Democracy and the Foreigner.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: September 1, 2001
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 216
ISBN-13: 9780691088846
Subjects: Immigration & emigration; Political science & theory; Political structures: democracy; Political Ideologies - Democracy; Immigrants; Political Science; Politics / Current Events; Politics/International Relations; Emigration & Immigration; Political Philosophy; Political Science / History & Theory; Political Science and International Relations; Postcolonial Studies; History & Theory - General; Democracy; Internationalism; Nationalism
First sentence: "How should we solve the problem of foreignness?"
Description: "What should we do about foreigners? Should we try to make them more like us or keep them at bay to protect our democracy, our culture, our well-being? This dilemma underlies age-old debates about immigration, citizenship, and national identity that are strikingly relevant today. In Democracy and the Foreigner, Bonnie Honig reverses the question and asks instead: What problems might foreigners solve for us? Hers is not a conventional approach.

Instead of lauding the achievements of individual foreigners, she probes a much larger issue - the symbolic politics of foreignness. In doing so she shows not only how our debates over foreignness help shore up our national or democratic identities, but how anxieties endemic to liberal democracy themselves animate ambivalence toward foreignness."--BOOK JACKET.