In multiple EU Member States, immigrants are subjected to an increasing number of integration requirements in order to gain access to residency and political rights. This article explores the legitimacy of such requirements from the perspective of recent theories of social equality. According to these theories, states must seek to uphold a 'community of equals' and to avoid problematic status hierarchies between citizens. I argue that aspects of current integration schemes in EU states jeopardise social equality by indicating symbolic hierarchical variations in the status of nonimmigrant citizens and citizens with certain immigrant backgrounds. First, there are integration requirements that convey the message that certain immigrants are unwanted or will never truly belong to the nation. Second, there are integration requirements that suggest that the citizenship of (certain) immigrants must be earned conditionally and is contingent on certain competences and efforts, while native-born citizens of the majority are implicitly perceived as natural possessors of their unconditional citizenship. I argue that these integration requirements are problematic from a social equality perspective. Integration requirements that suggest a status hierarchy between citizens who naturally belong and those who conditionally belong should be rejected.
This commentary discusses the claim of Zapata-Barrero that Western countries have historically entered a ‘post multicultural’ phase, in which the emergence of the intercultural policy paradigm must be placed. It argues that this claim is mistaken, or at least too imprecise, and a potential danger for any pro-diversity management strategy, including interculturalism. Moreover, it is highlighted that Zapata-Barrero acknowledges that the contrast between intercultural and multicultural strategies has been overstated in the intercultural literature and that they are in fact complementary. For this reason, instead of reaffirming that interculturalism is temporally post multiculturalism, we should work towards creative synthesis of intercultural and multicultural strategies.
There has been an increase of academic publications that argue in favor of ‘majority rights,’ ‘majority precedence,’ or ‘white identity,’ claiming that the (cultural) interests of majorities in liberal-democratic countries have been ignored due to ‘asymmetrical multiculturalism.’ This article critically examines this academic trend. In particular, we question the claim that liberal-democratic and multicultural theories to date have ignored the importance of the majority (culture). We observe that liberal-democratic and multicultural theory in fact strongly promote and privilege the majority culture, although in ways that do not violate core individual rights and accommodate minorities. In addition, we explore several more empirical issues regarding the claim that the interests of majorities are under threat in liberal-democratic countries today. Among other things, we observe that pro-majority theories tend to work with specific understandings of who embodies the majority. These theories rest on the idea that immigrants and their descendants (may) ‘dilute’ majorities, as they are (culturally) ‘not native.’ As a result, majority rights theorists ‘freeze’ the majority culture claimed to be worth protecting in ways that it, first, neglects ongoing processes of integration and, second, disregards possibilities for social and political change and emancipation, particularly if triggered by immigrant groups. Finally, we wonder why majority rights theories currently seem to resonate. We discuss the possibility that certain pro-diversity voices, such as those who claim that Europe has become superdiverse or who defend multiculturalism, might have (unintentionally) enabled alarmist defenses of majority rights.
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