David l. Miller 
Citizenship and National Identity [EPUB ebook] 

A good political community is one whose citizens are actively
engaged in deciding their common future together. Bound together by
ties of national solidarity, they discover and implement principles
of justice that all can share, and in doing so they respect the
separate identities of minority groups within the community.
In the essays collected in this book, David Miller shows that such
an ideal is not only desirable, but feasible. He explains how
active citizenship on the republican model differs from liberal
citizenship, and why it serves disadvantaged groups better than
currently fashionable forms of identity politics. By deliberating
freely with one another, citizens can reach decisions on matters of
public policy that are both rational and fair. He couples this with
a robust defence of the principle of nationality, arguing that a
shared national identity is necessary to motivate citizens to work
together in the name of justice. Attempts to create transnational
forms of citizenship, in Europe and elsewhere, are therefore
misguided. He shows that the principle of nationality can
accommodate the demands of minority nations, and does not lead to a
secessionist free-for-all. And finally he demonstrates that
national self-determination need not be achieved at the expense of
global justice.
This is a powerful statement from a leading political theorist that
not only extends our understanding of citizenship, nationality and
deliberative democracy, but engages with current political debates
about identity politics, minority nationalisms and European
integration.

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