Instrumental nationalism

One point of consensus emerging from the liberal–communitarian debate is that the success of free institutions depends crucially on the degree to which citizens are animated by certain dispositions and solidarities (Sandel 1984; Taylor 1989; Dworkin 1989; Macedo 1990; Galston 1991; Rawls 1993; Kymlicka and Norman 1994). Although liberals affirm and celebrate the rights of individuals to form, pursue and revise their own ends and life-plans, they cannot be indifferent to whether those individuals recognize and internalize certain obligations, responsibilities and virtues. For free institutions to operate successfully, citizens need, for instance, to exercise self-restraint and toleration. Citizens must also exemplify the virtue of ‘reasonableness’: they must show a willingness to settle political disagreements by appeal to reasons that are acceptable to others rather than through recourse to coercion (Macedo 1990; Rawls 1993; Kymlicka and Norman 1994). Free institutions depend, in addition, on the willingness of citizens to accept certain burdens and sacrifices for the sake of the common good. They must be willing to vote, to maintain a minimal degree of knowledge about current events, and to speak out and demonstrate against injustice. They must even be prepared, in extreme circumstances, to risk their lives to preserve the institutions of their freedom.

These points are now widely recognized by liberals and communitarians alike. Much less agreement has been forthcoming about what conditions must be in place for the different motivations and solidarities required in a successful liberal polity to be generated and sustained.