Why citizenship tests are necessarily illiberal: a reply to Blake. Issue 1 (2nd January 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sharp, Daniel
• Is Part Of: Ethics & global politics. Volume 15:Issue 1(2022)
• Publication Date: 2022-01-02
• Subjects: Citizenship tests -- citizenship -- immigration -- public reason -- equality -- liberalism; International relations -- Moral and ethical aspects -- Periodicals; Political ethics -- Periodicals; Ethics -- Periodicals; Ethics; International relations -- Moral and ethical aspects; Political ethics; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 172.4
• DOI: 10.1080/16544951.2022.2031588
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1654-6369

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In 'Are Citizenship Tests Necessarily Illiberal?', Michael Blake argues that difficult citizenship tests are not necessarily illiberal, so long as they test for the right things. In this paper, I argue that Blake's attempt to square citizenship tests with liberalism fails. Blake underestimates the burdens citizenship tests impose on immigrants, ignoring in particular the egalitarian claims immigrants have on equal social membership. Moreover, Blake's positive justification of citizenship tests – that they help justify immigrants' coercive voting power – both neglects the fact that such tests are coercively imposed on immigrants and that the citizenship test Blake envisions does little to help ensure immigrants' votes are legitimate. Citizenship tests thus aren't, even in principle, a way of protecting citizens from unjustified coercive power. They are, even under favourable circumstances, an illiberal way of obstructing immigrants' quest for social equality.