Manser-Egli, Stefan

Illiberal integrationism: shared values as an integration requirement in liberal democracy
2025

Can liberal democracies require shared values? The paper analyses the integration requirement to respect constitutional values in Switzerland. First, it scrutinizes illiberal bureaucratic practices of culturalization and state access to inner convictions. Second, it discusses whether the adoption of constitutional values can be required of non-citizens only. Finally, it examines whether shared values can be legitimately required from society as a whole. The paper argues that the shared values requirement is incompatible with the pluralism of values in liberal democracy. Through the exclusion in the name of shared values, integrationism forecloses politics as an agonistic contestation of these values.