited in the extent to which they could include patriotism in the public school curriculum.  Germans still feel uncomfortable with demonstrative patriotism of the kind that is common in France, China, or the U.S.  This anti-nationalism derives directly from the atrocities committed in the name of national ideals by Germany and Japan during WWII.

Neither Germany nor Japan were democratic polities during WWII.  But lamentably, having a democratic government does not immunize a sovereign state from committing misdeeds abroad when there is no comparable version of international democracy in place.  Under the anarchic international political system, might makes right, as can be seen with the U.S. invasions of Vietnam and Iraq, Russia in Afghanistan and Georgia, or China in Tibet.  In each case, a powerful country disregarded the sovereign borders of a weak country and invaded it against the wishes of the international community.  In each case, nothing much was done to stop the powerful state.  In each case, the aggressive action was justified as a necessary defensive measure.  In each case, domestic appeals to patriotism reached a fever pitch.  Those patriotic appeals were rightly seen by outsiders as expressions of nationalism that served no higher purpose beyond the limited national interests of the aggressor state.

Seen then from a global perspective, as in the dictionary definitions, there is little to differentiate nationalism from patriotism.  This has important implications for the immigration debate.

Loyalty to the state

Patriotism, or loyalty to country, is valuable to citizens of that country.  Loyalty permits the government to collect taxes, build a public infrastructure, provide services, and defend itself.  It facilitates a sense of common purpose that enables the incorporation into democratic government of existing trust networks based on religion or family or ethno-linguistic ties.

But unreserved loyalty to the state can also have negative effects-sometimes for citizens, more often for noncitizens.  Patriotism is inherently exclusionary and can foster divisions based on national origin.  Official expressions of regret for episodes of domestic U.S. nationalist fervor triggered by perceptions of national insecurity have followed the Alien and Sedition Acts, Japanese-American internment, and the McCarthy hearings.  One might expect such an apology to come at some point to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, but then might realize that such an apology was never issued to the people of Vietnam after the war there or to Chinese-Americans for the Chinese Exclusion Act, which for 60 years prohibited Chinese from immigrating to the U.S. or naturalizing here.  The thousands of noncitizens deported during each periodic nativist retrenchment have usually been unacknowledged, as have the thousands more denied entry during periods of restrictionism.

Charges of disloyalty have been an effective tactic used against political opponents since the U.S.'s founding, from the Alien and Sedition Acts used by the Federalist Party to target Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans to George W. Bush's politicized War on Terror.  Since 9/11, immigration policy has been cast by the federal government as a key component of national security.  Emblematic of this shift from the more liberal approach that had prevailed from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s was the incorporation in 2003 of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) into the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the domestic agency charged with anti-terrorism efforts.

A "post-national" nationalism

A common defense of patriotism in the U.S.-coming both from the native-born and from immigrants-is the argument that the U.S. embraces a nationalism that transcends traditional allegiances to race, religion, or ethnicity.  This is an appealing, unifying idea, but only to a point.  The ostensible universalism of American nationalism breaks down upon the very real legal distinctions between citizens and noncitizens.

Like nationalism based on common principles, institutional religion can create a sense of community that transcends other divisions-race, gender, nationality, age, or political opinion.  But in doing so, religious affiliation can also create what may be a more lasting, significant division: an ideological distinction of identity.  Europeans are well-acquainted with the problems of both identity-based religious conflict and of unrestrained nationalism.

Nationalism in the U.S. is similar to religion in that its adherents sometimes promote it as a unifying universal ideology.  That's fine as far as it goes-participation in a community of faith enriches people's lives in powerful ways, and inclusive civic participation in the U.S. has brought security and prosperity to its citizens.  But when the legal distinctions between citizen and noncitizen represent not just the ability (or inability) to come and go at will, but stark differences in power and access to resources, then nationalism can no longer serve as a valid universal unifying ideology.

Conclusions

If patriotism is simply a form of nationalism, then nativists should be forgiven for conflating patriotism and nativism.  After all, together, these two concepts together comprise the dictionary definition of nationalism above.  Nativists see through the false universalism of American nationalism, and reject it.  An immigration policy predicated on national identity can never convincingly repudiate the claims of nativists, since nativists simply claim that citizens deserve certain rights and benefits that are properly denied to noncitizens.  But in an international political system comprised of sovereign states, an immigration policy cannot be based on anything other than national identity.  Hence, nativism is an inevitable consequence of the international political system.  It looks, then, as though nativism will be a part of the U.S. immigration debate for some time to come.