Abstract
Reviewed by: Randall Collins, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Loyal and Quilley’s book is larger than its title. Focused on Ireland as their main example, the authors build a broad theory applicable to refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants in general. It gives a comprehensive picture of all the social processes that determine favorable or unfavorable views towards bringing new people inside state borders. The theory draws on an emerging consensus in historical sociology of the modern state (the work of Michael Mann, Charles Tilly, Ernest Gellner, and others), buttressed by Pierre Bourdieu on the state’s control over social classification. The authors add innovative insights on the international processes that go into the mix.
There are five main processes that states juggle when setting policies on immigration:
(1) Capital accumulation vs. protectionism. Modern capitalism favors the widest possible movement of capital and labor across borders for maximizing profit. In alliance with political forces, however, it can swing towards protectionism. (2) National identity and popular democracy. The modern state originated in a reaction against dynastic family rule and feudal alliances and moved towards a monopoly of legitimate force upon a bounded territory. Along with internal pacification and policing came border guards, customs, identity checks, and passports. States penetrated their societies with institutions of education, mass media, uniform laws, even sports leagues, as well as standardization of language, all driving in the direction of greater homogenization. National identities were built, or intensified, by the territorial state. And modern states (almost all) claim legitimacy based on sovereignty of the people who live there; democracy always has a territorial referent, and democracy reinforces feelings of nationalism. (Here Loyal and Quilley’s analysis meshes with Sinisa Malesevic’s recent work on territorially grounded nationalism.) Nationalism is not necessarily zenophobic, but modern citizens cannot help being aware of distinctions between themselves and outsiders. (3) Internal politics in a democracy is concerned, among other things, with bread-and-butter issues of taxation, welfare expenditures (whether provided by government or by insurance), and employment. Immigration always potentially raises questions about how much it will cost, directly if refugees are given special housing and support, and indirectly in competition for jobs. These issues have different intensities depending on whether the economy is growing or stagnating. (4) Endogenous liberal commitment to altruism and diversity. We know that many NGOs and swatches of public opinion are dedicated to the plight of refugees and immigrants, whereas other social movements and groundswells of opinion see them as potential dangers (terrorists? Bolsheviks?) or as eroders of local lifestyle and shared social identity. It is an under-theorized question in sociology why such movements lean one way or the other. There is a good deal of theorizing about nativist movements, but little that explains why liberal and altruistic attitudes exist where they do. No doubt many scholars approach the issue from their own altruistic stance, which for them is the default position, leaving nativists as the anomaly. It appears that media news stories and pictures of individual victims (especially innocent children) create sympathy. But this is a time-bound phenomenon, often temporary; large flows of refugees often lead to a counter-reaction; and large numbers drown individual suffering in statistics, making international audiences jaded. Loyal and Quilley wield these four processes to explain Ireland’s refugee policies over the years: Capitalist openness to capital and labour during the Celtic Tiger period of economic boom, when the magic key was American investment in a low-tax country with entry to European Union markets. Concentration on Gaelic nation-building during the early years of the Republic, together with penurious welfare and job policies, combining to exclude all but a handful of refugees during the Nazi/World War period. And a sudden proliferation of NGOs in Ireland since the 1990s, part of an unexplained groundswell of altruistic internationalism. (5) This mélange of forces gives unexpected prominence to another factor, international law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the Geneva Convention on the right to asylum from evil regimes (1951) were established by international treaty. These appear to be the strongest force favoring refugees, since none of the state-centered and domestic forces listed above are unequivocally pro-refugee, and they often act in a nativist manner. Arguably, the proliferation of NGOs is a movement into the moral and conceptual niche created by international treaties. But how to improve our analysis from a recitation of arbitrary historical facts, to a theory that explains when international agreements are made, and what makes them popular? Loyal and Quilley note that signatories to international treaties often fail to live up to them, since implementation is left to national states. Let me suggest some general processes. The big treaties were the result of international conferences, held among the victorious powers at the end of First World War and Second World War, and in the Cold War period leading to the collapse of the Soviet empire. Ostensibly, these treaties were created so that the causes of war and forced population movements could be remedied. The diplomats of the Great Powers tended to frame laws on human rights against the regimes they defeated or were currently opposing: genocidal regimes and ideologies, forced labor, atrocities of ethnic cleansing, and stifling of political dissent. But as new regimes and alliances have appeared, the original intent of international law found new targets: condemning atrocities by Nazis and Communists were now shifted to critiques of colonial and post-colonial regimes, and declarations of universal human rights could be aimed at segregation or discrimination by race and religion, or yet further by gender or sexual preference. For this reason, world powers like the U.S. have backed off of agreement or enforcement of international treaties such as those allowing prosecution of soldiers for their behavior abroad. In sum, Great Power diplomacy is an unreliable basis for laws guaranteeing universal human rights.
This brings us to an unexpected source of moral commitment, the diplomacy of small states. The very fact of being militarily weak or being outside of the major alliances (the situation of Ireland and the Scandinavian countries) gives an opportunity for international prestige, as a neutral arbiter, taking a fair and altruistic stance above the game of power. Humanitarian activists from the small and unaligned states became prominent in the early years of the United Nations and other international treaty organizations: one thinks of Dag Hammarskjold (an activist UN Secretary General and martyr for international mediation), and Ireland’s Conor Cruise O’Brien, sending blue helmets against insurgents as de-colonization rippled through Africa; more recently, former Irish President Mary Robinson as UN High Commissioner for refugees. Max Weber argued that states enter into wars largely in order to bolster their power–prestige in the international arena; even at an economic cost, they want to be seen as major players in the game. Loyal and Quilley’s analysis suggests a corollary: small states, without military power, can achieve international prestige by staking out their position as leading internationalists.
The remaining question is: what determines the balance of the various forces pro and con refugees in the many states of the world? Loyal and Quilley show how to wield a sophisticated model of the forces at play in the case of Ireland. Adding a sociological theory of the tactics of international prestige gives another important tool of analysis. There is much work ahead to be done as the model becomes applied to the many struggles over refugees and immigrants worldwide.