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Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work implies a conception of civil society with claims to republican ancestry. However, in four ways, he misses the more 'political' understanding of this Enlightenment category in republican writers, including his hero, Tocqueville. Where Putnam's civic community is spontaneous and voluntaristic, republicans emphasise the creation of civil society from above by state-building and broader political associations. Where his civic spirit is local, republicans stress polity-centred citizenship identification. Where Putnam's 'social capital' is a generalised, all-purpose resource with positive effects, modern republicans such as Tocqueville stress normative ambiguities of civic space and see the associational cradles of modern trust and solidarity as more demanding. Finally, where his civil society is a harmonious, 'functioning' place, republicans often stress conflict between citizens and between citizens and the state. A reconsideration of empirical and theoretical problems in his analysis suggests that a more republican conceptualisation of civil society would have facilitated different questions and more interesting answers.

Defence date: 26 January 2001 ; Examining Board: Prof. Richard Bellamy, University of Reading; Prof. Steven Lukes, LSE and New York University (Supervisor); Prof. David Miller, Oxford; Prof. Peter Wagner, EUI ; First made available online on 18 April 2018 ; Historical memoiy is often short, but we all recall the great experience of the popular revolutions in East Central Europe, The collapse of state-socialism had tremendous repercussions all over the world, and a large number of undemocratic regimes, no longer sheltered by East-West bipolarity, have crumbled. Francis Fukuyama made a name for himself by proclaiming the approaching end of history as the victory of liberal-democratic political orders. There is, Fukuyama boldly stated, "a fundamental process at work that dictates a common evolutionary pattern for ail human societies - in short something like a Universal History of mankind in the direction of liberal democracy". Fukuyama was making the broad point that the idea of liberal democracy, or some recognlsably liberal version of the conceptual pair of liberty and equality, was triumphant in the sense that it was no longer rational to imagine better worlds that were not liberal, that attempts to do so were local leftovers, and that, give and take setbacks and delays, governments across the globe would find it increasingly difficult to secure a minimal degree of popular legitimacy, save by taking decisive steps towards conforming to liberal ideas.

In recent years scholars have observed a restrictive turn in West European immigrant integration policies towards conditioning access to permanent residence and citizenship on language proficiency, knowledge of history, institutions, culture and political values, national loyalty and labour market integration. This has been accompanied by a strong reaction among European politicians and publics emphasizing that newcomers must share in certain liberal-democratic values and virtues that characterize the national community. Yet, the influential scholar Christian Joppke argues, among others, that liberal values cannot define national particularity, nor can cultural integration be enforced because legislation and policies are legally and normatively constrained by the same liberal values. Hence, prevalent liberal conceptions of national identity are paradoxical and inconsequential for the formulation of public policies. This article critically examines this argument in detail. It argues that the paradox of universalism does not exist, and that therefore nationalism should not be dismissed as a central factor behind recent policy developments.

INTERACT - Researching Third Country Nationalsメ Integration as a Three-way Process - Immigrants, Countries of Emigration and Countries of Immigration as Actors of Integration ; In Denmark immigration has been politically very salient, and since the mid-1990s immigration has been negatively associated with the rising numbers of Muslims in the population. Integration policies over the last fifteen years have become increasingly comprehensive and thickly textured, focusing not only on labour market participation and education, but also on the civic dimensions of social and political participation, liberal-democratic norms and substantial welfare-state egalitarianism, as well as identity and loyalty. Local municipalities are responsible for the implementation of most policies and generally adopt a pragmatic approach. Since 2011, when a social-democratic-led government came to power, integration policies have become less politicized. Various programs, hitherto collected in one designated Ministry of Integration have now been placed under different ministerial jurisdictions and are connected, more than previously, to existing programs that target vulnerable citizens. ; INTERACT is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union.

International audience ; What explains the restrictive turn towards immigrants in European countries like Denmark? Are countries returning to nationalism, or are they following a general European trend towards a perfectionist, even 'repressive' liberalism that seeks to create 'liberal people' out of immigrants? Recent developments in Danish policies of integration and citizenship, education and anti-discrimination suggest a combination of these two diagnoses. The current Danish 'integration philosophy' leaves behind a previous concern with private choice and equal rights and opportunities to emphasize other historical elements, especially the duty to participate in upholding democracy and the egalitarian welfare community, and to promote autonomous and secular ways of life. However, the virtues of this 'egalitarian republicanism' are seen by right-of-centre intellectuals and politicians as rooted in a wider Christian national culture that immigrants must acquire in order to become full citizens.