UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Anxieties of Membership: American Citizenship after Democratic Nationalism Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2926n3vr Author Pippenger, Nathan Publication Date 2019 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Anxieties of Membership: American Citizenship after Democratic Nationalism By Nathan Pippenger A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Mark Bevir, Co-chair Professor Sarah Song, Co-chair Professor Shannon Stimson Professor Christopher Kutz Spring 2019 Anxieties of Membership: American Citizenship after Democratic Nationalism © 2019 by Nathan Pippenger 1 Abstract Anxieties of Membership: American Citizenship after Democratic Nationalism by Nathan Pippenger Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Berkeley Professor Mark Bevir, Co-chair Professor Sarah Song, Co-chair This dissertation argues that the democratic goal of collective sovereignty requires a particularistic, imagined sense of association among members of the demos, and that American egalitarians’ rejection of that idea has profoundly shaped the trajectory of American citizenship since the late 1960s. It develops an analytical framework of “holistic democratic citizenship,” which treats citizenship in contemporary democracies as a composite status of five historically- accreted elements (political participation, rights, equality, intersubjective identification, and perpetuation), and reconstructs an American intellectual tradition of “democratic nationalism,” which prominently attempted to promote holistic citizenship through a nationally-scaled narrative of peoplehood between the first and second Reconstructions. The inclusive ideal of nationhood championed by democratic nationalists promoted, in particular, the holistic components of intersubjective identification and perpetuation, encouraging Americans to imagine themselves in terms of an expansively-defined national demos. The dissertation argues that in the wake of American egalitarians’ broad rejection of nationalism since the 1960s, newer theorizations of citizenship tend to detach its formal elements (participation, rights, and equality) from location within temporally-continuous settings of intersubjective identification, undermining the epistemic and psychological preconditions of collective sovereignty, and depriving egalitarians of the conceptual resources needed to contextualize, motivate, and render legible the work of democratic inclusion in the United States. The first part of the dissertation provides a historical and theoretical framework for the second part’s discussion of three contemporary anxieties of democratic membership surrounding immigration, race, and inequality. Chapter One traces democratic nationalism’s rise in the Civil War and Reconstruction era and its decline in the civil rights era, explaining the historical process by which American egalitarians’ democratic aspirations became fused to, and then broken from, a nationalist vision of the demos. Chapter Two introduces the framework of holistic democratic citizenship, showing how the components of participation, rights, equality, intersubjective identification, and a sense of shared futurity contribute to a complex whole, and 2 how monolithically conservative understandings of nationalism motivate a corrosive formalism and disaggregative tendency in citizenship theory. Part Two analyzes three contemporary anxieties of membership through the historical tradition of democratic nationalism and the analytical framework of holistic democratic citizenship. Chapter Three analyzes debates over the fate of unauthorized denizens residing in the U.S., defending a political (not economic or humanitarian) approach which resists calls for open borders or differentiated citizenship in favor of democratic principles which instead imply that full inclusion on political grounds is owed to a specific class of migrants. Chapter Four analyzes historical and contemporary debates over the possibility of interracial solidarity on a national scale, which is directly connected to support for a policy of integration. The chapter argues that in the absence of a nationally-scaled form of identification, racial egalitarians can only fall back on formalistic, one-sided views of citizenship that eschew the politics of integration and ironically reinforce the same racialized boundaries that already obscure patterns of mutual responsibility among citizens. Chapter Five discusses the anti-tax politics of the conservative movement in the context of contemporary economic inequality. It traces the market naturalism of the new right to a view of citizenship which rejects identification, and argues that this rejection of identification is ironically mirrored by the depoliticized view of political economy that prevails among liberal politicians. These intellectual and discursive changes, traceable to the decline of democratic nationalism in the 1960s, help to explain the unrivaled position of economistic visions of citizenship in an era of spiraling inequality. The conclusion describes possible futures for democratic citizenship in the U.S. in light of past attempts at national “reconstitution” in both a legal and an ethical sense. The conclusion argues that the avoidance of further democratic decay requires citizens to revive particularistic yet inclusive accounts of their shared democratic life. The dissertation’s historical narrative and analytical framework contribute to ongoing debates over nationalism, American identity, democracy, and citizenship; as well as immigration, race, and economic inequality. It develops a non-cultural defense of bounded solidarity that differs from both liberal nationalism and constitutional patriotism, while merging the intellectual- historical literature on postwar American “fracture” with political-theoretical analysis of the changing nature of democratic citizenship under globalization. i CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii INTRODUCTION 1 PART ONE: INTERPRETING NATIONHOOD AND CITIZENSHIP CHAPTER ONE 15 One Century of Democratic Nationalism CHAPTER TWO 27 The Many-Sidedness of Democratic Citizenship PART TWO: ANXIETIES OF MEMBERSHIP CHAPTER THREE 46 Migration, Membership, and Democracy CHAPTER FOUR 68 Racial Integration and “The Nation’s Problem” CHAPTER FIVE 95 Inequality, Citizenship, and the Permanent Tax Revolt CONCLUSION 121 Reconstruction Revisited Bibliography 131 ii Acknowledgements At an early stage of graduate school, an adviser wisely recommended that I always read the acknowledgements—something I had not, I now admit with some sheepishness, previously been in the habit of doing. Thankfully, I listened to that advice, and over time it helped make me more sensitive to the extent of intellectual collaboration which goes into academic work. If we achieve the difficult goal of thinking well, we hardly—I am tempted to say never—do it alone. As I look back on the numerous intellectual debts I’ve accrued over the years, I only grow in my conviction that, at the very least, I haven’t. I first want to thank my committee, who supervised this project with patience, trust, and generosity. Sarah Song’s probing questions modeled careful, constructive intellectual engagement. Mark Bevir’s unfailing acuity dramatically sharpened my arguments. Shannon Stimson quickly recognized the historical dimensions of my normative interests and presciently encouraged my initially amorphous interest in American political thought. Chris Kutz was an ideal outside reader, contributing a complementary perspective from moral philosophy and graciously taking on a more involved role when circumstances demanded. I feel extraordinarily privileged to have developed this project under the supervision of these exceptional scholars. Berkeley is home to an amazing community of political theorists, intellectual historians, philosophers, and other scholars whose work is a daily example of what great public institutions can achieve. I am fortunate to have had so many talented graduate colleagues who generously shared their time and expertise with me: Nabil Ansari, Richard Ashcroft, Rachel Bernhard, Ali Bond, Mark Fisher, Andrius Gališanka, Jake Grumbach, Nina Hagel, Julian Jonker, Brian Judge, Michaeljit Sandhu, Geoff Upton, Rosie Wagner, and participants in the Graduate Political Theory Workshop convened by Kristin Zuhone and Thomas Lee. I also want to express my gratitude to Terri Bimes, Wendy Brown, Joshua Cohen, Kinch Hoekstra, David Hollinger, Daniel Lee, Eric Schickler, and Steve Vogel, faculty who make Berkeley one of the world’s greatest universities, and who made me a much better political theorist than I would otherwise have been. Many other outstanding scholars listened carefully to ideas that were still in gestation, generously helping me—through friendly conversation and candid feedback—to discover what exactly I was trying to say. For this, thanks are owed to Peter Breiner, Daniela Cammack, Kevin Duong, David Grewal, Luke Mayville, Jedediah Purdy, Rogers Smith, Simon Stow, and Ronald Sundstrom. E.J. Dionne, whose enthusiasm and support have never wavered, is a brilliant mentor and kindhearted friend. Over email, phone calls, and Skype, other friends took time away from their own scholarly pursuits to