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Is Liberal Nationalism an Oxymoron? An Essay for Judith Shklar

More than mere sentiment leads me to dedicate this essay to the memory of Judith Shklar, for my last encounter with her was as a member of the audience listening to her scathing comments, as a discussant on a 1992 American Political Science Association panel on the political theory of nationalism, regarding an argument offered by one of the paper givers that any viable liberal political theory should integrate within it at least some element of nationalism. Combining the erudition and passion that made her a uniquely formidable (and unforgettable) figure, she exhibited almost palpable outrage at the suggestion. Shklar did endorse the merits of what I believe she called "restrained patriotism," but that was, one inferred, altogether different from nationalism, which she seemed to view as being essentially irrational and almost inevitably dangerous, characterized first by excessive attention to bloodties and then, all too often, by bloodshed of those not within the requisite tribal connection.1 I have no doubt that she would have agreed with Michael Ignatieff's laconic observation that "if a nation gives people a reason to sacrifice themselves, it also gives them a reason to kill."2 Nationalism therefore is particularly likely to generate the cruelty whose prevention she saw as the primary virtue of liberalism. "Liberal nationalism" thus