Becoming Multicultural

In a world of nation-states, international migration raisesquestions of membership: Should foreigners be admitted to the nationalspace? If so, according to what criteria and for what ends? And shouldthey and their children be granted citizenship? Canada andGermany's responses to these questions duri [...]
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In a world of nation-states, international migration raisesquestions of membership: Should foreigners be admitted to the nationalspace? If so, according to what criteria and for what ends? And shouldthey and their children be granted citizenship? Canada andGermany's responses to these questions during the first half ofthe twentieth century consisted of discriminatory immigration andcitizenship policies aimed at harnessing migration for economic endswhile minimizing its costs. Yet, by the end of the century, theadmission, settlement, and incorporation of previously excluded groupshad transformed both countries into highly diverse multiculturalsocieties."Becoming Multicultural" explains how this remarkable shiftcame about. Triadafilopoulos argues that world-historical events andepoch-defining processes -- including the Holocaust, decolonization, and the emergence of global human rights culture -- gave rise to amarkedly different normative context after the Second World War. Thesechanges in global norms made the maintenance of established membershipregimes difficult to defend, opening the way for the liberalization ofCanada and Germany's immigration and citizenship policies.Combining sophisticated theoretical reflection and careful empiricalanalysis, this thought-provoking book sheds light on the dynamics ofmembership politics and policy making in contemporaryliberal-democratic countries.Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos is an assistant professorof Political Science at the University of Toronto Scarborough.