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The Politics of Social Cohesion:
Immigration, Community, and Justice

Nils Holtug
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The Politics of Social Cohesion

N EW T O P IC S I N A P P L I E D P H I L O S O P H Y
Series Editor
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen
This series presents works of original research on practical issues that are not yet well
covered by philosophy. The aim is not only to present work that meets high philosophical
standards while being informed by a good understanding of relevant empirical
matters, but also to open up new areas for philosophical exploration. The series will
demonstrate the value and interest of practical issues for philosophy and vice versa.
also published in the series

Not in Their Name
Are Citizens Culpable for Their States’ Actions?
Holly Lawford-Smith
The Inheritance of Wealth
Justice, Equality, and the Right to Bequeath
Daniel Halliday
The Politics of Social

Cohesion
Immigration, Community, and Justice
N I L S HO LT U G
1
1
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Contents
Preface ix
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Immigration, Integration, and Social Cohesion 1
1.2 Methods, Principles, and Facts 6
1.3 Overview of the Book 16
PA RT I I D E N T I T Y, S O C IA L C O H E SIO N , A N D J U S T IC E
2. National Identities and Nation-building 23

2.1 Nation-building, Shared Values, and Cohesive Societies 23
2.2 United Kingdom 23
2.3 Denmark 28
2.4 France 33
2.5 Canada 38
2.6 National Models and Policies 43
3. Social Cohesion and Identity 45
3.1 Understanding Social Cohesion 45
3.2 Social Cohesion: What and Why? 46
3.3 Trust 49
3.4 Solidarity 59
3.5 Social Cohesion and Social Justice 69
3.6 The Identity Thesis 71
3.7 Community Conceptions 77
4. Social Justice 80
4.1 Equality 80
4.2 Liberty 83
4.3 Equality of Opportunity 86
4.4 Luck Egalitarianism 91
4.5 Luck Egalitarianism and Cultural and Religious Opportunities 96
4.6 Equality and the Rights of Immigrants 101
4.7 From Equality to Multiculturalism 107
4.8 Objections to Multiculturalism 113
4.9 Barry on Group-differentiated Rights 117
vi Contents
PA RT I I I M M IG R AT IO N
5. Immigration and the Progressive’s Dilemma 125

5.1 On the Progressive’s Dilemma 125
5.2 The Social Cohesion Argument for Restrictive
Immigration Policies 127
5.3 Diversity and Trust 130
5.4 Trust and Moderating Factors 135
5.5 Diversity and Solidarity 141
5.6 Solidarity and Moderating Factors 145
5.7 Explaining the Impact of Diversity 147
5.8 Implications for Policy 154
6. Global Justice 157
6.1 Equality and Immigration 157
6.2 On the Scope of Egalitarian Justice 160
6.3 Two Objections to Global Scope 163
6.4 Restrictions on Scope I: Nationalism 167
6.5 Restrictions on Scope II: Statism 170
6.6 Global Egalitarianism and the Social Cohesion Argument
for Restrictive Immigration Policies 175
6.7 Migration for Global Equality 177
6.8 Brain Drain 180
6.9 Sustainable Welfare States 181
6.10 Solidarity and In-group Bias 184
6.11 Policy Alternatives and their Efficiency 188
6.12 The Return of the Progressive’s Dilemma? 191
PA RT I I I I N T E G R AT IO N
7. Nationalism 197
7.1 Integration and Community Conceptions 197
7.2 The Claims of Nationalism 199
7.3 The National Identity Argument 201
7.4 Nation-building Policies and the Requirements of Justice 205
7.5 Theorizing the Causality of a National Identity 209
7.6 Empirically Testing the National Identity Argument 215
7.7 Do National Identities Promote Social Cohesion? A Danish Study 217
7.8 National Identities in Scandinavia 219
8. Liberalism 221
8.1 Liberalism and Community-building 221
8.2 Liberal Tensions 223
8.3 A Rawlsian Theory of Social Cohesion 225
8.4 Indirect Institutional Effects 227
8.5 Indirect Distributional Effects 229
Contents vii
8.6 Direct Value Effects 230

8.7 The Boundary Problem 236
8.8 Polity Patriotism 239
8.9 Republicanism 241
9. Multiculturalism 246
9.1 Multiculturalism and Community-building 246
9.2 Causal Explanations I: Can Multiculturalism Be Expected
to Promote Social Cohesion? 249
9.3 Causal Explanations II: Can Multiculturalism Be Expected
to Drive Down Social Cohesion? 253
9.4 Multiculturalism and Segregation 258
9.5 Testing the Impact of Multicultural Policies 264
9.6 Direct Value Effects of Multiculturalism 267
9.7 Summary 271
References 275
Index 299
Preface
My interest in social cohesion slowly emerged in the early years of the new
millennium, as I noticed that debates about immigration and integration were
increasingly framed as debates about such cohesion. Immigration was (and is)
perceived as a threat to national identities and to the ties that bind together citi-
zens, and integration policies were (and are) considered instruments to promote
social cohesion under conditions of diversity. One thing that struck me about this
new framing was that the relation between immigration, national identity, and
various aspects of social cohesion was probably rather complex. Another thing
that struck me was that this complexity was not reflected in political debates
about immigration, or in the policies that were devised on the basis of them. In
fact, political debates about immigration and social cohesion seemed to me full of
gratuitous claims, where it was seldom specified what was meant by ‘social cohe-
sion’ and very little evidence was provided for claims about how immigration
would drive down social cohesion, or for how particular integration policies,
including nation- building policies, would strengthen such cohesion in the
citizenry.
This book is the culmination, so far, of my work on the politics of social cohe-
sion, for which I acquired an interest back in the early 2000s, but only began to
work on several years later. I am grateful to the Danish Council for Independent
Research for giving me a Sapere Aude Top-researcher grant to fund my work on
this project. Likewise, for comments on the book, some of the chapters, or talks in
which chapters were presented, I am grateful to Elisabeth Anderson, Chris
Armstrong, Richard Arneson, Gustaf Arrhenius, Keith Banting, Linda Barclay,
Ben Bradley, Karen Nielsen Breidahl, Simon Caney, Joe Carens, Roger Crisp,
Peter Thisted Dinesen, Paula Casal, Sarah Fine, Marc Fleurbaey, Andreas
Føllesdal, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti, Gina Gustavsson, Joe Heath, Ulf Hedetoft,
Iwao Hirose, Roland Hsu, Birgitte Scheppelern Johansen, Klemens Kappel, Eszter
Kollar, Kristian Kongshøj, Will Kymlicka, Gerald Lang, Linda Lapina, Christian
Albrekt Larsen, Patti Lenard, Kasper Lippert- Rasmussen, Christian List,
Catherine Lu, Sune Lægaard, Andrew Mason, Jeff McMahan, David Miller, Per
Mouritsen, Morten Ebbe Juul Nielsen, Kieran Oberman, Serena Parekh, Phillipe
van Parijs, Martin Lemberg Pedersen, Tim Reeskens, Mathias Risse, Clara
Sandelind, Andrea Sangiovanni, Merlin Schaeffer, Garbi Schmidt, Shlomi Segall,
Kim Mannemar Sønderskov, Raymond Taras, Elizabeth Theiss- Morse, Lars
Torpe, Simon Turner, Eric Uslaner, Peter Vallentyne, Annamari Vitikainen,
Daniel Weinstock, Andrew Williams, and Matthew Wright.
x Preface
Furthermore, I am grateful to audiences at the Arctic University of Norway, the

European University Institute, Florence, Fundation Maison des Sciences de
l’Homme, Paris, Institut Barcelona D’Estudis Internationals, Central European
University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Linköping University, Malmö
University, McGill University, Roskilde University, Stanford University, University
of Aalborg, University of Aarhus, University of Antwerp, University of Cambridge,
University of Copenhagen, University of Fribourg, University of Gothenburg,
University of Lucca, University of Manchester, University of Oslo, University
of Oxford, University of Pavia, University of Southern Denmark, University of
Toronto, University of Warwick, and University College Dublin.
Most importantly, for their support and for being so cool to hang out with in
times of leisure, I’m grateful to my family: Adam, Anne Lise, Nuka, Sne, and Tristan.
Parts of this book derive from articles and chapters I have published elsewhere:
‘Why Rawls Was Right: Liberal Values and Social Cohesion’, in N. Holtug and
E. Uslaner (eds), National Identity and Social Cohesion (ECPR Press/Rowman &
Littlefield, 2021); ‘Global Equality and Open Borders’, in D. Sobel, P. Vallentyne,
and S. Wall (eds), Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, vol. 6 (Oxford University
Press, 2020); ‘Does Nationhood Promote Egalitarian Justice? Challenging the
National Identity Argument’, in G. Gustavsson and D. Miller (eds), Liberal
Nationalism and Its Critics. Normative and Empirical Questions (Oxford
University Press, 2019); ‘Identity, Causality and Social Cohesion’, Journal of Ethnic
and Migration Studies, 43/7, 2017; ‘Luck Egalitarianism and the Rights of
Immigrants’, Ratio Juris, 30/2, 2017; ‘Community Conceptions and Social
Cohesion. Theoretical, Empirical and Normative Issues’, in Michael Bøss (ed.),
Bringing Culture Back In. Human Security and Social Trust (Aarhus University
Press, 2016); ‘Multiculturalism and Social Cohesion’, in R. Hsu and C. Reinprecht
(eds), Migration and Integration: New Models for Mobility and Coexistence (Vienna
University Press, 2016); ‘Danish Multiculturalism, Where Art Thou?’, in R. Taras
(ed.), Challenging Multiculturalism. European Models of Diversity (Edinburgh
University Press, 2012); ‘The Cosmopolitan Strikes Back. A Critical Discussion
of Miller on Nationality and Global Equality’, Ethics and Global Politics, 4/3,
2011 (https://www.tandfonline.com/); ‘Immigration and the Politics of Social
Cohesion’, Ethnicities, 10/4, 2010; ‘Equality and Difference- blind Rights’, in
N. Holtug, K. Lippert-Rasmussen, and S. Lægaard (eds), Multiculturalism and
Nationalism in a World of Immigration (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). I am grateful
to the editors and publishers for permission to reuse this material.
1
Introduction
1.1 Immigration, Integration, and Social Cohesion
In contemporary liberal democracies, it is difficult to find a policy issue as div

isive as immigration. Elections are fought and sometimes won on immigration
issues and electorates are deeply torn over how to control immigration and to
manage diversity. Travel bans, non-arrival measures, and policies to render immi
gration less attractive are among the measures used to limit the influx of, in par
ticular, refugees and low-skilled migrant labour. Furthermore, xenophobia and
nationalism are highly visible in a number of countries, not least in response to
immigration. Nor is there any sign that these are political issues that are going to
go away, as people in poor countries experience economic progress and hence
increased prospects for mobility, the number of forcibly displaced persons
worldwide is at a record high of 70.8 million (UNHCR 2020), and estimates of
how many people will be displaced by 2050 by climate change alone range from
25 million to 1 billion (with 200 million being the most cited estimate; Byvaran and
Rajan 2010; IOM 2009). Simultaneously, policies of attracting foreign (in particu
lar skilled) labour are actively being pursued to solve demographic challenges, fill
shortages on labour markets, and boost national economies.
Immigration gives rise to ethnic diversity. And increasingly, this rise in diver
sity is accompanied by worries about, for example, parallel societies, ghettos, ter
rorism, religious extremism, xenophobia, nationalism, the incompatibility of
Western liberal values and the values immigrants bring with them, the educa
tional underachievement and crime rates of some groups of immigrants, and
whether immigration and diversity are compatible with redistribution in the form
of a robust welfare state. Very often, such worries are framed as worries about
social cohesion. Roughly, social cohesion refers to the ties that bind community
members together and facilitate cooperation, including trust, networks, reci
procity, belonging, and solidarity.
For example, it is suggested that immigrants are (self-)segregating into com
munities with no or few ties to the rest of society, where they maintain and
enforce their own values, which may in some cases be conservative or even
oppressive. These values, the argument goes, are at odds with liberal values such
as freedom of speech and gender equality. Furthermore, it is feared that immigra
tion undermines a sense of a shared national identity, where such an identity
forms the basis for cooperation among different groups and for the idea that
The Politics of Social Cohesion: Immigration, Community, and Justice. Nils Holtug, Oxford University Press.
© Nils Holtug 2021. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198797043.003.0001
2 Introduction
citizens are part of a common political project, which again serves as a basis for
an allegiance to the polity that transcends ethnic, religious, and other differences.
Of course, while often such worries are phrased as worries about immigration,
it is usually particular groups of immigrants that are considered problematic for
social cohesion. Thus, these worries do not typically extend to German engineers
who find employment in the UK or French economists who get university jobs in
the USA. Such worries are usually confined to non-Western immigrants who are
considered culturally different and very possibly an economic burden to the state.
In the case of Europe, it is in particular Muslim immigrants who are considered a
threat to liberal democracies and to social cohesion (Modood 2007: 12). Indeed,
slightly more than 50 per cent of Europeans hold either that no Muslim migrants,
or only a few, should be allowed entry (European Social Survey 2014: 6). This is
not to say that these worries pertain only to Muslim or more generally non-
European immigrants; consider, for example, debates over Roma immigrants in
various European countries and Eastern European immigrants in the UK.1 Nor is
it to say that these worries necessarily pertain to all non-Western immigrants;
consider, for example, Japanese computer programmers who go to work for IT
companies in Australia, Europe, or the USA. And in fact, Western states generally
rely on immigrants, Western or non-Western, to fill shortages on the labour mar
ket and for skills and entrepreneurship. For example, in the USA in 2016, 40 per
cent of firms on the Fortune 500 list were either founded by at least one immi
grant, or by a descendant of an immigrant (New American Economy 2016).
Public policies and debates reflect a desire to promote social cohesion in
response to challenges perceived to be due to diversity. Indeed, following the turn
of the millennium, it is no exaggeration to speak of a ‘social cohesion turn’ as
regards the framing of questions relating to immigration (as I argue in Chapter 2).
More specifically, the desire to promote social cohesion is reflected in both immi
gration policies that aim to control the number of immigrants or composition of
the immigrant group and in integration policies that aim to promote a national
identity that may unify citizens, including immigrants, and thus create the ties
that bind and underpin social cohesion.
As regards immigration policy, a particularly prominent idea is that immigra
tion tends to increase ethnic diversity, where ethnic diversity drives down social
cohesion as it undermines a sense of having a shared identity, where a shared
identity underpins important aspects of social cohesion such as trust, belonging,
cooperation, and solidarity. Furthermore, the idea is that this impact on social
cohesion will have a number of undesirable consequences for markets, social
1 The European Social Survey (2014: 6) shows even less support for the immigration of Romas than
for Muslims, with more than 60 per cent holding either that no Roma migrants, or only a few, should
be admitted.
Immigration, Integration, and Social Cohesion 3
interaction, democracy, and the welfare state. A particular version of the argu
ment relies on what has been labelled the ‘heterogeneity/redistribution trade-off
hypothesis’ (Banting and Kymlicka 2006: 3), according to which we need to
choose between diversity and egalitarian redistribution, that is, we cannot have
both, at least not at high levels. This trade-off has also been referred to as the
‘progressive’s dilemma’ (Goodhart 2004). And yet another way of framing it is as a
conflict between liberty (more specifically freedom of movement) and equality.
The argument concludes that immigration needs to be (severely) restricted.
As regards integration policy, again the idea is that social cohesion relies on a
shared identity, where this identity may be fostered or maintained by implement
ing policies that strengthen it. Often, such policies aim to strengthen a shared
identity at the national level, but may also target for example municipal identities.
At the national level, which is what I am mainly concerned with, policies aim to
define what it means to be British, French, or German and to secure allegiance to
the peoples and polities in which these national identities are embedded. Indeed,
the question of the importance of identity for social cohesion plays a prominent
role in this book.
More generally, in this book I consider in greater detail the significance of
social cohesion for social justice or, more specifically, the significance of immi
gration in liberal democratic societies for social cohesion and for the implemen
tation of socially just policies. My main focus is on distributive justice and
especially egalitarian redistribution, which, as pointed out above, is increasingly
perceived as threatened by diversity and its impact on social cohesion (see, for
example, Miller 2004). The aspects of social cohesion I primarily focus on are
trust and solidarity, where political theorists have generally considered these par
ticularly important social conditions for justice (Kymlicka 2001; Miller 2006;
Rawls 1971). Redistribution requires solidarity with other members of society
and it requires trust in other people to likewise comply with the requirements of
justice—for example, that they fill in their tax returns honestly. Very roughly, I
argue that the effects of immigration on social cohesion do not need to com
promise social justice and that core principles of liberty and equality not only
form the normative basis for just policies of immigration and integration, as a
matter of empirical fact, they are also the values that, if shared, are most likely to
produce the social cohesion among community members that provides the social
basis for implementing justice.
Assessing the significance of immigration for justice requires both an empir
ical understanding of the effects of immigration on social cohesion, and of social
cohesion on redistribution, and a normative framework from which to assess
these effects in terms of justice. Bertrand Russell (1945: xxiii) once said that ‘social
cohesion is a necessity, and mankind has never succeeded in enforcing cohesion
by merely rational arguments’, thus highlighting the significance of both political
4 Introduction
philosophy and the social dynamics of the communities in which cohesion is (or
is not) instantiated. And indeed, the present work is as much a book on social
science as it is a book on political philosophy. As regards justice, my argument is
based on principles of liberty such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
freedom of movement, and, in particular, a principle of equality. This reflects the
independent plausibility of these principles, for which I argue in Chapter 4, but
also the fact that the concerns for redistribution motivating the very worries
about social cohesion I discuss in the book are very often based on liberal con
cerns about equality.
I have sometimes encountered an objection to the sort of project I embark on
here, which comes from progressive scholars who are basically sympathetic to the
values I defend, but who are nevertheless somewhat sceptical when it comes to
inquiries into social cohesion in a context of diversity. They believe that the con
cern with social cohesion is part of a conservative and/or nationalist agenda that
aims at exclusion, the closing of borders, and striping immigrants of their rights,
or at least that it will be used to this effect. And indeed, much of the recent inter
est in social cohesion has come from conservative or nationalist politicians, the
orists, and think tanks.
Likewise, and sometimes in tandem with the above concern, some theorists
have more theoretical worries about the categories used in at least some social
cohesion research. These worries pertain to the construction of a native ‘we’ and
an immigrant ‘they’, where these groups are supposedly well-defined and homo
geneous. Furthermore, such worries may pertain to what is considered a prob
lematic methodological nationalism (Wimmer and Schiller 2003), where the
nation is assumed to be a primary source of identification and a primary object of
inquiry (cf. Kymlicka 2015: 2). An objection is therefore that people’s identifica
tions and loyalties are likely to be far more diverse, and indeed include both local
and transnational communities.
I believe that there is nevertheless good reason to engage with research on
social cohesion in diverse societies. First, it would simply be unwise to ignore the
social basis for just institutions and not least for more demanding such institu
tions, pursuing egalitarian redistribution, insofar as we want these institutions to
thrive. As I shall return to in Chapter 3 (Sections 3.2–3.4), social cohesion is
important for a large number of political, economic, and social goods. Since we
cannot simply assume that social cohesion will be unaffected by current and
future societal changes, including not least the impact of globalization, it would
be unwise not to try to understand the basic mechanisms behind the emergence,
maintenance, and strengthening of such cohesion. Second, nation states are some
of the most important distributors of rights and advantages, which makes it
important to study the social basis for these benefits at the national level. Third,
there is indeed reason to sometimes challenge both the construction of groups
Immigration, Integration, and Social Cohesion 5
and assumptions about national identification. In fact, this is in itself an important

contribution to research on social cohesion. And fourth, since the hypothesis that
national identity or other identities are important for social cohesion has gained
a great deal of prominence in both politics and research, it certainly seems
worthwhile to inquire into whether it is true, and if so, what the implications are
for various policy issues.
As regards the worry that research into social cohesion in diverse societies
contributes to a conservative agenda, it is worth pointing out that social cohesion
has not only been a concern of conservatives. It has also been a concern of liberals
who, for example, worry about the progressive’s dilemma and the maintenance of
a redistributive, egalitarian welfare state. In different ways, this is a concern that
finds expression in David Miller’s (2004) liberal nationalism and in Will
Kymlicka’s (1995) liberal multiculturalism. Indeed, Kymlicka (2015: 17–20) holds
that nation-building projects and the we–they dichotomies they harbour may
serve the purpose of mobilizing national solidarity against class privilege. He
combines this view with the claim that national identities in diverse societies
should include a multicultural accommodation of ethnic (and other) minorities,
whether they are indigenous or immigrant.
Furthermore, while both Miller and Kymlicka subscribe to liberal nationalism,
other liberals have rejected nationalism altogether in their account of social cohe
sion as a basis for social justice. For example, in his pioneering work on the stabil
ity of a (purely) liberal conception of justice, John Rawls (1971) argued that the
institutional and distributive effects of such a conception would include trust and
solidarity at levels adequate for securing its maintenance over time. And in the
present book, where I consider in greater detail the progressive’s dilemma as well
as claims about what communal identities, if any, support social cohesion, my
conclusions are neither conservative nor nationalist. Thus, the framework for
which I argue is cosmopolitan, liberal, and to some extent multicultural, both at
the level of basic normative principles and as regards the values that underpin the
trust and solidarity required to implement these principles in institutions. This
also means that I reject the restricted scope of justice endorsed by nationalists
such as Miller and statists such as Rawls, and argue that our basic principles of
justice have global scope. In this regard, I depart from the methodological nation
alism that favours nation states as appropriate loci of analysis.
Progressives, then, and in particular liberal egalitarians and liberal multicul
turalists, have nothing to fear from research on social cohesion and the social
basis for justice, or at least so I argue. In fact, quite the contrary. The concern for
liberty and equality motivates a concern for fraternity in the form of social cohe
sion, resulting in a triad of values that echoes the slogan of the French Revolution.
And fraternity itself is not based on nationalism or conservatism, but on liberal
values and their implementation in just institutions.
6 Introduction
1.2 Methods, Principles, and Facts
As transpires from the above, this book engages with both normative and empir
ical issues. It engages with normative issues of what justice requires in the field of
migration and with empirical issues such as whether social cohesion can be sus
tained in diverse societies, as well as whether social cohesion depends on shared
values, for example in the form of a shared national identity. In many cases, the
normative and empirical issues are intertwined, such as in the question of how
best to promote social justice under conditions of diversity, where specific mech
anisms of in-group bias and out-group prejudice may be in play, and of whether,
and if so how, immigration should be regulated in light of the challenges it may
pose for social cohesion.
However, the issue of how to integrate (relevant) empirical work in normative
reasoning has led to a great deal of controversy in recent political theory, not least
when it comes to the significance of psychological (or motivational) feasibility
restrictions on theories of social justice. Since the significance of such empirical
concerns are central to the present investigation, I now consider in some detail
how to integrate them, which involves distinguishing between different levels of
political thinking. I first outline my own views on the content of, and relation
between, these levels and the implications this has for the methodology I employ.
Then I turn to the question of how this account differs from views and methods
employed by a number of other political theorists, including Rawlsian ideal the
orists, political realists, and contextualists. This also allows me to respond to vari
ous objections.2 For readers who have little interest in these methodological
issues, this section can be skipped.
Like Gerald Cohen (2003; 2008: ch. 6), I believe that, at the most basic level,
and in a certain sense, normative political philosophy is purely normative. That is,
at this level, principles and their justification rely only on purely normative claims
and so not on any factual ones (except insofar as the latter invoke purely norma
tive facts, if any such facts exist). Let me exemplify this with the two principles of
equality I primarily engage with in the book. One is luck egalitarianism, accord
ing to which it is unjust if, through no responsibility of their own, some individ
uals have lower levels of advantages than others. This principle does not rely on
any empirical assumptions about, for example, the nature or sociality of human
beings. It does, of course, rely on accounts of responsibility and of what advan
tages are, but these will themselves be normative accounts.
Likewise, luck egalitarianism relies on a specification of what individuals are.
Here, it may be suggested it implicitly relies on an empirical fact in that it has
2 This section, then, primarily deals with the relation between normative and empirical claims
when theorizing about justice. For a more general account of methodology in political philosophy, see
Holtug 2010a: 7–14.
Methods, Principles, and Facts 7
restricted scope and applies only to, say, human beings (or sentient beings), where
its scope is thus restricted because of certain capacities that human beings (or
sentient beings) have, such as the capacity for autonomy (or for sentience).
However, the relevance of the fact that human (or sentient) beings are capable of
autonomy (or sentience) relies on a purely normative claim that explains its rele
vance for equality, such as for example the claim that (only) autonomous (or sen
tient) beings are entitled to such equality. It is because only autonomous (sentient)
individuals are entitled to equality that the scope of luck egalitarianism is
restricted to autonomous (sentient) beings (such as human beings). Thus, there is
something about autonomy (sentience) that makes it appropriate that those who
possess it are, in the manner specified in the principle, equals.
The other egalitarian principle I engage with is equality of opportunity, accord
ing to which it is unjust if individuals do not have equal opportunities for acquir
ing a range of goods, including offices and positions, income, education, health
care, and for practising their religion and culture, that is, if they do not have the
same prospects for doing so regardless of their lot in the social lottery. Here, the
social lottery refers to the different social backgrounds into which children are
born and that impact their access to opportunities. This principle introduces both
a number of goods (offices and positions, income, etc.) and a particular mechan
ism (the social lottery) that should not be allowed to determine unequal pros
pects for acquiring these goods, where both the goods and the mechanism reflect
specific modes of social organization. Thus, the principle reflects certain empirical
facts about how human beings (under certain conditions) organize themselves and
what, given such organization, are important goods for people to have access to.
Nevertheless, ultimately, the relevance of these goods must be justified in
purely normative terms. For example, income is an important distributive good
because, and under circumstances in which, it promotes people’s basic interests
and/or autonomy (the possibility of leading a life according to one’s own plans
and commitments). Thus, the significance of income is justified in terms of nor
mative ideals such as the value of interest-fulfilment and/or personal autonomy.
Likewise, while the social lottery describes a specifically human source of inequal
ity, the relevance of this source is that, as Rawls puts it, it is arbitrary from a moral
point of view, that is, it is a source of inequality that does not reflect people’s
responsible agency or what they can be said to deserve. Thus, the significance of
the social lottery is justified with reference to normative concerns about the role
of responsibility and deserts.
Thus, there is a level of normative political thinking that relies only on norma
tive claims, and so not on (non-normative) facts. Let me emphasize that I am not
arguing that normative claims at this level need to be very general in nature. In
fact, they may be as particular as one likes, as long as they are universalizable
(Hare 1963: ch. 3). This also implies that my proposed view is compatible with
Rawls’ method of reflective equilibrium, according to which principles of justice
8 Introduction
and considered moral judgements about cases are mutually supportive. I do not
challenge the view that judgements about particular cases serve to justify norma
tive principles (and vice versa). Of course, at this level of political thinking, such
judgements must either be purely normative or, to the extent they invoke empir
ical facts, these facts are ultimately relevant for purely normative reasons. So if,
for example, we hold that states have an obligation to cater for refugees, this may
be taken to provide some support for a particular principle that has this implica
tion, for example, a principle of humanitarianism. Now, the judgement that states
have an obligation to cater for refugees is purely normative. But suppose that, if
asked to motivate this judgement, we point to the vulnerability of refugees. This is
at least in part an empirical statement. Nevertheless, arguably, for the vulnerability
of refugees to be relevant, there must be some purely normative reason why this is
so, for example, that there is a pro tanto moral reason to cater for the vulnerable.
I should also emphasize that I am not suggesting that, at this basic level of nor
mative political thinking, empirical matters, or empirical cases, cannot play a role
in developing principles. Reflection on such cases may, for example, allow us to
focus on normative aspects we might otherwise have missed. For example, reflec
tion on the plight of migrants in destination societies may make us more sensitive
to the importance of, say, being able to practise and express one’s culture and reli
gion on an equal footing.
This, of course, does not mean that empirical claims have only a limited role to
play in our political thinking, because there are after all other levels than the one
described above. Often, we want to answer normative questions of what to do in
particular circumstances, where these circumstances are characterized by facts,
or at least factual claims. For example, given our best assessment of the impact of
various forms of diversity on different aspects of social cohesion, what should our
immigration policies look like? To answer that question, we need to know some
thing about the impact of diversity on social cohesion. However, given our assess
ment of the facts, it is our (purely) normative principles that ultimately determine
how we should respond to them. Nevertheless, we need both facts and values to
answer questions of this kind.
Sometimes, there will be limitations on the extent to which we can bring about
the outcomes we have most reason to bring about, given our normative prin
ciples. Limitations of this kind have various sources, including uncertainty about
the outcomes of actions and policies that are available to us as well as psycho
logical dispositions and sociological and economic dynamics that make it difficult
to realize the outcomes that, according to our principles, would be best. To exem
plify, some would argue that in-group favouritism and out-group prejudice make
it difficult to uphold social justice, and in particular egalitarian redistribution, in
a citizenry that is too diverse. Likewise, such psychological mechanisms could
make it difficult to fully implement cosmopolitan principles of the kind I defend
in Chapter 6. Furthermore, uncertainty may sometimes pertain to the extent to

which, because of such mechanisms, citizens will respond negatively to, or be
unwilling to vote for, redistributive policies that include immigrants, or cosmo
politan policies that impose sacrifices to benefit people in other countries, and
uncertainty may likewise pertain to the extent to which it is possible, through
policies, to modify these mechanisms.
Various limitations on our ability to promote the outcomes that, according to
our principles, we have most reason to bring about suggest that we will some
times have to settle for something less. And this means that there is a level of
political thinking at which we need to take into account limitations pertaining to,
for example, risk, psychological dispositions, and social and economic dynamics.
Now, it will be convenient to have terms to refer to these different levels of polit
ical thinking, so I shall refer to the basic, purely normative level as the basic level
of justice and the second level, which is sensitive to empirical claims, as the regula-
tive level of justice (in line with Cohen’s (2008: 263–72) labelling of principles at
the latter level as ‘rules of regulation’). Importantly, by referring to the first level as
‘basic’ I am not suggesting that it is somehow more important. And indeed, in the
present book I am primarily engaging with the regulative level.
At the regulative level of justice, the main question I shall be concerned with is
what policies we have most reason to implement, given the available empirical
facts, including facts about the motivations and biases of agents. At this level, it
will sometimes be better to aim for an outcome that is less than optimal, but
nevertheless easier to achieve, given, for example, our actual motivations and
other psychological dispositions. In order to do so, we need principles both to
rank outcomes and actions or policies, taking into account the likelihood that the
various outcomes will result from these policies. For the purpose of decision-
making, psychological limitations and so forth can be factored in by adjusting
probabilities of outcomes. So if, for example, it turns out that high levels of trust
and solidarity are difficult to achieve at the societal level in the absence of a shared
identity, outcomes containing high such levels may be assigned a lower probabil
ity when assessing policies that are unlikely to secure such an identity. This
description is of course somewhat ideal in the sense that policy choice will very
often be much less formal than what it suggests. But there are many ways in which
probabilities may be recognized in decision-making, where for example some
weight is attached to the belief that a certain outcome is difficult to achieve.
To avoid misunderstandings, let me emphasize that I am not suggesting that, at
the regulative level, we should simply take, for example, facts about biases and
partiality for granted. First, biases are not set in stone but may be modifiable
though policy. For example, as transpires from a number of studies in social
psychology, identities and the associated in-group biases are to some extent
modifiable, such that more overarching and more inclusive identities can be
10 Introduction
created that decrease bias (Dovidio et al. 1997; Dovidio, Gaertner, and
Saguy 2010). This should of course be reflected in the available policy options.
Second, presumably there are ways of expressing biases that should be ruled out
as a matter of law, including racist acts and preferential hiring based on prejudice.
And third, even if there is a limit to how much unjustifiable bias we can overcome,
our political theory should still enable us to say that the resulting outcomes are
unjust, and in this way it can condemn our biases. Indeed, my account of the basic
level of justice allows us to do this, exactly because it refuses to impose empirical
limitations at this level. Only if a certain bias is strictly impossible to overcome
our failure to do so will (perhaps) be exempt from criticism, assuming, that is, that
in some appropriate sense ‘ought implies can’.
I should also emphasize that I am not assuming that bringing about the best
outcomes should be our only aim. Thus, perhaps there are constraints on the
kinds of actions or policies that may be used to promote good outcomes. For
example, perhaps freedom of speech should not be restricted in a given respect
even if, on particular occasions, doing so would make for a better outcome, say
because it would allow us to limit the impact of various extremist voices (Baron,
Pettit, and Slote 1997: 162–63). Or perhaps freedom of movement should not be
restricted even if a better outcome could be secured by doing so, say because of
effects of immigration on social cohesion. I am leaving the question of agent-
relative constraints open for now, although I shall have more to say about it in
Chapter 6 (Section 6.12), due to a potential conflict between freedom of move
ment and global equality. However, whatever we say about constraints, often we
will want to produce good outcomes, where outcomes may be good with respect
to, for example, equality and the levels of advantages people are able to enjoy.
I shall be engaging with these different levels of political thinking at various
stages of the book. For example, in most of Chapter 4 and parts of Chapter 6, I
shall primarily engage with the basic level of justice. This is where I develop the
normative principles I believe our policies should conform to. Elsewhere, I engage
with purely empirical questions, such as what the impact is of diversity on trust
and solidarity, and whether sharing a national identity is necessary for high levels
of social cohesion. And finally, I engage with regulative questions of how, given
certain empirical facts or empirical evidence about, for example, social cohesion,
we should devise our immigration and integration policies. This also means that I
will be adopting different methodologies in different stages, where empirical
claims will impact my conclusions in some of these stages but not in others.
I now want to more briefly compare my favoured account of normative reason
ing, and in particular the role of normative and empirical claims in such reason
ing, with some alternative accounts that are prevalent in the literature. Consider,
first, Rawls’ account of ideal and non-ideal theory. Rawls’ aim is first and foremost
to develop an ideal theory of the principles of justice that should regulate society’s
basic institutions. In ideal theory, people’s strict compliance with the principles of
justice is assumed as is the existence of favourable conditions for a constitutional
democracy (Rawls 1971: 245; Stemplowska and Swift 2012: 2–4). Furthermore,
general facts about, for example, human psychology are taken into account, such
that we should not adopt principles we cannot or find it very difficult to comply
with (Rawls 1971: 145). Indeed, compliance is an important aspect of Rawls’
(1971: 454) notion of stability, where the stability of a conception of justice in
turn is an important aspect of its justifiability (I consider Rawls’ notion of stability
in greater detail in Chapter 8, Section 8.3). In non-ideal theory, on the other hand,
we should devise principles for the actual, non-ideal circumstances in which we
find ourselves, where for example full compliance may be difficult to obtain. One
of the purposes of ideal theory is to guide non-ideal theory by setting up the aims
we should ultimately be striving for.
Rawls’ theory differs from the one employed here in that at the most basic
level, which for him is ideal theory, he allows empirical facts about for example
compliance and stability to affect the choice of principles of justice. I, on the other
hand, have suggested that such and other empirical claims do not have a role to
play here (cf. Cohen 2008: 327–30). Indeed, I believe that Rawls’ view on this is
misguided. First, this is because, for theoretical reasons and as argued above, the
justification of normative principles in political philosophy must ultimately
appeal to purely normative considerations.
Second, Rawls’ ideal theory is incapable of condemning injustices that flow
from general facts of moral psychology. To illustrate this point, consider Rawls’
claim that economic incentives may be just insofar as they make the talented
work harder, where this in turn benefits the worst off (say, because resources are
redistributed through taxation). Rawls (1971: 302) believes that the resulting
inequalities can be justified with reference to his difference principle, according
to which the worst-off group should be as well off as possible. Nevertheless, if the
talented could have chosen to work harder even in the absence of incentives, there
is still a sense in which the society in question harbours unjust inequality
(Cohen 2008: 27–86). After all, had the talented chosen to work harder without
requiring extra incentives (that is, incentives that enable them to become better
off than others and exceed what can be justified with reference to the additional
burden of working harder), the extra fruits of their labour could have been shared
more equally and thus made the worst off (even) better off. However, because he
allows empirical facts about labour motivation to impact theory-choice in ideal
theory, Rawls sees no injustice in this (cf. Cohen 2008: 300; Armstrong 2017).
Likewise, by parity of reasoning, he may see no injustice in increases in inequality
that are caused by, for example, people responding to diversity by becoming less
solidaristic, insofar as this reflects a general fact of human psychology, even if
they could in some appropriate sense have chosen to respond differently.
12 Introduction
Readers will no doubt differ on how to respond to these examples of incentives

and of the impact of diversity on solidarity, so let me also mention a different case
that, presumably, has wider intuitive appeal. Consider a society in which racism is
so commonplace and so deeply ingrained in the beliefs, dispositions, and emo
tional life of the racial majority that widespread racism cannot be eliminated, at
least not in the short-to-medium term. Whatever policies are (attempted to be)
implemented, slavery and so forth will continue to exist. Indeed, this is secured
by a combination of the present practices and psychological states of the racial
majority in combination with general psychological laws and mechanisms. Surely
the fact that, in the short-to-medium term, racism cannot be done away with in
this society does not imply that criticism isn’t warranted on account of justice.
Third, and relatedly, by introducing empirical constraints on theory-choice in
ideal theory, Rawls runs a risk of endorsing less attractive social institutions than
might have been achieved. More precisely, by claiming that, even in ideal theory,
we should not adopt principles people may find it difficult to comply with, the
aims we use to inform non-ideal theory may be less ambitious than would have
been optimal. Instead of considering how close we can get to a certain (ideal) aim,
A, we are considering how close we can get to a different (less ideal) aim, A* (less
ideal because it reflects various limitations of ours that make A harder to achieve).
And there is no guarantee that what is likely to get us closest to A* is also what is
likely to get us closest to A. Thus, we may end up with a sub-optimal policy.
Indeed, this is not mere speculation. More ambitious policies may sometimes
have better expected consequences, even assuming that there will only be partial
compliance, than less ambitious policies that are more likely to secure full com
pliance. And so even if Rawls drops the requirement of full compliance in non-
ideal theory, the aim that ultimately informs non-ideal theory on his account will
already reflect this requirement.
Like Rawlsians, so-called ‘political realists’ will object to the proposed account
of basic and regulative justice, albeit for different reasons. One aspect of political
realism is the claim that politics is a separate sphere of normative concern and, in
particular, that moral ideals do not apply here (Rossi and Sleat 2014; Galston 2010:
390–94). For example, politics may pertain specifically to Hobbesian concerns
such as order, protection, safety, and so forth and may appeal to norms that are
inherent in political practices (Galston 2010: 400). I disagree with this claim
about spheres of normativity, but here I want to focus on another—although
connected—aspect of political realism, namely the suggestion that mainstream
political philosophy is ‘unrealistic—utopian, naïve, overambitious, idealistic’
(Stemplowska and Swift 2012: 7). This suggestion is often directed specifically at
Rawls’ ideal theory (Galston 2010: 395), which unrealistically assumes for example
strict compliance, and it will apply to an even greater extent to my proposed
(super-ideal) basic level of justice. Thus, according to political realists, mainstream
‘moralist’ political philosophy leaves out important aspects of the human psyche;
‘anger, hatred, the urge to dominate, the desire to destroy’ (Galston 2010: 398).
Clearly, such concerns will also apply to issues of migration, and in political science,
political realists such as Myron Weiner (1993) have stressed that migration can
have destabilizing effects and raises security concerns in Western countries.
The objection under consideration is that basic justice violates all kinds of
feasibility conditions and is, in virtue of this, potentially dangerous (in that trying
to implement very ideal, unrealistic aims may have very harmful consequences).
Note, incidentally, that this is an objection that may also be pushed by many the
orists who do not self-identify as political realists. However, as should be obvious
from the discussion above, this objection conflates different levels of political
thinking. Thus, policymaking operates at the level of regulative, not basic justice.
And as regards principles of regulation, there is in principle no limit to the level of
empirical specificity that may be taken into account, including antisocial psycho
logical dispositions. In fact, such psychological dispositions may impact both the
value of outcomes and the probabilities that specific outcomes will result from
particular policies. Of course, trying to cater for all of this is in practice a highly
complex and difficult task, but there is no good alternative to doing so, and
political realism does not suggest otherwise.
Furthermore, while realists are preoccupied with trying to fend off highly
undesirable outcomes such as the breakdown of the state, or civil war, rather than
the creation of social utopias, the methodological account I have proposed does
not automatically favour the latter. Indeed, while I have suggested that at the level
of regulative justice, we should be sensitive to both the value of outcomes and
their probabilities, I have so far left it open how, more precisely, we should do so.
Thus, for example, it is possible to introduce risk aversion into a social welfare
function, or to adopt a (suitably clarified) version of the precautionary principle.
Likewise, our principles of distributive justice may give more weight to avoiding
very harmful conditions than to securing very beneficial conditions for individuals.
The objector may now retreat to the position that while the proposed method
ology is capable of catering for feasibility concerns, it does so in a manner that
renders the basic level of justice largely irrelevant for politics. However, this would
be to neglect the role that basic principles play on the regulative level. Thus, as
argued, these principles set the aims that principles or policies at the regulative
level should promote, even if this is in some cases done by, for example, adopting
other aims that are likely to actually bring us closer to realizing our basic-level
aims. What our basic-level principles and values do is to give our regulative efforts
direction.
The final alternative to my account of basic and regulative justice I want to
consider is contextualism. Now, contextualism is by no means a unified doctrine
(for a helpful overview of different forms, see Lægaard 2016), and some forms are
14 Introduction
perhaps entirely compatible with the claims I have made in this section. Consider,
for example, Joseph Carens’ (2000: 2) ‘contextual inquiry’ into diversity and just
ice, where his ‘basic strategy throughout is to move back and forth between the
ory and context, articulating intuitive judgements about cases in terms of
theoretical principles and critically assessing theoretical formulations in light of
implications for particular cases’. Indeed, and as Carens (2000: 4) himself remarks,
this resembles Rawls’ method of reflective equilibrium and, as argued above, that
method is certainly compatible with what I have argued, even at the level of basic
justice.
David Miller puts forward a different form of contextualism that is, on the
other hand, incompatible with the proposed methodology. Thus, he explicitly dis
tances himself from the view that, at the most basic level, normative political
philosophy is ‘fact-insensitive’, a view he refers to as the ‘Starship Enterprise view
of political philosophy’ (Miller 2013: 18). The label derives from the suggestion
that, on the fact-insensitive view, Captain Kirk and his fellow intergalactic travel
lers would be able to devise suitable normative principles that, when encounter
ing new civilizations, they could indiscriminately apply, where these basic
principles would of course lead to different regulative policies in different kinds of
societies. According to Miller, this approach is misguided and should be replaced
with an approach that renders basic principles sensitive to empirical facts about
the societies whose institutions they regulate. More specifically, an allocation of,
for example, resources ‘will depend on which kind of relationship obtains
[between individuals in the specific context]’ (Miller 2013: 48). Principles such as
democracy, equality, and social justice do not apply unconditionally, but only in
particular kinds of societies (Miller 2013: 35). On Miller’s (2013: 37) account,
political philosophers must then also be social scientists, who know the specifici
ties of the societies or contexts they aim to devise principles for, and in particular
what principles are feasible in those particular contexts.
We need to distinguish between two related but nevertheless distinct aspects of
Miller’s approach, that might easily be conflated, namely his fact-sensitivity and
his ‘ethical particularism’ (Miller 1995: ch. 3). Ethical particularism is character
ized by attaching ethical significance to certain kinds of partiality, even at the
level of basic justice. The main idea is that individuals are ‘already encumbered
with a variety of ties and commitments to particular other agents, or to groups or
collectivities, and they begin their ethical reasoning from those commitments’
(Miller 1995: 50). Miller’s particularism also forms the basis for his defence of
liberal nationalism: ‘the particularist defence of nationality begins with the
assumption that membership and attachments in general have ethical signifi
cance’ (Miller 1995: 65). Thus, according to Miller, people have stronger obliga
tions towards their co-nationals than towards non-nationals, where this is due to
the nature of the relation of co-nationality.
Fact-sensitivity and particularism are tied together in Miller’s account in the

sense that he develops his particularist views on justice on the basis of an analysis
of people’s actual attachments, but they are nevertheless distinct phenomena.
Thus, my account of the basic level of justice does not rule out particularism, or
nationalism for that matter. For the latter to apply at the basic level, we need only
assume a (purely) normative explanation of why nationality is a relevant feature
of a principle of justice. Thus, while I shall argue that our basic principles of just
ice should not, for example, have nationality-based restrictions on scope, this is
not something that simply flows from the methodology employed. Rather, it
requires a separate argument.
This, of course, is not to say that our methodological approach will not make a
difference for which theory we end up with. This is perhaps most easily seen if we
consider the significance Miller attaches to feasibility, even at the most funda
mental level of justice (Miller 2013: 37). Feasibility plays an important role in
Miller’s argument for nationalism, for example as regards his suggestion that a
citizenry cannot achieve the level of solidarity required for distributive justice
unless it shares a national identity (Miller 2004; Miller and Ali 2014). On my pro
posed account, on the other hand, feasibility does not play a role at the basic level
of justice, although it does of course play a significant role at the regulative level.
And, as suggested above, our choice of basic-level principles is likely to make a
difference for the regulative policies we end up endorsing, and to the extent we
impose empirically based restrictions at the former level we may end up with less
just institutions than we might foreseeably have had. Furthermore, to the extent
we at the basic level impose, for example, bias-based motivational restrictions we
deprive ourselves of characterizing the resulting social arrangements as unjust
(just as Rawls’ concern for compliance in ideal theory prevents him from seeing
special incentives for the talented as unjust).
As regard Miller’s argument for fact-sensitivity at the basic level, it seems to me
flawed. He argues that empirical claims may in fact ground basic principles in the
sense that had we not believed these claims, we would not have held the prin
ciples. For example, the claim that liberty has intrinsic value may be grounded on
the fact that humans have self-consciousness—had humans lacked the capacity
for self-conscious choice, we would not hold the principle (Miller 2013: 24).
However, even if we assume that only self-conscious individuals fall within the
scope of liberty, it is difficult to see why we should hold that, in a world in which
human beings do not possess self-consciousness, it would not have intrinsic value
for self-conscious individuals to enjoy liberty. Suppose, for example, that in this
world, there are self-conscious, non-human extra-terrestrials who have very simi
lar constitutions to what we have in the actual world. How could we reasonably
deny that it would be valuable if they were to live free lives? In fact, plausibly
assuming that the requirement of universalizability applies across possible worlds
16 Introduction
(Hare 1981: ch. 6), it is doubtful that we can consistently deny this. Therefore, the
fact that we do possess self-consciousness seems of little significance as to whether
we have reason to hold that liberty for self-conscious individuals has intrinsic
value. Therefore, it is unclear how that fact can ground the latter claim.3
This completes my account of my favoured normative methodology. In light of
it, I will try to make clear at various points which level of justice, the basic or the
regulative, I am engaging with. Also, I will to a considerable extent be dividing up
chapters and sections to reflect this distinction, simply because, as noted, differ
ent kinds of considerations are relevant when dealing with, respectively, basic and
regulative level questions. Finally, I want to briefly point out that this is a highly
interdisciplinary inquiry, and as I am engaging with both normative political
philosophy and a number of empirical issues pertaining to diversity and social
cohesion, presumably there will be readers who are less familiar with some of the
domains I address. I shall try to avoid assuming too much familiarity with these
different knowledge domains and to present my arguments in a straightforward
and, as far as possible, non-technical manner.
The way in which I engage with empirical claims and theories, I take it, is less
controversial. To a large extent, I shall be surveying the existing literature on, for
example, the impact of ethnic diversity, and of national identity, on trust and soli
darity. Where available, I shall in particular rely on meta-studies. Since, on several
of these issues, there is considerable disagreement about what the available
empirical evidence actually tells us (for example, on the question of whether
diversity drives down social cohesion), I shall provide a somewhat comprehen
sive account of available studies, rather than simply synthesize what I take to be
the overall lessons to be learned from this field of research. This will make it easier
to follow how I reach the conclusions I do. In a few cases, I shall also be reporting
findings from a survey on diversity and social values I conducted with two col
leagues, with the aim of testing the relationship between holding particular val
ues, for example nationalist ones, and trust and solidarity (Breidahl, Holtug, and
Kongshøj 2018).
1.3 Overview of the Book
In Chapter 2, I demonstrate just how preoccupied contemporary liberal democra

cies are with the impact of immigration on social cohesion, and how they have
3 Now, perhaps Miller’s point is rather that in a world in which we had never developed self-
consciousness, we would never have come to hold that liberty holds intrinsic value. This, however, is
irrelevant. In a world in which we all had the cognitive powers of an infant, we would never have come
to hold that pain is intrinsically bad, but surely that would not prevent pain from being intrinsic
ally bad.
Overview of the Book 17
responded to such concerns with nation-building policies and an emphasis on

shared values. More specifically, I consider four country cases, namely Canada,
Denmark, France, and the UK and explain similarities and differences in how
they have responded to concerns about diversity and social cohesion through
nation-building, relying to various degrees on nationalist, liberal, republican, and
multicultural community conceptions, that is, conceptions of the social basis for
intergroup relations and cooperation.
In Chapter 3, I turn to the question of what, more precisely, social cohesion is
and why it is important. I also explain in greater detail the case for thinking that
trust and solidarity are especially important for egalitarian redistribution, and
consider different accounts of their sources. This includes a discussion of stra
tegic, institutional, and moral models for trust and solidarity, welfare regime the
ory, and how perceptions of deservingness are fundamental for solidarity. I also
provide some initial reflections on how immigration and diversity might impact
these dimensions of social cohesion. Furthermore, I introduce the ‘identity thesis’,
according to which sharing an identity tends to promote such cohesion, and dis
tinguish between different types of mechanisms that might explain it. This thesis
lies at the heart of concerns about the impact of diversity on social cohesion.
Finally, I introduce the concept of a ‘community conception’ and explain how dif
ferent such conceptions differ as regards the values that, if shared, are thought
conducive to social cohesion. This chapter provides a theoretical background for
the chapters to come.
Then, in Chapter 4, I turn to normative political philosophy and introduce and
defend the liberal egalitarian framework that provides the normative basis for my
assessment of policies that aim to promote social cohesion in diverse liberal
democracies. Apart from the basic liberties, this framework includes a concern
for equality, where I distinguish between (and develop versions of) equality of
opportunity and luck egalitarianism, and point out that both these egalitarian
theories can be used to support my conclusions about immigration and integra
tion policies. I also argue that both theories should be sensitive to inequality of
religious and cultural opportunities, and argue that the concern for equality
sometimes speaks in favour of multicultural policies.
In the next two chapters, I consider an influential argument for severely limit
ing immigration, based on the progressive’s dilemma. More specifically, I consider
what I call the ‘social cohesion argument for restrictive immigration policies’,
according to which immigration leads to ethnic diversity, and ethnic diversity
drives down trust and solidarity and so the social basis for egalitarian redistribu
tion. This is unfortunate, since states should bring about (substantive) equality. In
Chapter 5, I lay out the argument in greater detail, emphasizing both its empirical
and normative premises. Furthermore, I critically discuss the premise that ethnic
diversity drives down trust and solidarity, primarily by reviewing the large
18 Introduction
empirical literature on the impact of diversity on these aspects of social cohesion.

I argue that the evidence is less clear than it is often thought, and that even in
studies that do find a negative effect of diversity, it tends to be small. Furthermore,
I argue that there are a number of ways in which states can moderate negative
impacts diversity may have on social cohesion, to the extent there are such
impacts, where these relate to out-group contact, equality, institutions (emphasiz
ing, in particular, universal, social democratic welfare regimes), integration
regimes, political discourses, and community-building. Finally, I consider a num
ber of theoretical explanations for why diversity might be expected to drive down
trust and solidarity, including the ‘sympathy account’ (which relies on in-group
bias and social identity theory) and the ‘predictability account’ (which relies on
rational choice theory) and argue that they do not ultimately support the social
cohesion argument for restrictive immigration policies.
In Chapter 6, I turn to the normative premise in the argument, according to
which states should bring about (substantive) equality. I point out that it assumes
a particular version of this premise, according to which equality has domestic
scope only (the focus is, after all, only on the impact of immigration in the receiv
ing society). However, as I then go on to argue, equality has global scope. Thus,
I raise doubts about both the empirical and normative premises of the social
cohesion argument. I provide an argument for why equality of opportunity and
luck egalitarianism have global scope and also criticize nationalist and statist
justifications for domestically scoped equality. Then I argue that immigration,
and in particular South–North migration of the kind that worries proponents of
the social cohesion argument, has a positive impact on global equality, due to the
fact that migrants can achieve a higher standard of living and tend to send back
remittances to their families in their country of origin. I also consider a number
of objections to this argument and argue that while immigration policy is not the
most important policy for improving global equality, more open borders never
theless have a role to play.
In the final three chapters, I turn from immigration policy to integration pol
icy, that is, given a certain level of immigration, what should states do to secure
immigrant integration into the wider society? More specifically, I consider
nation-building or community-building policies that aim to promote social cohe
sion through the promotion of shared values at the societal level. Each chapter
considers a particular community conception. Chapter 7, on nationalism,
addresses the so-called ‘national identity argument’, according to which a shared
national identity fosters social cohesion and is required for or at least facilitates
egalitarian redistribution. First, I argue that the prospect for nation-building pol
icies, built on the idea of a shared national culture, is severely restricted by the
liberal egalitarian requirements of justice for which I have argued in Chapter 4.
Then I consider in greater detail the causal mechanism through which a national
Overview of the Book 19
culture is supposed to promote trust and solidarity and argue that it is not really
supported by, for example, social identity theory and evidence from social psych
ology. Finally, I turn to empirical studies of the effect of national identity on trust
and solidarity and argue that these do not support the national identity argu
ment either.
In Chapter 8, I consider a different community conception, namely liberalism.
I argue that liberal values of freedom and equality not only form the basis for
social justice (as argued in Chapter 4), but that shared liberal values also provide a
social basis for trust, solidarity, and egalitarian redistribution. More specifically,
I argue that shared liberal values have positive institutional, redistributive, and
direct value effects on social cohesion. Rawls made similar claims, but I provide a
more thorough argument and, unlike Rawls, back it up with empirical evidence.
First, shared liberal values facilitate electoral support for universal, social demo
cratic welfare states, which are conducive to institutional and generalized trust
and redistributive solidarity. Second, shared liberal values facilitate electoral sup
port for egalitarian redistribution, where socio-economic equality tends to pro
mote trust and solidarity. And third, shared liberal values have direct value effects,
where people who share such values tend to have a more inclusive conception of
their in-group, and extend their trust and solidarity to, for example, immigrants.
Finally, in Chapter 9, I turn to multicultural community conceptions. Where
multiculturalists have argued that shared multicultural values and multicultural
policies may form the basis for national unity and secure the allegiance of minor
ities to the polity and its members, critics have suggested that multiculturalism
fractures society and promotes commitments to ethnic in-groups rather than
trust and solidarity at the societal level. Based on a review of existing studies, I
conclude that multicultural policies do not seem to make much of a difference for
these aspects of social cohesion, but that insofar as they do have an impact, it
seems to be positive. More importantly, multicultural values seem to have posi
tive direct value effects, not only on out-group trust and solidarity, but also on
trust and solidarity in the in-group. Thus, I have argued that multicultural pol
icies are in some cases supported by concerns for equality, and there is no evi
dence that such policies are detrimental to the social basis for egalitarian
redistribution. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that states can strengthen
social cohesion by engaging in community-building based on liberal and multi
cultural values.
PART I
IDEN T IT Y, SO C IA L C OH E SION,
A N D J U ST IC E
2
National Identities and Nation-building
2.1 Nation-building, Shared Values, and Cohesive Societies
In the last twenty years or so, concerns about the impact of immigration on social
cohesion have increasingly made headlines, featured prominently in political
debates, and triggered policy responses in Western, liberal democracies, not least
in Europe. In this chapter, I outline in greater detail some of the main assump-
tions, beliefs, and arguments concerning the relationship between immigration,
social cohesion, and social justice as these have been expressed in political dis-
courses and policies. More specifically, drawing on experiences from a selection
of countries, I illustrate how the concept of social cohesion has been invoked in
political discourses to refer to a series of worries about immigration, and how a
perceived need for shared values has resulted. I focus on Canada, Denmark,
France, and the United Kingdom and point to similarities and differences between
the discourses employed, and policies enacted, to address these worries. This
selection of countries is motivated by the thought that it will allow me both to
point out how the notion of social cohesion has gained prominence in different
countries as a way of framing concerns about immigration, in many cases roughly
at the same time, and how political responses to these concerns have been trig-
gered that are in some ways similar, but also to some extent different, from coun-
try to country.
Apart from situating the concerns of the book firmly in contemporary debates
and policymaking in liberal democratic societies, this will also enable me to
engage in more theoretical discussions in the chapters to come of specific policy
issues and debates that are ongoing concerns in these societies. I should empha-
size that my aim is not to engage in a substantive cross-national comparative
analysis of specific policy areas, but rather to discuss different ways in which
social cohesion debates have been framed and what policy measures have been
adopted in light of these framings.
2.2 United Kingdom
Following the riots in various towns in Northern England in 2001, former Home
Secretary David Blunkett made a call for a stronger sense of common British citi-
zenship, based on shared values, to promote social cohesion:
The Politics of Social Cohesion: Immigration, Community, and Justice. Nils Holtug, Oxford University Press.
© Nils Holtug 2021. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198797043.003.0002
24 National Identities and Nation-building
There is a large measure of agreement that in the areas affected, communities are
fractured and polarised.
Significant government investment is going into the regeneration of these
communities, to underpin equality of opportunity and hope for the future. But
communities need social cohesion as well as social justice. Today’s reports show
that too many of our towns and cities lack any sense of civic identity or shared
values. Young people, in particular, are alienated and disengaged from much of
the society around them, including the leadership of their communities . . .
The UK has had a relatively weak sense of what political citizenship should
entail. Our values of individual freedom, the protection of liberty and respect for
difference, have not been accompanied by a strong, shared understanding of
the civic realm.
This has to change. It is vital that we develop a stronger understanding of what
our collective citizenship means, and how we can build that shared commitment
into our social and political institutions. (Blunkett 2001)
As transpires, Blunkett attributes the fracturing of communities to a lack of social

cohesion, where social cohesion is diminished due to an erosion of the shared
values that serve to unite citizens and build bridges between whites and segre-
gated Asian youths. Furthermore, the values needed for regenerating social cohe-
sion consist not only in thin liberal principles such as freedom and respect, but
must be supplemented with civic values in the form of an active citizenship, form-
ing a middle way between assimilation and multiculturalism (Blunkett 2002).
Blunkett’s speech followed the publication of the so-called Cantle Report, writ-
ten by a review panel led by Ted Cantle and set up by the Home Secretary follow-
ing the riots (Cantle 2001). The panel emphasized the depth of polarization in
cities and the extent to which different groups, and whites and Asians in particu-
lar, led parallel lives. They also introduced the concept of ‘community cohesion’,
which consists in, among other things, equality, a common sense of belonging, a
positive valuation of people’s different backgrounds, and strong and positive rela-
tionships between people who have different backgrounds (Cantle 2013). Thus,
concerns about poverty and deprivation as a basis for exclusion and conflict are
complemented with concerns for shared values and aims and not least an
emphasis on contact and relationships between groups. The report recommended
citizenship education in schools and contact-increasing measures, thus relying on
the so-called ‘contact hypothesis’ (McGhee 2008: 91), according to which contact
of an appropriate kind between groups will diminish prejudice and increase positive
attitudes (I discuss the contact hypothesis in greater detail in Chapter 3, Section 3.3).
According to Cantle (2013), community cohesion should be contrasted with
multiculturalism, which he considers defensive, negative, and aiming to counter
the worst effects of racism and colonialism. Indeed, the Cantle Report has
attracted criticism on this very basis, where critics have suggested that the
United Kingdom 25
notion of community cohesion involves downplaying the significance of aspects

such as discrimination, racism, social exclusion, oppressive policing, poverty, and
other structural social conditions for the riots in Northern England and divisions
and tensions between ethnic groups more generally (Dobbernack 2014: 155;
McGhee 2008: 92).
While the notion of social cohesion had played little role in British policy and
public debates about immigration and diversity prior to the riots in 2001
(Dobbernack 2014: 20), it quickly became a major concern. Tony Blair (2006),
Prime Minister 1997–2007, emphasized the need for ‘integrating at the point of
shared, common unifying British values’, where these are what define the British
not ‘as people, but as citizens’. According to Blair (2000), ‘blood alone does not
define our national identity’, rather shared values do. To use Michael Ignatieff ’s
(1996: 219) distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism, where ethnic
nationalism defines the nation in terms of ethnic origins and birth and civic
nationalism defines it in terms of civic values, Blair is here embracing a form of
civic nationalism. More specifically, British national identity, Blair says (2000;
2006), includes values such as fair play, creativity, tolerance, democracy, the rule
of law, equal treatment, respect for Britain and its heritage, and an outward-
looking approach to the world, which are largely liberal values (although it is not
clear what, more precisely, respect for Britain amounts to). Nevertheless, he also
stresses measures of civic integration such as the ability to speak English.
Furthermore, Blair (2006) affirms a commitment to ‘multicultural Britain’ and
states that Islamism is not a result of a ‘flawed theory of a multicultural society’.
Blair’s successors have similarly stressed the need for social cohesion and the
importance of a shared national identity. Gordon Brown suggested that ‘debates
about immigration, asylum and multiculturalism in particular’ do ‘challenge us to
be more explicit about Britishness’, and emphasized the strength gained ‘from
celebrating British identity . . . and a union that is strong because of the values we
share’ (quoted in McGhee 2008: 131). And after Labour lost the election in 2010,
Brown’s successor as prime minister, David Cameron, stressed the need to build a
‘stronger, more cohesive society’ by ‘promoting . . . shared British values’ (Cameron
2015). According to Cameron, such values include democracy, the rule of law,
freedom of speech, freedom of press, equal rights, freedom of worship, and
respecting different faiths, which again amounts to a catalogue of basic liberal
values. Likewise, he stressed the disruptive effects of segregation and the signifi-
cance of active citizenship. But he also warned about ‘turning a blind eye on the
false basis of cultural sensitivities’ (Cameron 2015), thus affirming his claim that
multiculturalism has failed, because it has ‘encouraged different cultures to live
separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream’ (Cameron 2011).
Furthermore, Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, was likewise greatly concerned
with the impact of immigration on social cohesion and stressed the importance
of unifying British values (a point I return to below), and these are concerns that
have also played an important role for UKIP in campaigns leading up to Brexit
(Haltinner and Hogan 2019).
In denouncing multiculturalism, Cameron joined a wider circle of European
leaders that also includes Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. The overall argu-
ment for the failure of multiculturalism has been that multicultural policies
emphasize difference and promote ethnic in-group clustering around separate
identities at the expense of overarching identities that may unify people across
different groups. More specifically, such policies are criticized for undermining
social cohesion and leading to residential segregation, poor integration of
immigrants on the labour market and in schools, welfare dependency, and the
proliferation of illiberal practices and even political extremism in minority com-
munities. I shall discuss this argument in greater detail in Chapter 9 (Section 9.4),
but for now, I merely want to point out that whereas, at the level of political dis-
course, there has been a great deal of focus on the death of multiculturalism, we
have not in general seen a retreat from multicultural policies in Europe (Banting
and Kymlicka 2013; McGhee 2008: 85; Vertovec and Wessendorf 2010: 21). As
Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka (2013) demonstrate on the basis of their
Multiculturalism Policy Index, while in a few countries in Europe multicultural
policies have to some extent been retracted, the general picture is that such pol
icies have either been stable or actually expanded from 1980 to 2010, including in
the UK. Indeed, on this index, the UK scores 5.5 out of a possible 8 in 2010, where
8 signifies having all the policies included in the index (see Table 2.1).
The policies measured by the index are as follows:
(1) Constitutional, legislative, or parliamentary affirmation of multicultural

ism, at the central and/or regional and municipal levels.
(2) The adaptation of multiculturalism in the school curriculum.
(3) The inclusion of ethnic representation/sensitivity in the mandate of the
public media or media licencing.
(4) Exemptions from dress codes, Sunday closing legislation, and so forth
(either by statute or by court cases).
(5) Allowing dual citizenship.
(6) The funding of ethnic group organizations to support cultural activities.
(7) The funding of bilingual education or mother-tongue instruction.
(8) Affirmative action for disadvantaged immigrant groups.
Of the policies that make up the index, British policies include multicultural
school curricula, ethnic representation in the mandate of public media, access to
dual citizenship, funding ethnic group organizations, affirmative action for immi-
grant groups, and exemption from dress codes to accommodate difference (Tolley
and Vonk 2016: 109–14). As regards the latter, for example, exemptions have been
United Kingdom 27
Table 2.1 Multiculturalism Policy Index:

immigrant minority policies 2010
Country Score
Australia 8
Austria 1.5
Belgium 5.5
Canada 7.5
Denmark 0
Finland 6
France 2
Germany 2.5
Greece 2.5
Ireland 4
Italy 1.5
Japan 0
Netherlands 2
New Zealand 6
Norway 3.5
Portugal 3.5
Spain 3.5
Sweden 7
Switzerland 1
United Kingdom 5.5
United States 3
Source: Tolley and Vonk (2016).
granted to Sikhs to wear a turban instead of a safety helmet when working on

construction sites and instead of a crash helmet when riding a motorbike, and the
uniform of the Metropolitan Police Service has been adapted to include wearing a
hijab as an option.
While the retreat from multiculturalism is therefore a myth, at least at the level
of policy, what is true is that multicultural and other policies aiming at immigrant
integration have increasingly been supplemented with civic integration pro-
grammes in Europe (Banting and Kymlicka 2013), where the latter emphasize
employment, liberal- democratic values (liberty, equality, democracy, human
rights, the rule of law), knowledge of the destination society’s language, history,
and institutions, and anti-discrimination policies. And as Banting and Kymlicka
argue, and I return to in Chapter 9, multiculturalism and civic integration are in
fact quite compatible, both at the level of theory and at the level of policy, at least
insofar as states abstain from more illiberal forms of civic integration.
Worries about social cohesion and shared values have not only been influential
in political discourses, they have also been driving policies. A case in point is the
strategy that was launched by former Labour Home Secretary, Charles Clarke,
titled Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society: The Government’s Strategy to
Increase Race Equality and Community Cohesion. It reflected the ideas of
community cohesion introduced in the Cantle Report and aimed, among other
things, to build a cohesive society on the basis of a shared British identity ‘defined
by common opportunities and mutual expectations on all citizens to contribute
to society’ (Home Office 2005: 11). The policies it laid out include citizenship edu-
cation in schools, opportunities for volunteering, citizenship ceremonies, a citi-
zenship day, opportunities for civil society participation, and anti-racism and
anti-extremism measures.
Indeed, citizenship tests and national curricula are often at the heart of integra-
tion efforts that aim to promote a shared national identity. While serving as Home
Secretary, Theresa May proposed that the British citizenship test should put more
emphasis on national history and culture to become a more ‘patriotic guide’ for
immigrants (Travis 2012; cf. Brooks 2013). This exemplifies a conflict of values
that plays out in a number of European countries over the content of the identity
promoted in citizenship tests. Liberal conceptions tend to emphasize political and
societal aspects of a country’s identity, whereas nationalist conceptions include
also cultural and historical aspects of the nation. Here, May was at least in part
relying on the latter. To illustrate, a 2019 citizenship test included questions about,
for example, the obligation to obey the law, who built the Tower of London,
British territory, national parks, William Shakespeare, a British Paralympian,
Christmas, and the Battle of Britain. Likewise, in another effort towards nation-
building, Education Secretary Michael Gove required all English primary and
secondary schools to promote British values (Hope 2014).
As elsewhere in Europe, perceptions of deviation from the national identity
have very often focused on Muslims in particular. These perceptions pertain not
only to obvious examples such as Islamist extremism or illiberal practices such as
forced marriages and female genital mutilation, but also to some practices that
arguably fall within the bounds of liberal freedom of religion. For example, Jack
Straw, then leader of the House of Commons, suggested in 2006 that the Muslim
niqab (which covers the face) is a ‘visible statement of separation and difference’
and that Muslim women should think about the impact of wearing the niqab on
community relations (BBC News 2006). Indeed, the idea that diversity poses a
threat to social cohesion is found not only amongst policymakers, but seems to be
widely shared in the general public. Thus, according to a survey, 55 per cent of
British voters think that there is a fundamental clash between Islam and the val-
ues of British society (YouGov 2015).
2.3 Denmark
Like the United Kingdom, Denmark has followed a multifaceted path that
includes elements of liberalism, nationalism, and republican ideas about active
Denmark 29
citizenship (Holtug 2013). As guest workers began to arrive in the late 1960s and
early 1970s, a pragmatic approach to integration was adopted in Denmark
(Hedetoft 2008: 47), the chief concern being that immigrants should fill gaps in
the labour market, where this would in turn provide the required level of integra-
tion until the time when they were expected to return to their countries of origin.
However, the pragmatic approach has been increasingly supplemented with
policies that aim at limiting immigration and integrating foreigners into what is
perceived as the ‘Danish way of life’. This development accelerated with the elec-
tion of a liberal–conservative coalition in 2001, consisting of two parties, Venstre,
a right-leaning liberal party, and the Conservative People’s Party. The new gov-
ernment relied systematically for support on the votes of the nationalist Danish
People’s Party. And it is generally agreed that the election of this coalition, as well
as their victory in two consecutive elections since then, was heavily influenced by
their increasingly restrictive policies on immigration and integration, including
tightened immigration requirements (for example, to avoid that Denmark become
a ‘refugee magnet’), reduced social benefits for immigrants, more restrictive rules
for citizenship and permanent residence (including more difficult language tests
and knowledge tests regarding Danish politics, history, and culture), as well as a
‘tougher’ terminology when addressing the crime, educational underachievement,
unemployment, and (allegedly) illiberal practices of (some) immigrants and their
descendants. Indeed, Denmark developed some of the most restrictive immigration
policies in Europe (Kærgård 2010: 478).
The policy of increasingly restricting immigration continued throughout the
2010s and, like in other European countries, not least in response to the refugee
crisis in 2015. And increasingly, this line has been backed up not only by right-
wing parties but also by the Social Democrats.
With the shift in power in 2001, and roughly at the same time as in the UK,
came a focus on the impact of immigration on social sammenhængskraft, or social
cohesion. Thus, debates on immigration and integration were increasingly framed
in terms of immigration as a threat to social cohesion that requires specific policy
responses. In particular, concerns about immigrants (self-)segregating into paral-
lel societies, underachieving in schools and in the labour market, and not least
being an economic burden to the welfare state were framed as signs of social
cohesion falling apart.
In his Constitution Day speech in 2007, former Prime Minister Anders Fogh
Rasmussen (2007) stated that ‘we need to have greater awareness on the prin
ciples and attitudes that have made Denmark a strongly cohesive society’. Thus,
according to several studies in recent years, Denmark is the country with the
highest level of social trust in the world (see Table 3.1 in Chapter 3, Section 3.3)
and it likewise has the highest score in a social cohesion index developed by the
Bertelsmann Stiftung, based on data from the period 2009 to 2012, followed by
the other Scandinavian countries (Dragolov et al. 2013: 29). Fogh Rasmussen
specifically pointed to liberal values such as freedom of speech, personal liberty,
private ownership, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, equal rights, and
gender equality as a basis for social cohesion in Denmark.
Fogh Rasmussen’s mention of freedom of speech was no accident as this prin-
ciple had been at the forefront of the so-called cartoon crisis, after the Danish
newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of satirical drawings of the prophet
Muhammad in 2005. In fact, Fogh Rasmussen referred to freedom of speech as
the most precious of all liberties. But apart from the core liberal values invoked by
Fogh Rasmussen, he also voiced concerns over the role of religion in Danish
society: ‘if we are to maintain the high level of social cohesion that is so important
for the progress and stability of Denmark, it is necessary that we continue to meet
one another as human beings and citizens of Denmark in the public sphere—not
as representatives of different religions’. While this idea of neutrality in the public
sphere may seem reminiscent of a French republican conception of laïcité, Fogh
Rasmussen’s justification was not republican but rested on a Lutheran conception
of the separation of religious and worldly affairs (Bjergager and Hoffmann-
Hansen 2006). Indeed, he stressed that Denmark is a Christian country and that
the Queen needs to be a member of the Lutheran Established Church, because
she symbolizes national unity and therefore the foundation of Danish society.
Furthermore, there has been no desire to challenge the Established Church in the
political mainstream in Denmark. And several later Venstre-based government
coalitions emphasized that Denmark is a Christian nation, and the privileged sta-
tus of the Lutheran Established Church (Danish Government 2015: 29; 2016: 84).
Social cohesion has been a recurring theme in the new year speeches of Danish
prime ministers, with Lars Løkke Rasmussen warning in 2016 that the refugee
crisis was a threat to cohesion and Danish values (Rasmussen 2016), and in 2018 that
there are parallel societies in which Danish values are in decline (Rasmussen 2018).
The suggestion that ethnic diversity drives down social cohesion has perhaps
been stated most elaborately by Karen Jespersen, who was Minister of the Interior
in a Social Democratic government in 2000–2001 but later changed party and
became Minister of Welfare in Fogh Rasmussen’s government. In a co-authored
book, Jespersen and her husband, political commentator Ralf Pittelkow, link sur-
vey results indicating that Danes are the happiest people in the world and have
the highest level of trust with the fact that Denmark is an ethno-culturally homo-
geneous nation. This homogeneity and its positive effects, however, are perceived
to be under threat:
It is not about integration in the labour market or in the educational system, but
about something more fundamental: the experience of being part of a value-
community in the society one inhabits.
Denmark 31
If such a community is missing, social cohesion withers away. The social cap
ital that creates trust between citizens will be missing. Indeed, social scientists
have shown that there is a relation between large ethno-cultural differences and
low levels of social trust in society. This has highly problematic consequences for
the way society works and for the ability to work for common political goals.
If immigrants are to feel attracted to the value-community on which Danish
society is based, it is crucial that one speaks clearly and with pride about the
central values and their significance for Danish society’s qualities.
(Jespersen and Pittelkow 2005: 98–99)
As transpires, Jespersen and Pittelkow specify the mechanism through which

immigration is thought to drive down social cohesion, in that the shared values—
or value-community—that unifies Danes can no longer be taken for granted. This
is due to the cultural and religious differences brought about by immigration,
Muslim immigration in particular, and the parallel societies and fractured com-
munities to which it gives rise. Here, Jespersen and Pittelkow invoke liberal values
but also a nationalist conception of the value-community in question, which
involves ‘being part of a society with a special history, a special cultural back-
ground and a common language’ (Jespersen and Pittelkow 2005: 25). Furthermore,
since immigration is a threat to social cohesion, it is also a threat to the welfare
state, as ‘citizens are willing to contribute economically to the welfare state and
abide by its rules because they trust that their fellow citizens will do the same’
(Jespersen and Pittelkow 2005: 21). On this basis, Jespersen and Pittelkow argue
for more restrictive immigration policies and a more robust defence of Danish
national values.
The mix of liberal, nationalist, and republican ideas about how to promote
social cohesion can also be found at the policy level. A government Action Plan
on Ethnic Equal Treatment and Respect for Individuals stated that Danish society
is based on fundamental values of personal and political liberty, respect for indi-
viduals, equality of opportunity, and democracy, where these values are viewed as
supportive of social cohesion (Danish Government 2011: 1–2). In the Action
Plan, the government likewise stressed the need for immigrants to become active
citizens, and supported citizenship classes in schools (Danish Government 2011: 6),
an underlying idea being that contact strengthens social cohesion (the contact
hypothesis).
Specific ideas about Danish national identity are also found in a series of cul-
tural canons that aim to unify Danes and promote social cohesion, where these
often rely on cultural conceptions of Danishness. For example, former Minister of
Culture in the liberal–conservative coalition, Brian Mikkelsen, commissioned a
Danish Cultural Canon, consisting of selected Danish architecture, paintings,
design, films, literature, music, theatre, and artworks for children, to strengthen
communal values by referring to a common Danish heritage (Danish Ministry of

Culture 2006). Indeed, Mikkelsen (2004) described Danish authors as the ‘voice
of the nation’, securing a Danish identity and sense of history. Likewise, in 2016
Minister of Culture Bertel Haarder initiated a Denmark Canon to raise the aware-
ness of Danes of who they are and to ‘emphasize how our national identity and
social cohesion is created’ (Danish Ministry of Culture 2016).
Citizenship tests have likewise harboured specific ideas about Danish national
identity as a facilitator for integration and social cohesion. The 2016 test included
questions about political and social arrangements, but also about the Danish
monarchy, the Danish scientist Tycho Brahe, the teachings of Protestantism, the
ballet La Sylphide, and a popular Danish movie from the 1970s. In 2019, a law was
passed that requires immigrants to shake hands with a representative of the rele-
vant municipality as part of a citizenship ceremony, implicitly targeting a small
minority of Muslims who do not want to shake hands with members of the
opposite sex. This requirement was motivated by Minister of Integration, Inger
Støjberg, with the suggestion that this is how people greet each other in Denmark
(Østergaard 2018).
As in Britain, citizenship tests have to varying degrees tested knowledge about
political and societal institutions as well as culture and history, where social
democratic governments have tended to emphasize the former and right-wing
governments also the latter. Again, this reflects differing commitments to respect
ively liberal and nationalist views about the content of the shared values required
for social cohesion. In a similar vein, democracy, active citizenship, and the role
of Christianity are increasingly emphasized in the public- school system
(Mouritsen and Olsen 2013: 700–4). Furthermore, a recent Danish government
(2018: 4) enacted a policy to counteract ‘ghettos’ and parallel societies, with the
aim of promoting a ‘cohesive Denmark’, which includes obligatory attendance to a
day nursery for children from ‘vulnerable’ districts from the age of one, where
they are to learn to speak Danish and acquire knowledge of Danish traditions and
democratic values (Danish Ministry for Children and Social Affairs 2018).
The idea that diversity poses a threat to social cohesion is found not only
amongst policymakers, but is also widely shared in the general public. Thus,
according to a recent survey, 28 per cent of Danes in 2014 strongly agreed and
37 per cent to some extent agreed that the presence of Islam in Denmark is a prob-
lem for social cohesion (Politiken 2014). These numbers are up from, respectively,
16 and 42 per cent in 2010. Furthermore, according to another survey, 50 per cent
of Danes believe that the biggest challenge to which immigration gives rise is that
immigrants do not accept Danish values (Jyllands-Posten 2014).
As in Britain, there have also been heated debates about religious symbols in
the public sphere and in particular Muslim headscarves. The Danish People’s
Party has argued that the veil is ‘un-Danish’, and former MP Søren Krarup even
France 33
compared it to a swastika—a view party chairman at the time, Pia Kjærsgaard,

later affirmed. Worries about Islamic headgear in the public sphere have, how-
ever, made it into the political mainstream, and in 2009 a law was passed that
renders it impermissible for Danish judges to wear religious symbols in courts of
law. While the debate that preceded the law focused almost exclusively on head-
scarves, it was ultimately justified in terms of a concern for state neutrality and
the impartiality of courts, and ruled out religious symbols of all kinds
(Holtug 2011a). This law was, in 2018, followed by a ban on burqas and niqabs—
and other forms of headgear covering the face—in the public sphere. In his
motivation for the ban, Minister of Justice, Søren Pape, emphasized Danish val-
ues as a basis for social cohesion and stated, ‘It is not compatible with Danish
values or respect for the community to hide one’s face when meeting each other
in the public sphere. We need to shield respect for our community and the values
that tie us together’ (Danish Ministry of Justice 2018).
Whereas the UK has developed and, despite discursive gestures to suggest
otherwise, maintained an approach to immigrants that includes multicultural
policies, Denmark has generally resisted such policies. In fact, in the Multiculturalism
Policy Index (Table 2.1), Denmark scored 0 out of a possible 8 in 2010. Nevertheless,
while multicultural polices have played a limited role in Denmark, it may be
worth mentioning a few exceptions (Holtug 2013): Sikh men are exempted from
the requirement of wearing a helmet when riding a motorbike; municipalities
may choose to provide mother-tongue instruction for immigrant children; some
schools with many Muslim children choose to give all children a day off at Eid-al-fitr
(the end of Ramadan); since 2015, it has been possible to obtain dual citizenship;
and Denmark has the highest number of Muslim free schools in Europe, relative
to country size (Jensen 2010: 194).
However, in political debates, multiculturalism has often been associated with
political correctness and caving in to illiberal norms and practices. Nor has multi
culturalism been in great demand in the population. Although different studies
give different results (Holtug 2013: 202–4), it is striking that in the International
Social Survey Programme 2003, which included twenty-seven countries, Danes
came out as the population most sceptical of minorities preserving their distinct
ive identities (Larsen 2008a: 27–29).
2.4 France
In the 1995 French presidential election, Jacques Chirac warned about a social
fracture threatening national unity. Problems of social exclusion were seen as a
threat to cohésion sociale, including social problems, unemployment, homeless-
ness, and conditions in the banlieues (suburbs). This marked a turn towards
highlighting social cohesion, but also seeing the threat as a moral crisis, where
citizens would need to perform their duties of citizenship, make themselves
employable, become self-reliant rather than claim welfare, and solve their prob-
lems in the banlieues (Dobbernack 2014: 67–72). Unlike in Britain and Denmark,
this was not first and foremost a reaction to problems perceived to be due to
immigration and cultural diversity, but to more general social problems, and even
when addressing the banlieues, what Chirac emphasized was the disruptive effects
of unemployment (Dobbernack 2014: 90).
In a speech after having dissolved the National Assembly in 1997, Chirac said,
‘What I suggest is the ideal of our Republic. Rights that are adamantly defended,
and first of all the right to dignity and [social] protection for every man, woman
and child. Duties and responsibilities in correspondence with these rights. A rein-
forced social cohesion. This is the defence of our republican order’ (quoted in
Dobbernack 2014: 85). Chirac also invoked a ‘need to reaffirm our values’. Here
and elsewhere, republican solidarity and more generally the ideals of the French
Republic, including civic duties and active citizenship, are considered fundamen-
tal to social cohesion.
Indeed, in France social cohesion has continuously been tied to the values of
the Republic by different administrations. While social exclusion, including
homelessness and unemployment, are generally considered incompatible with
republican solidarity, the interpretation of the values in question has nevertheless
differed. For example, when the socialist Lionel Jospin became prime minister in
1997, he reclaimed the concept of social exclusion, focusing more on its material
preconditions. In 2004, Jean-Louis Borloo was appointed Minister of Labour,
Employment and Social Cohesion and launched a plan to restore ‘social and
republican cohesion’, which focused on employment, housing, and equal oppor
tunities. Soon after the launch, urban riots broke out and spread throughout
France in 2005, after two teenagers had been chased by the police and ended up
dying while hiding in an electrical facility. Cars and public buildings were set on
fire and fights with the police took place in more than 250 cities and renewed the
focus on segregation and deprivation in the banlieues. Minister of the Interior
Nicolas Sarkozy ‘spoke of getting rid of the “scum” of the estates’ (Simon and
Pala 2010: 100). Earlier, in 2003, Sarkozy had implemented a law that restricted
access to permanent residence for immigrants and made it dependent on
l’intégration republicaine, which included knowledge of the French language and
French Republic (Joppke 2007: 10).
With Sarkozy’s election as president in 2007 came a new focus on immigration
and national identity. In a campaign video he stated that ‘if we do not tell new-
comers and people who want to become French what France is, how can they be
integrated? The failure of the French integration system is due to the fact that we
have forgotten to talk about France’ (quoted in Villard and Sayegh 2013: 246).
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how the work was going on. I stayed longer than I had intended, and
I want five thousand dollars more of the stock of this company.”
We were much elated over our success, and plans were made for
enlarging the business. I completed the drawings for an additional
machine, wide enough to take in platforms, for which provision had
been made by me in the plan of the building. The only change
suggested by our two years’ experience was the use of air-cushions
behind the hammers in place of steel springs.
But the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, the poet tells us,
“Gang aft a-gley;
And leave us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy.”
Our plans were suddenly ruined. A change in the method of facing

ashlar was introduced and soon became universally adopted.
Instead of being faced by hand, it began to be sawn out of large
blocks. I have since wondered why this had not been done long
before. Blocks of marble had been sawn into slabs by gang-saws no
one knows how long, and all that had to be done was to apply the
same system to blocks of building-stone. It was found to cost no
more to saw ashlar than it had done to split it out at the quarry. All
the cost of facing and much stone were saved. Our stone-cutting
machine became useless, and I learned that disappointments were
not confined to the legal profession.
The speed of 300 revolutions per minute had proved to be
admirably suited for the machine. Familiarity with this speed in the
running of the stone-dressing machine made me alive to the value of
high rotative speeds in all cases to which they are adapted.
In looking back over this period I see that the success of the
stone-dressing machine was due to the following causes:
First, I went about the work of facing stone by machinery in the
natural way.
Second, the machine was superabundantly strong and substantial
in every part.
Third, it was made with absolute mechanical truth.
Fourth, the speed was splendid.
Fifth, the blow was peculiar. In the Hastings machine the cutting-
tool was driven into the stone. In mine it rested on the stone and was
moved back horizontally by the feed. This changed slightly the
angular position of the tool-holder, so that the blow was received by
it at the lower edge of its back. This gave to the tool a motion forward
and upward, so that the vertical effect on the stone was trifling.
This was the vital feature of my improvement, and that in a double
sense; for it was only by convincing my associates beforehand that a
machine operating in this manner could not break the stone that I
was able to obtain their financial support.
Sixth, the two-faced hammer saved the stone from all
unnecessary force of the blow.
The final cause of its success was the two-table system. The two
operations of setting and cutting occupied each about the same time,
and twenty tables each averaging thirty square feet of surface,
measured after being squared up, were easily finished in a day of
ten hours.
A description of some of the constructive methods employed by
me may be interesting:
The bar of steel which was to be made into six separate tool-
holders had to have eighteen sockets mortised in it. These were 1
inch square. I had made the tools with square shanks so as to insure
their proper position. These mortises must be absolutely in line and
of equal depth. These objects were accomplished as follows: A cast-
iron angle-bar with planed surfaces was first bolted on the table of
the drilling-machine, and for drilling the holes the bar of steel was
kept in contact with this angle-bar. A uniform depth was insured by
employing a bottoming-drill with a collar formed on the shank. The
drilling was finished when this collar rubbed on the steel bar.
I had this work done by Mr. Joseph Banks, whose shop was in a
large building at the corner of Second Avenue and Twenty-second
Street. Mr. A. S. Cameron, the inventor and manufacturer of the
celebrated Cameron steam-pumps, was then an apprentice in that
shop. Mr. Banks was an excellent mechanic, and I was greatly
indebted to him for the accuracy of the work that I procured. He
devised an expanding-drill to cut a groove at the bottom of these
sockets, in which the chips from the slotting-tool made in squaring
the holes would come off. The finishing slotting-tool I designed
myself. I had noticed in all slotting-machines that came under my
observation at that time that the tool would spring off a little at the
commencement of the cut, so that a full square angle was never
obtained. To avoid this defect and to size the slots equally I made a
slotting-tool to cut on opposite sides. The cutting edges were each
about ¹⁄₈ inch long and the corners rounded. The bar for the tool-
holders had to be set three times on account of its length. It was set
in contact with the same angle-bar, which was bolted on this table
parallel with its transverse feed. This finishing-tool being once set,
the upper and lower faces of all the sockets were thus readily
finished in perfect line and with square edges. The tool being then
turned at right angles to its first position, for which purpose its shank
had been planed square, finished the sides of the sockets. These
were identical in every respect, and any tool could go anywhere.
The springs behind the hammers were prepared with great care. I
had large bars of spring steel reduced under a tilt-hammer to a
section ³⁄₈ inch square. These were coiled with only ¹⁄₄ inch space
between the coils, so that in case a spring broke within the hammer
it could not get out of place. These springs were exceptionally
durable. We took off the back cross-bar occasionally—perhaps once
a month—to examine for broken springs, and sometimes we found
one, which was replaced with a new one because we assumed that
it was fatigued, but the hammers worked just as well with broken
springs as they did with whole ones. The springs, having
considerable initial compression, did not become loose.
It seems proper to add that, except the help from Mr. Banks, I did
not in designing the machine or organizing the work receive
assistance or suggestion from anyone.
With these details I bid a final good-by to you, my old
schoolmaster. I have a warm place in my heart for you. You set me
my first lessons in mechanics. Your life was short. You were not
ordained to cut much of a figure in the world. But you were faithful.
You always did your work and did it well.
CHAPTER II
The Evolution and Manufacture of the Central Counterpoise Governor. Introduction

of Mr. Richards.
hen the stone-dressing machine was started a

difficulty presented itself. The governor was in
constant motion a short distance up and down,
causing the engine to oscillate, running alternately too
fast and too slow. There was nothing that should have
caused this action, so far as I could observe. The load
on the engine was constant. However the work done on the stone
may have varied, the work of the engine was to lift the hammers, and
these, being lifted successively, presented a uniform resistance. The
oscillation was not very great, as nearly as I can remember about 12
per cent. of the speed; which would give to each hammer a variation
of thirty-six blows per minute. This, however, produced a waving
surface on the stone. The more rapid the blow, the stronger it was
and the deeper the cut. These waves were slight, only about ¹⁄₅₀ of
an inch variation in depth, but yet it was not possible for our rubbing-
machine to grind them off without great loss of time. So we had to
employ three or four stone-cutters to chisel off these ridges, which
were about 4 inches apart.
It was evident that this oscillation must be stopped. I tried to
remedy it by changing the pressure of the steam, and then by
changing the pulleys so as to run the engine faster, the speed of the
governor, however, necessarily remaining the same. But these had
no effect. Having exhausted my own stock of ignorance on the
subject, I applied to professional experts for more, and I got it. Three
persons, who I supposed ought to know, and who probably did know,
all that was then known on the subject, gave me the same advice. It
was that I should get a larger engine and a great deal larger fly-
wheel. This advice did not seem to me reasonable. I knew that the
engine was large enough, because while the governor was in the
lowest position, in which it did not open the throttle entirely by any
means, the machine ran too fast. They then told me I must have a
heavier fly-wheel at any rate, and they explained to me that the fly-
wheel performed two offices—one to carry the crank over its dead
centers with an approximately uniform motion, and the other to give
the governor time to act. I replied that the engine passed its dead
centers with absolute uniformity then, as nearly as I could see, and
as was shown by the surface of the stone, and consequently for that
purpose the fly-wheel I had must be sufficient. The oscillations were
regular, occupying about 30 revolutions of the machine, or 6 seconds
of time, and had no connection with the dead centers, and I did not
see why the governor should require any time to act. They told me
that all governors required time to act, of course.
I then examined the governor more critically, and made up my
mind that its action was hindered by friction in the driving-joints at the
top of the spindle. These joints were about 4 inches apart, on
opposite sides of the spindle, and were of a character in which the
force transmitted through them to drive the balls produced a pinch
between the broad faces of the joints. The governor could not act
until by change of its speed it had accumulated force enough to
overcome this pinch, and then it moved too far. Again I applied to my
authorities for some way of getting rid of this friction. They told me
that was easy enough. All I had to do was to put a yoke on the
governor spindle, through which the governor arms were threaded
and by which the driving pressure was applied close to the balls. So
for the first time I took their advice and had a yoke put on the
governor. I could not discover that this helped the matter at all. The
improvement was too trifling to be noticed. I also saw clearly enough
why this was so. The pressure applied was lighter than that applied
through the joints, but it was also applied at a correspondingly
increased distance from the axis, so that the effect in retarding the
action of the governor was substantially the same.
I saw that if I got any relief I must find a way to it myself. So I
began studying the subject of governors. My engineering library at
that time consisted of Haswell’s Engineers’ Pocket Book. What little
book-knowledge I had respecting mechanics I had learned from
Haswell. I turned to Haswell and read what he had to say about
governors. I learned that they were conical pendulums and made
half as many revolutions in a minute as the vibrations of a pendulum
whose length was equal to the height of the cone, the base of which
was the plane in which the center of oscillation of the balls and arms
revolved, and its apex the point of intersection of the axes of the
arms, if produced upward, and that their revolutions varied inversely
as the square root of the height of this cone. I did not see that this
got me out of my difficulty at all. I then referred to the subject of
centrifugal force, with which I had made some acquaintance before,
and I read this champion mind-muddler: “All bodies moving around a
center or fixed point have a tendency to fly off in a straight line. This
is termed centrifugal force.” This did not help me any more, nor
interest me much at that time.
But I read further that the centrifugal force of a body revolving in
any given circle varies as the square of the speed. “Thus a body
making 10 revolutions per minute will exert four times as much
centrifugal force as will be exerted by the same body making 5
revolutions per minute.” The governor on my engine was making 50
revolutions per minute, and in thinking the matter over it occurred to
me that if the governor could be run as fast as my machine, namely,
at 300 revolutions per minute, the centrifugal force of one pound
would be as great as that exerted by 36 pounds at 50 revolutions per
minute. I cried, “Eureka! I have found it.” One-pound balls in place of
36-pound balls would be easily driven. I told my experts of the great
find that I had made, and they laughed at me. They told me I ought
to know that the momentum of the balls increased in the same ratio
with their centrifugal force, MV² being the expression common to
both, so, in the same circle, while the centrifugal force of the balls at
300 revolutions per minute would be 36 times greater than at 50
revolutions, it would require also 36 times the force to drive them,
and that I would gain nothing by my proposed change, but instead I
would have to rotate also the weight that I would need to use to hold
the small balls down, and the last case would be worse than the first.
This staggered me, and I pondered awhile what I should do.
I had a friend living near by on Fourteenth Street, west of Seventh
Avenue—a Mr. Thompson, a mathematician and the author of a
series of mathematical books then largely used. So I called upon him
and stated my trouble and asked his advice. He illuminated the
subject to me as follows: “You seem to be a persevering young man;
keep hard at it and you will solve the difficulty by and by.”
In my despair I just had before me this one thought: The friction
must be cured at any rate. After a time I thought that if I made a long
joint at the top embracing the center of gyration of the counterpoise,
so that the pressure required to drive the balls and counterpoise
would be applied at some distance from the axis of the spindle and
for that reason would be much lighter, and also would be normal to
the surface of the joint-pin instead of being a pinch between opposite
faces, the difficulty would be cured, as the force to overcome the
friction would be exerted at the ends of levers 50 or 100 times the
radius of the pin. I felt so sure of this that I risked making a governor
with a single joint at the apex of the cone, as originally employed by
Watt, thus making the governor more sensitive, as the height of the
cone would not be changed at both ends, still fortunately holding to
my little balls and high speed, though I cannot tell why. The joint at
the top I made 6 inches in length.
When this governor was started, the trouble absolutely vanished.
The engine ran with perfect uniformity while the load was constant. I
use the adjective “perfect” advisedly, for the governor slide was as
motionless on the spindle as if it were screwed tight, and the
governor proved to be the most sensitive possible index of the
variations of speed. When the belt was thrown off to the loose pulley
the engine ran idle. The counterpoise then rose promptly but gently
to its fixed highest position, and stood there motionless until the belt
was thrown on and the hammers were started, when it moved as
gently but promptly down to its lower position and stood there again
motionless so long as the hammers were running. We could not
detect by the eye the variation in speed that caused this action of the
governor. The heaviest load on the engine, however, was dragging
rapidly the two tables loaded with stone. This caused the governor to
settle still further, but always the motion of the engine seemed to be
the same so far as I could detect. The surface produced on the stone
left nothing to be desired. The machine cut true planes, free from
any windage, and the surfaces were left so smooth that the rubbing-
machine had but little to do, and kept up with the cutting-machine
very easily. The governor fascinated everybody who witnessed its
operation.
The First Porter Governor.
I first made the drawing for the governor with the weight hanging
to the slide. Mr. John McLaren, a machinist who had done good work
for me, when I showed it to him said, “Why don’t you turn your
weight upside down and put it between the arms?” I was not long in
acting upon this suggestion, and that made the Porter governor
complete. I had it described and illustrated in the Scientific American.
They took a photograph of it as photographs were taken in those
days—that is, they sent their artist up to make a sketch of it, and this
sketch (shown here) and description will be found in the Scientific
American of October 9, 1858. This governor has never been
changed by me except in the shape of the counterpoise.
I believed the mathematics of my advisers to be sound, and that
the perfect action of the governor was obtained entirely by the long
driving-joint, which I supposed would have enabled the 36-lb. balls at
50 revolutions per minute to do just as well as 1-lb. balls at 300
revolutions, but I never tried the experiment.
In that belief I remained for 50 years. Now, at the age of over 80
years, after long rest from business activities, in revising these
reminiscences for publication, the idea has first occurred to me, and
has grown into a conviction, that my advisers were wrong here as
they had been in every other respect. They overlooked the fact that
the angular velocity of the driving-joint increased equally with that of
the balls, so that the ratio between them would remain constant. The
law that the driving force required increases as the square of the
speed imparted applies only to the original source of power, as, to
the force of the steam exerted in the cylinder of an engine, the
motion of the piston remaining the same, and to the transmitting
belts or gears whose speed also remains the same. At all these
points the force exerted must increase as the square of the speed
imparted; but this does not apply to the pressure exerted in the
governor joint. Its speed does not remain the same, but increases
with that of the balls. So, while the centrifugal force of the balls,
changes in which produce the vertical movements of the
counterpoise, varies as the square of the speed, the force required
to be exerted in this joint to drive the balls, and which produces the
friction to retard these movements, does not increase at all,
whatever the speed of revolution may be. This fact, unobserved by
me or any one else so far as I ever heard, has all the time been the
secret, a pretty open secret when once seen, of the surprising
combination of sensitiveness and stability in the action of this
governor which has led to its general use, and at which I myself have
never ceased to wonder because I was ignorant of its cause. This,
however, was not the only time that I builded better than I knew.
I can imagine some persons, after having read the above
explanation, to say, some of them perhaps flippantly, and some
possibly sneeringly, “To a properly educated engineer this is obvious
at a glance.” I think it will be so hereafter, but has it been so hitherto?
If any one will produce the record of its observation I will cheerfully
yield to him the priority and will congratulate him upon it.
Some things, however, make me doubt if this observation has ever
been made. At the London Exhibition of 1862 this governor attracted
much attention from its novel appearance, rapid rotation and
remarkable action. Many engineers spoke to me about it. In their
conversation I observed two things: first, no one ever asked me a
question, but every one explained its action to me; and second, while
each had an explanation of his own to make, they all agreed in a
fundamental respect. Their minds ran in the same groove. They
considered the governor only in its theoretical action. No one ever
took notice of the incident of friction, which was the controlling factor.
An improved governor was in their view one contrived in some way
to free the governor from the limitation to its action, which is imposed
by the law of the conical pendulum, and every one explained to me
how my governor was adapted to do this.
The following illustrates this universal view among English
engineers:
In the Appendix to the 10th edition of Rankine’s “Manual of the
Steam-engine and other Prime Movers,” published in 1882, one
reads as follows: “Isochronous governors. The ordinary
governor is not isochronous; for when, in order to adapt the opening
of the regulating-valve to different loads, it rotates with its revolving
pendulums at different angles to the vertical axis, the altitude of the
cone assumes different values, corresponding to different speeds.
The following are expedients for diminishing or removing this defect.
1. Loaded Governor (Porter’s).—From the balls of the common
governor, whose collective weight is (say) A, let there be hung by a
pair of links of lengths equal to the pendulum arms, a load, B,
capable of sliding up and down the spindle, and having its center of
gravity on the axis of rotation. Then the centrifugal force is that due
to A alone, and the effect of gravity that due to A + 2B; consequently
the altitude for a given speed is increased in the ratio A + 2B : A, as
compared with that of a simple revolving pendulum; and a given
absolute variation of altitude in moving the regulating-valve produces
a smaller proportionate variation of speed than in the common
governor.”
That is the whole of it. Respecting this I have to say:
1st. The vertical motion of the counterpoise (variation of altitude), if
the links had also a single joint at the bottom, could not be either
more or less than twice that of the balls, which equal lengths of the
arms and links give also in the common governor, so in this respect
the governor is no improvement.
2d. No notice is taken of the small size of the balls or of the speed
of rotation.
3d. Professor Rankine is not responsible for this absurd piece of
reasoning.
4th. It only shows how far the English engineering mind has been
from considering the subject of hindrance to the governor action from
friction.
My governor works within the law of the conical pendulum. I never
dreamed of attempting in this form of governor to avoid it. In fact it is
this law which gives to the governor its action. A change of speed is
necessary to produce a motion of the counterpoise. But as the
governor was designed by me, this change of speed is very small,
probably no more than is required for stability, and is not sensible in
any way except in the motion of the counterpoise itself, which is
simultaneous with the most minute changes of speed.
Quite a variety of modifications of this governor are being made in
this country, but I think not elsewhere. The makers have been kind
enough to invent the name “the central counterpoise governor.” For
this I feel greatly obliged, as I should be mortified to find my name
attached to any of them. Their action is always more or less
unsatisfactory, sometimes very much so. But I do not think it likely
that the secret of the remarkable action of the Porter governor has
been detected by any of these people.
I am glad that this was not explained to me at first; if it had been I
might not have thought of the single long driving-joint, which is a
valuable feature.
When the stone-dressing machine proved to be valueless, as
already described, I found myself out of business; but the governor
had attracted so much attention and had been so favorably received
that I thought I could establish a business of manufacturing these
governors, and I am proud to say that the gentlemen already
associated with me and who had lost their money in the
abandonment of the stone-dressing machine were so decidedly of
the same opinion, and I had won their confidence to such an extent,
that they furnished the money to enable me to establish this
manufacture.
I rented a shop on the second floor of a triangular building on
Thirteenth Street, at the junction of Hudson Street and Ninth Avenue,
owned by Mr. Herring, the safe-manufacturer, the lower part of which
was occupied by him for his own business. This was a large room
and had light on three sides.
I proceeded to equip this shop with the necessary tools, some of
which I purchased of Mr. Freeland, then considered the best
toolmaker in the United States, and who had gone to England and
worked for some years as a journeyman in the celebrated Whitworth
Works, in Manchester, for the purpose of learning everything that
was known there. Those which Mr. Freeland could not supply I
obtained from Geo. S. Lincoln & Co., of Hartford, Conn.
During the time these tools were building I was waited upon by Mr.
Chas. B. Richards, who was then removing from Hartford to New
York to establish himself as a designer of machinery, and who
brought me a letter from Geo. S. Lincoln & Co. I was at that time
engaged in scheming as well as I could a machine for drilling the
arms and balls and counterweight and spindle of my governor, and
immediately employed Mr. Richards to assist me in getting out the
drawings for this machine. This he did quite to my satisfaction, and
the machine was made by Geo. S. Lincoln & Co., Mr. Pratt, for so
many years head of the firm of Pratt & Whitney, afterwards the Pratt
& Whitney Company, being then their foreman; so that all my tools
from that concern were made by Mr. Pratt. He also cut for me superb
iron patterns for the governor gears.
This machine always interested me very much. It solved every
problem which was involved in the perfect and rapid performance of
these operations. It had two parallel spindles running horizontally in
the same plane, one fixed and the other adjustable. Distance pieces
laid between the spindle heads insured the equal length of the arms
of all governors of the same size. The table was made with a back to
it, so that, a parallel block being laid on the table behind the arms,
these were always brought in position parallel with its back. The
arms were supported on blocks of proper height. These provisions
insured that the joint-holes, which were drilled simultaneously,
should intersect the axes of the arms and of the balls and spindle at
right angles. This machine fitted up all the governors that I ever
made. I gradually built up an excellent business in their manufacture,
on account of the extreme pains taken to produce perfect work, so
that the governors always gave the highest satisfaction.
I think of only one instance to the contrary. I sold a governor to Mr.
Winslow, of Troy, afterwards of the firm of Corning & Winslow, the
first manufacturers of Bessemer steel rails in this country under the
inspiration of Mr. Alexander L. Holley. Soon after this governor had
been shipped I received a letter from Mr. Winslow telling me that the
governor would not answer at all, and I should come and see about
it. I found the governor had been placed on a second-hand Burden
engine, which was a well-known type of horizontal engine at that
time, made in Brooklyn. The engine had been built to make 50
revolutions per minute, but being a great deal too large for their use
they had reduced the speed to 25 revolutions per minute, and the
complaint was that every time the crank passed its centers the
governor dropped to its seat. I told them what I thought the difficulty
was; that any one could see that the engine very nearly stopped as
the crank passed its centers, and the governor had to drop. To show
them this action, I disconnected the governor from the valve and
throttled the engine by hand, and showed them that the governor,
when not connected with the throttle-valve, rose and dropped on
every stroke, in the same way as when connected. They asked me
what I was going to do about it. I told them I should do nothing about
it; that I presumed they might possibly get a governor somewhere
that would stand that alternation of speed without winking, but they
had better send mine back, because it was not made for any such
service.
Charles B. Richards
A.D. 1858
The following is an amusing illustration, doubtless an extreme one,

of the degree in which the lay mind may be incapable of mechanical
perception. My governors were usually set on the engine bed of
horizontal engines near the shaft, and were connected with the
throttle-valve over the cylinder by means of a bell-crank lever and a
long rod. One day a gentleman called to make a personal
examination of the governor and its manufacture, with a view to
investing in the business. I showed him a governor in action on the
testing platform, and a woodcut on my circular which represented the
governor in its position, as above described, with a short piece of the
connecting-rod attached to the lever. He looked at this cut intently for
some time, and then, putting his finger on the broken-off end of the
little rod, said, “Ah, I see; the steam enters there.” I made no reply,
and he was so much pleased with his own penetration that he
invested at once.
I know of only one case in which this governor needed the help of
a dash-pot or controlling vessel. In the great plate-mill of the Otis
Works, in Cleveland, when the enormous mass of steel struck the
rolls, the governor dropped sharply to its seat, and jumped as
sharply to the upper limit of its action when this mass was shot out.
Mr. Wellman, their general manager, suggested to me an elegant
arrangement of air-chambers at the top and bottom of a cylinder,
which permitted free motion to the governor through its whole range
of action, but cushioned it on confined air at the ends.
For several years I made the counterpoise of the governor in the
form of a vase. The present form with hemispherical top was
suggested by Mr. Whitworth in 1866, and shown by me in the Paris
Exposition of 1867. It has three advantages. It is more readily turned
with a circular tool-rest, and it contains more metal and looks more
mechanical.
I exhibited the governor in operation at a fair of the American
Institute held on Fourteenth Street between Sixth and Seventh
avenues, New York City (where the armory of the Twelfth Regiment
now stands), making an arrangement with an exhibitor of an engine
for that purpose. I remember that Mr. George H. Reynolds, then an
engineer in the works of Mr. Delamater at the foot of West Thirteenth
Street, as he passed it with a friend a day or two after it was started,
remarked in my hearing, “It will take a horse-power to drive that
governor.” It would not do to let any such nonsense get around as
the opinion of an engineer, so the next morning the governor was
driven by a belt ⁵⁄₈ of an inch wide, and continued to be so through
the fair. I was sorry afterwards that I did not use a half-inch belt,
which would have driven it just as well, and indeed I think even a
narrower belt would have done, as the foot of the spindle was of
hardened steel, a segment of a sphere, running in a puddle of oil in a
hardened step cupped to a larger radius.
The funniest application of the governor I ever made was the
following: The Civil War had just broken out, and every Yankee was
making some warlike invention. The most ridiculous of all was a
centrifugal gun. A company was formed for its manufacture. The
shot, about an inch in diameter, was fed in at the center of a swiftly
revolving wheel and thrown out through a barrel at the periphery,
with a velocity that, it was estimated by the inventor, would carry it
about two miles. This velocity was to be got up in about one second.
The governor would not act quickly enough, and the engine was
stopped. The parties heard of my governor, and ordered one,
offering to pay for it in a tempting amount of their stock. I preferred
the cash and got it. The governor filled the bill, the shot was
delivered, the velocity of revolution not falling sensibly, but we judged
by the sharp fall of the counterpoise that it required not less than
twenty horse-powers to do it.
The gun was tried on the bank of the Hudson, the Palisades
opposite being the target. The inventor declared that every shot hit
the mark, but some evil-minded persons insisted that they fell into
the water within a quarter of a mile of the shore from which they
were fired.
About the same time the absurdity of sending into the field a tank
of water, a boiler, an engine and the gun, on separate wheels,
connected by pipes or belting, which would be ruined by the least
damage to anything, began to dawn on the enthusiasts, and the
thing was abandoned.
I furnished one of my first governors to Mr. James Horner to
regulate a rolling-mill near Boonton, N. J., a sale which is worth
recording. This mill was employed in rolling steel pretty high in
carbon into rods for making gimlets, and the three-high train had not
yet issued from the brain of Mr. Fritz. The rolling was slow work. The
resistance brought down the speed of the engine before the
governor could act, and they could have only one pass in the rolls at
a time. The workmen had to carry the end of the rod around and
insert it in the next groove after it had run out of the former one. The
rod would be black before it was finished, and often it was difficult to
get it finished at all. I do not know of any change that so much
impressed me at the time as did that which followed the putting of
my governor on this engine. The full speed was kept up, the billets
seemed to rush through the rolls, two and even three passes could
be in them at the same time, and the rods were still at a dull red heat
when finished.
This success induced me to make a raid on Pittsburg. I found
there very different conditions. They then rolled nothing but iron, so
far as I saw or heard. In the first mill I visited, after I had discussed
the subject with one of the proprietors, an old man came up to me
and said, “Do you see that chair? I have sat in that chair twenty-four
years.” The chair corroborated his story. “I watch the rolls; when a
bar enters them, I turn on more steam; when it goes out I shut it off.
If you put in a governor that will do as well, I shall be discharged. I
don’t know how to do anything else; I have a family dependent on
me, and I don’t know what I should do.” I did not hesitate long about
what I should do. I could not improve on the old man’s action. He
regulated the speed perfectly. The only result of my success would
be to beggar him. Superseding hand labor by machinery I did not in
this particular case care to be responsible for. I concluded that the
Pittsburg way was good enough for them, and took the next train for
home.
The first governor I sold was to Mr. William Moller for his sugar-
refinery on Vandam Street. The engine to be regulated was an old-
fashioned beam-engine. The governor was to be set on a bracket
that we had to bolt to the wall, and a pulley some 3 feet or more in
diameter had to be made in halves and put on the shaft. To make
sure that no mistake would be made, I went down myself to make a
gauge of that shaft. I took a ³⁄₈-inch steel rod bent to span the shaft,
and made of this an outside gauge with great care. Now this was not
what I wanted, but I did not know it. I wanted an inside gauge,
representing the diameter of the shaft, and what I did make was
useful only to compare the two.
I returned highly satisfied with my work, leaving the real gauge to
be made in the shop, where it could not be compared with the shaft.
What might reasonably have been expected to happen did happen.
In some unaccountable way something happened to my gauge, and
when we went to install the governor we found the pulley had been
bored ¹⁄₄ inch too small. We had to work hard all night, and got
through only just in time for the engine to start at its usual hour in the
morning. If I had sent a man who knew his business to make this
gauge I should have avoided a lot of trouble, but I should not have
learned anything.
In preparing for the establishment of the governor manufacture I
visited the works of Geo. S. Lincoln & Co., in Hartford, and saw twist-
drills in use, cutting chips instead of scraping. They attracted my
attention and I inquired about them, and was told that they made
them themselves. They kindly took me into the smith-shop and had
one made for me to witness the operation. The smith heated a round
bar of steel and swaged channels in it on opposite sides. They had
quite a set of top and bottom swages for different-sized channels. He
then took another heat on the bar and twisted it by hand, giving a
gradually increasing twist, which at the end was quite rapid. An
increasing twist was obtained in this way. The drill was held in a vise,
so that only the projecting end of it could receive the amount of twist
then being imparted. The drill had to be moved in the vise of course
a number of times. The channels were smoothed out with files, and
when the drill was turned in the lathe sharp cutting edges were
developed, which needed only to be backed off by grinding. I took
one of these drills home with me to serve as a pattern and equipped
my shop with them. They were of the highest use to me. The small
ones drilled the holes for the governor joints, and the large ones

The Politics of Social Cohesion Immigration Community and Justice Nils Holtug Full Chapter

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The Politics of Social Cohesion:

Immigration, Community, and Justice

The Politics of Social Cohesion

also published in the series

The Politics of Social

2. National Identities and Nation-­building 23

5. Immigration and the Progressive’s Dilemma 125

8.6 Direct Value Effects 230

Furthermore, I am grateful to audiences at the Arctic University of Norway, the

1.1 Immigration, Integration, and Social Cohesion

In contemporary liberal democracies, it is difficult to find a policy issue as div­

Immigration, Integration, and Social Cohesion 3

Immigration, Integration, and Social Cohesion 5

and assumptions about national identification. In fact, this is in itself an important

1.2 Methods, Principles, and Facts

Methods, Principles, and Facts 7

Methods, Principles, and Facts 9

in Chapter 6. Furthermore, uncertainty may sometimes pertain to the extent to

Methods, Principles, and Facts 11

Readers will no doubt differ on how to respond to these examples of incentives

Methods, Principles, and Facts 13

Methods, Principles, and Facts 15

Fact-­sensitivity and particularism are tied together in Miller’s account in the

1.3 Overview of the Book

In Chapter 2, I demonstrate just how preoccupied contemporary liberal democra­

Overview of the Book 17

responded to such concerns with nation-­building policies and an emphasis on

empirical literature on the impact of diversity on these aspects of social cohesion.

Overview of the Book 19

2.1 Nation-­building, Shared Values, and Cohesive Societies

2.2 United Kingdom

24 National Identities and Nation-building

As transpires, Blunkett attributes the fracturing of communities to a lack of social

notion of community cohesion involves downplaying the significance of aspects

26 National Identities and Nation-building

(1) Constitutional, legislative, or parliamentary affirmation of multi­cul­tur­al­

Table 2.1 Multiculturalism Policy Index:

Source: Tolley and Vonk (2016).

granted to Sikhs to wear a turban instead of a safety helmet when working on

28 National Identities and Nation-building

30 National Identities and Nation-building

As transpires, Jespersen and Pittelkow specify the mechanism through which

32 National Identities and Nation-building

communal values by referring to a common Danish heritage (Danish Ministry of

compared it to a swastika—a view party chairman at the time, Pia Kjærsgaard,

34 National Identities and Nation-building

Our plans were suddenly ruined. A change in the method of facing

The Evolution and Manufacture of the Central Counterpoise Governor. Introduction

hen the stone-dressing machine was started a

The following is an amusing illustration, doubtless an extreme one,

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2. National Identities and Nation-building 23

In contemporary liberal democracies, it is difficult to find a policy issue as div

Fact-sensitivity and particularism are tied together in Miller’s account in the

In Chapter 2, I demonstrate just how preoccupied contemporary liberal democra

responded to such concerns with nation-building policies and an emphasis on

2.1 Nation-building, Shared Values, and Cohesive Societies

(1) Constitutional, legislative, or parliamentary affirmation of multicultural