Blog Series “Social Cohesion Beyond the Nation State?”
“Social cohesion is threatened in Western democracies in times of mobility and migration.” Such concerns are raised both privately and publicly and often linked to fears of a crisis of the nation state. Yet, what is meant by social cohesion in the first place? If defined as connectedness between individuals, is there an intrinsic link between the nation state and social cohesion? Or is it time to reconsider this assumption in the light of increasingly diverse societies and porous boundaries?
Social cohesion is one of the main topics of our NCCR research module. We found that among the most important questions – that all of us are working on in different ways – is the relationship between the concept of social cohesion and ideas of the nation state.
We, therefore, decided to present a set of different perspectives on this relationship through a series of six subsequent blog contributions. They complement each other and address the topic on different scales and with different epistemological approaches. We discuss the topic from the perspective of post-industrialized societies that are confronted with increasing mobility and migration.
The blog series takes up critical discussions and proposals on the concept of social cohesion as such, questioning what the idea of ‘social cohesion’ tells us about how ‘society’ is imagined and what this implies for state practices and discourses. It also presents arguments about cohesion within traditional state entities, and discusses the formation of new forms of social networks, solidarity and shared values beyond the nation state at the local, but also at the transnational level.
The Idea and Usage of Social Cohesion in Practice
We follow two main approaches in this series. The first approach looks at social cohesion as a category of practice. This means that we analyze how social cohesion is used and understood by different actors or institutions, which effects this has and which power dynamics it entails.
Esma Baycan reflects on the “legend of incompatibility” between social cohesion and immigration by examining social cohesion as a line of argument. The blog postulates that in today’s increasingly diverse immigration societies, social cohesion can no longer be defined only as one particular national identity that connects people, as this may foster exclusion and discrimination, impairing thereby social cohesion. Instead, it needs to bridge differences, e.g. via local/urban identities.
Adopting again a critical-reflective perspective, Luca Pfirter, Lisa Borrelli, Christin Achermann and Stefanie Kurt observe that state interventions and policies at various levels of government aiming at making a cohesive society can already create exclusion, e.g. by revoking or not extending permits. Preconceptions on how a nation state and society should look like exist at the national level, embedded in laws and policies, but are carried further and are implemented via bureaucratic practices. As such, social cohesion becomes a category of practice, discussed, contested and reproduced on the street-level, between state actors, non-state actors and non-citizens, whose stay is questioned in light of their assumed ‘compatibility’ with society.
Social Cohesion as a Social Phenomenon
The second approach is taking social cohesion as a category of empirical analysis. In this case, we start from an understanding of social cohesion as behavioral (e.g. friendship, membership, citizenship) and attitudinal interconnections (e.g. solidarity, trust) between individuals or groups. The blog posts in this section analyze how social cohesion exists, develops or is hindered in today’s increasingly diverse societies.
On an individual level, some contributions look at migration (people come to a place and stay) and observe that social cohesion evolves at the interpersonal/group level and is facilitated via personal contact (such as the contribution by Juan Manuel Falomir-Pichastor, Eva Green and Anita Manatschal). At the same time, xenophobia or prejudice can hamper social cohesion, as it may lead to overt discrimination or rejection of help received by strangers for instance (highlighted by the contribution of Islam Borinca and Juan Manuel Falomir-Pichastor). In conclusion, it could be said that social cohesion emerges bottom-up and is rooted in relations between individuals/groups. The capacity to implement or “enforce” social cohesion top-down is thus limited.
Moreover, on a structural level, Alois Stutzer in his blog post shows that social cohesion is connected to different levels of collective decision-making and can be affected by the surrounding political and societal contexts, e.g. in terms of inclusive or exclusive social norms as expressed via migration policies or public opinion on migration. National migration policies are thus only one among many contextual factors influencing social cohesion. As our blog contributions show, local or regional migration or citizenship policies and practices are often closer to individuals’ daily lives and experiences and have an imminent impact on social cohesion.
Adopting a more dynamic mobility perspective which also considers realities of transnational lives, the blog post by Katrin Sontag finally describes how social cohesion evolves beyond the nation state, mainly via local/urban as well as transnational social networks, which are not geographically delimited (e.g. solidarity reactions to the most recent humanitarian crises). Social cohesion then refers to shared concerns and values.
Nation State – a Possible yet Non-mandatory Factor for Social Cohesion
Overall, the bottom-up nature of social cohesion, but also its transnational manifestations, as well as the increasingly diverse composition of today’s societies, reveal that the nation state is just one factor among many that may foster or even hamper the emergence of a cohesive society. Moreover, certain national narratives and arguments of social cohesion reveal power structures and imaginaries of societies going against a cohesive society, by creating boundaries and exclusion. By and in itself, policies or imaginaries at the level of the nation state are thus not a necessary condition for social cohesion to develop in contemporary migration societies.
Anita Manatschal is a Professor at the University of Neuchâtel and Project Leader in the nccr – on the move project Societal norms and their impact on national majorities and immigrants. Katrin Sontag is a cultural anthropologist at the University of Basel and PostDoc in the project Perimeters of Multilayered Democratic Citizenship in a Mobile and Multicultural World.
