For some years, a growing crowd of 'cosmopolitan' Left-liberal scholars and intellectuals have been taking aim at the nation state, holding it responsible for numerous grave problems facing Europe and the wider world, ranging from growing anti-immigrant sentiments to the absence of a counterweight to US neoconservative unilateralism. In this view, 'more Europe', as in more supranational EU integration, is said to be the key solution, paving the way for a progressive, human rights-based 'cosmopolitan Europe' capable of transcending the vices of national self-interest. This article offers a critique of such an EU-based cosmopolitan promise, focusing primarily on asylum policy. Since there has been an increased EU involvement in asylum policy in recent years, it makes for an ideal context to discuss and 'test' the cosmopolitan 'more Europe' thesis. It is argued that, while there are as many good reasons to remain critical of the nation state as there are injustices committed in its name, recognition of this fact cannot be allowed to spill over uncritically into the nowadays fashionable contention that progress will automatically result from diminishing national sovereignty and the shift of policy-making to the EU level. As the case of 'Europeanised' asylum policy demonstrates, there are no guarantees whatsoever to that effect.
C. Bildt, Hallänning, svensk, europé (Stockholm, Bonniers, 1991), pp. 105-6. All translations from Swedish sources are mine.
2.
Ibid., p. 108.
3.
Ibid., p. 110.
4.
I describe its independence as `relative' because of Sweden's close relations and semi-secret cooperation with the western powers and NATO during the cold war. Even though the Swedish Right was perfectly aware of the fact that, when it came down to it, Sweden was solidly positioned within the western camp, it nonetheless persisted in trying to make it appear as if Sweden's western commitment always hung in the balance. This may suggest that what most upset the Right had little to do with any real fear of Sweden abandoning the western camp altogether but, rather, was to do with the Social Democrat's audacity to be of western Europe while simultaneously being a frequent immanent critic of western countries' foreign policy. In the eyes of the Right, Social Democrat Sweden personified precisely those traits of disloyalty and treachery that cosmopolitans had traditionally been accused of in Europe.
5.
Expressen (22 June 2007).
6.
B. Elmbrant , Palme (Stockholm, Fischer & Rye, 1989); `Sweden's Olof Palme: "neutral but not silent" ', Time (29 January 1973).
7.
`Sweden offers safe haven to Iraqi refugees', CBC/ Radio Canada (14 September 2007), < http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromabroad/arsenault/20070914.html> ;.
8.
`Iraqi refugees in Sweden: "anything is better than Baghdad"' , Spiegel Online (18 April 2007), <http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,477952,00.html> ;.
9.
`Iraq war refugees turn to Sweden, not US', ABC News (15 March 2007), <http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=2954702&page=1> ;; `Iraqi refugees find sanctuary, and fellow Iraqis, in Sweden' , New York Times (16 January 2007); `Iraqi refugees: our problem or Sweden's?', Washington Post (18 June 2007).
10.
Shahram Khosravi , `Sweden: detention and deportation of asylum seekers', Race & Class (Vol. 50, no. 4, April 2009).
11.
European Council on Refugees and Exiles, `Europe must extend solidarity to Iraqi refugees in the EU', PR2/2/2007/Ext/RW (15 February 2007).
12.
`Billstrom interviewed on Iraq refugees in Sweden', Middle East Online (26 September 2007), < http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=22365>.
13.
Ibid.
14.
Ibid.
15.
Quoted in C. Joppke, Immigration and the Nation-State: the United States, Germany, and Great Britain (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 93.
16.
Ibid., p. 93.
17.
A. Sivanandan , `Racism: the road from Germany', Race & Class (Vol. 34, no. 3, January 1993), pp. 72-3.
18.
Joppke, op. cit., p. 93, emphasis in original.
19.
Statistics Netherlands, `Lowest number of asylum requests in EU for 20 years' (24 April 2007), <www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/themas/bevolking/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2007/2007-2182-wm1.htm>.
20.
Home Office , `Asylum numbers down, new drive on removals - home secretary' (24 February 2004), < http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/press-releases/Asylum_Numbers_Down,_New_Drive_O>.
21.
Studio Ett (7 February 2008), < http://sr.se/webbradio/webbradio.asp?type=broadcast&Id=1000533&BroadcastDate=&IsBlock=1> ;.
22.
F. Webber, `Europe 1992', Race & Class (Vol. 31, no. 2, October 1989); L. Fekete, `The deportation machine: Europe, asylum and human rights', Race & Class (Vol. 47, no. 1, July 2005).
23.
U. Beck, The Cosmopolitan Vision (Cambridge, Polity, 2006), p. 166.
24.
Ibid., pp. 170-1, 167.
25.
D. Archibugi, `Principles of cosmopolitan democracy', in D. Archibugi, D. Held and M. Köhler (eds), Re-imagining Political Community: studies in cosmopolitan democracy (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1998); M. Köhler, `From the national to the cosmopolitan public sphere', in Archibugi, Held and Köhler (eds), op. cit.
26.
R. Braidotti , `Gender and power in a post-nationalist European Union', NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research (Vol. 12, no. 3, 2004).
27.
A. Giddens, The Third Way: the renewal of social democracy (Cambridge, Polity, 1998); D. Held, `Global social democracy', in A. Giddens (ed), The Progressive Manifesto: new ideas for the centre-Left (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2003); M. Kaldor, `Reconceptualizing organized violence', in Archibugi, Held and Köhler (eds), op. cit.; J. Habermas, The Divided West (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2006).
28.
For a thorough delineation and critical scrutiny of the various cosmopolitan and post-national perspectives and positions, see C. Calhoun, Nations Matter: culture, history, and the cosmopolitan dream (London, Routledge, 2007).
29.
Beck, op. cit, p. 168.
30.
U. Beck and E. Grande, Cosmopolitan Europe (Cambridge, Polity, 2007), p. 2; see also Giddens, op. cit., pp. 142-7.
31.
Beck, op. cit., p. 174; Beck and Grande, op. cit., p. 22.
32.
P. Hainsworth , `France says no: the 29 May 2005 referendum on the European constitution', Parliamentary Affairs (Vol. 59, no. 1, 2006).
33.
For a substantiation of this point, as well as a comprehensive analysis of the referenda, see S. Watkins, `Continental tremors', New Left Review (No. 33, 2005).
34.
Quoted in ibid., p. 7.
35.
Quoted in European Policy Centre, `After the French and Dutch referenda: what prospects for the treaty?' (June 2005), <http://www.epc.eu/en/er.asp?AI=508&LV=293&PG=ER/EN/detail&TYP=ER&see=y&t=2>.
36.
Watkins, op. cit, p. 7.
37.
A. Geddes, 'Lobbying for migrant inclusion in the European Union', Journal of European Public Policy (Vol. 7, no. 4, 2000), p. 640.
Commission of the European Communities, On the managed entry in the EU of persons in need of international protection and the enhancement of the protection capacity of the regions of origin, COM(2004) 410 final (Brussels, 4. 6, 2004), p. 6, emphasis in original.
40.
Commission of the European Communities, Towards a common asylum procedure and uniform status, valid throughout the Union, for persons granted asylum, COM(2000) 755 final (Brussels, 22. 11, 2000), p. 10.
41.
Commission of the European Communities, Green Paper on a Community Return Policy on Illegal Residents, COM(2002) 175 final (Brussels, 10. 4, 2002), p. 8.
42.
Quoted in L. Kubosova, `EU has limits in respecting Muslim traditions, says Frattini', Euobserver (9 October 2006).
43.
F. Frattini , `Enhanced mobility, vigorous integration strategy and zero tolerance on illegal employment', Speech/07/526, High-level Conference on legal Immigration (Lisbon, 13 September 2007), p. 5.
44.
E. Kofman, `Figures of the cosmopolitan: privileged nationals and national outsiders' , Innovation (Vol. 18, no. 1, 2005), p. 92.
45.
Here a proviso should be added: one of the coalition partners in the current Swedish government, the Liberal Party (folkpartiet), has been flirting with Islamophobia for several years; and, as the holder of the Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality, the Liberal Party has been pushing for policies of this kind. Until recently, however, the Moderate Party (the largest coalition partner) and the prime minister have, for the most part, only shown lukewarm interest in such an agenda. Developments from Autumn 2008 indicate, however, that the Moderate Party seems to be gearing up to play the `integration' card in the 2010 election, calling for stiffer `cultural value-related' integration demands to be placed on certain groups of migrants and minorities.
46.
Beck, op. cit, pp. 166-7.
47.
J.H.H. Weiler , The Constitution of Europe ( Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 244, 251.
48.
Beck and Grande, op. cit, p. 19.
49.
Beck, op. cit, p. 176.
50.
U. Beck and A. Giddens, `Nationalism has now become the enemy of Europe's nations', Guardian (4 October 2005).
51.
J. Habermas and J. Derrida, `February 15, or what binds Europeans together: a plea for a common foreign policy, beginning in the core of Europe' , Constellations (Vol. 10, no. 3, 2003), pp. 292-3.
