Mestizo Democracy: The Politics of Crossing Borders

Leslie J. Fairchild
{"title":"Mestizo Democracy: The Politics of Crossing Borders","authors":"Leslie J. Fairchild","doi":"10.5860/choice.40-5483","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Mestizo Democracy: The Politics of Crossing Borders John Francis Burke Texas A & M University Press, 2004 As everyone knows, the ethnic and racial composition of the American population is changing rapidly as a result of substantial legal immigration and larger illegal immigration. Indeed, it is not just the numbers of immigrants, and the fact that whereas the predominant source of migration was formerly Europe, immigration is now heavily skewed in favor of migrants from Latin America and non-European countries; it is also due to the higher birthrate amongst the non-European immigrants. These guarantee even greater changes in the future, with much higher birthrates among the non-White immigrants than among the American-born Europoid population. Furthermore, these new immigrants are not being absorbed into the prevailing culture of English-speaking America. They are increasingly retaining the use of their own languages, and are even served by newspapers, radio stations and television stations in Spanish and several other languages. A very real multiculturalism is taking root. What is interesting about this book is that the author not only shows how the immigrants and their descendants are modifying the American political scene, creating what he calls a \"mestizo democracy,\" but that the result will be a multicultural democracy that will be prevented from becoming consolidated into a single new hybrid culture due to the permeability of American borders which will permit continued immigration of diverse peoples, maintaining the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural character of this new America. The author applauds this as an extension of Madison's idea of an \"extended republic,\" claiming that the very permeability of American borders will safeguard the future of democracy in America because \"the larger the society, the more capable it will be of self-government.\" One questions whether Madison was right, when one compares the success of democracy in small countries such as Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland, and contrasts that with the history of democracy in larger societies such as Russia and China. Nevertheless, Burke not just accepts but positively advocates increased immigration and greater multiculturalism, and urges that \"we need to dare to re-envision the scheme of uniry-in-diversity at local, regional and national levels, and, in turn, to project transnational democratic initiatives.\" Pluralism, he says, should not be seen just as a deterrent to tyranny, as Madison saw it, but \"must be recast in terms of the substantive pluralism in crossing borders.\" Instead of thinking of borders as frontiers, he says, we should think of them as \"permeable mestizaje\" which will lead to the evolution of \"a dynamic yet democratic sense of community reflective of our multiple, not univocal, cultural identities.\" Indeed, he writes, \"my emphasis on moving beyond territorial boundaries and 'thickly' defined cultural identities is why throughout this text I have looked askance at representation schemes that strive to increase the access of diverse groups to political forums solely through geographical districts . …","PeriodicalId":52486,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2005-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"9","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.40-5483","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 9

Abstract

Mestizo Democracy: The Politics of Crossing Borders John Francis Burke Texas A & M University Press, 2004 As everyone knows, the ethnic and racial composition of the American population is changing rapidly as a result of substantial legal immigration and larger illegal immigration. Indeed, it is not just the numbers of immigrants, and the fact that whereas the predominant source of migration was formerly Europe, immigration is now heavily skewed in favor of migrants from Latin America and non-European countries; it is also due to the higher birthrate amongst the non-European immigrants. These guarantee even greater changes in the future, with much higher birthrates among the non-White immigrants than among the American-born Europoid population. Furthermore, these new immigrants are not being absorbed into the prevailing culture of English-speaking America. They are increasingly retaining the use of their own languages, and are even served by newspapers, radio stations and television stations in Spanish and several other languages. A very real multiculturalism is taking root. What is interesting about this book is that the author not only shows how the immigrants and their descendants are modifying the American political scene, creating what he calls a "mestizo democracy," but that the result will be a multicultural democracy that will be prevented from becoming consolidated into a single new hybrid culture due to the permeability of American borders which will permit continued immigration of diverse peoples, maintaining the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural character of this new America. The author applauds this as an extension of Madison's idea of an "extended republic," claiming that the very permeability of American borders will safeguard the future of democracy in America because "the larger the society, the more capable it will be of self-government." One questions whether Madison was right, when one compares the success of democracy in small countries such as Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland, and contrasts that with the history of democracy in larger societies such as Russia and China. Nevertheless, Burke not just accepts but positively advocates increased immigration and greater multiculturalism, and urges that "we need to dare to re-envision the scheme of uniry-in-diversity at local, regional and national levels, and, in turn, to project transnational democratic initiatives." Pluralism, he says, should not be seen just as a deterrent to tyranny, as Madison saw it, but "must be recast in terms of the substantive pluralism in crossing borders." Instead of thinking of borders as frontiers, he says, we should think of them as "permeable mestizaje" which will lead to the evolution of "a dynamic yet democratic sense of community reflective of our multiple, not univocal, cultural identities." Indeed, he writes, "my emphasis on moving beyond territorial boundaries and 'thickly' defined cultural identities is why throughout this text I have looked askance at representation schemes that strive to increase the access of diverse groups to political forums solely through geographical districts . …
查看原文
分享 分享
微信好友 朋友圈 QQ好友 复制链接
本刊更多论文
梅斯蒂索民主:跨越国界的政治
约翰·弗朗西斯·伯克德克萨斯州农工大学出版社,2004年众所周知,由于大量的合法移民和更大的非法移民,美国人口的民族和种族组成正在迅速变化。事实上,这不仅仅是移民数量的问题,也不仅仅是移民的主要来源以前是欧洲,现在移民严重偏向于来自拉丁美洲和非欧洲国家的移民;这也是由于非欧洲移民的出生率较高。这保证了未来会发生更大的变化,非白人移民的出生率将远远高于在美国出生的欧洲裔人口。此外,这些新移民并没有被以英语为母语的美国主流文化所吸收。他们越来越多地保留使用自己的语言,甚至有西班牙语和其他几种语言的报纸、广播电台和电视台为他们服务。真正的多元文化主义正在生根发芽。这本书的有趣之处在于,作者不仅展示了移民和他们的后代如何改变美国的政治舞台,创造了他所谓的“混血儿民主”,但结果将是一个多元文化的民主国家,由于美国边界的渗透性,它将被阻止成为一个单一的新的混合文化,这将允许不同的民族继续移民,保持这个新美国的多民族和多文化特征。作者称赞这是麦迪逊“扩展共和国”思想的延伸,声称美国边界的渗透性将保护美国民主的未来,因为“社会越大,自治的能力就越强”。当人们将冰岛、挪威、瑞典和芬兰等小国的民主成功与俄罗斯和中国等大社会的民主历史进行比较时,人们会质疑麦迪逊是否正确。尽管如此,伯克不仅接受,而且积极倡导增加移民和更大程度的多元文化主义,并敦促“我们需要敢于在地方、地区和国家层面重新设想多样性中的统一方案,并相应地提出跨国民主倡议。”他说,多元主义不应该像麦迪逊所看到的那样,仅仅被视为对暴政的威慑,而“必须在跨越国界的实质性多元主义方面进行重塑”。他说,我们不应该把边界看作是边界,而应该把它们看作是“可渗透的梅斯蒂扎伊”,这将导致“一种充满活力但民主的社区意识的演变,这种意识反映了我们多元的、而不是单一的文化身份”。事实上,他写道,“我强调超越地域界限和‘厚重’定义的文化身份,这就是为什么我在整篇文章中都对那些仅仅通过地理区域来努力增加不同群体进入政治论坛的代表方案持怀疑态度。”…
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 去求助
来源期刊
Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies
Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies Social Sciences-Political Science and International Relations
CiteScore
0.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
0
期刊介绍: The quarterly Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies (ISSN 0193-5941), which has been published regularly since 1976, is a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to scholarly papers which present in depth information on contemporary issues of primarily international interest. The emphasis is on factual information rather than purely theoretical or historical papers, although it welcomes an historical approach to contemporary situations where this serves to clarify the causal background to present day problems.
期刊最新文献
Einstein: His Life and Universe The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence The Specter of Capital
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
现在去查看 取消
×
提示
确定
0
微信
客服QQ
Book学术公众号 扫码关注我们
反馈
×
意见反馈
请填写您的意见或建议
请填写您的手机或邮箱
已复制链接
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
×
扫码分享
扫码分享
Book学术官方微信
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术
文献互助 智能选刊 最新文献 互助须知 联系我们:info@booksci.cn
Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。
Copyright © 2023 Book学术 All rights reserved.
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号 京ICP备2023020795号-1