In einem Grundsatzartikel für Foreign Affairs beschreibt Jerry Z. Muller, warum die Todesanzeigen für den Nationalismus als politische Kraft voreilig sein könnten. Einen Hauptgrund sieht er in der Einwanderung und ihrer Herausforderung des europäischen politischen Konsenses. Besonders interessant dabei der Gedanke, daß Einwanderung – lange von seiten der Linken gutgeheißen – insbesondere die Grundlagen linker Politik unterminiert:
„The most dramatic transformation of European ethnic balances in recent decades has come from the immigration of people of Asian, African, and Middle Eastern origin, and here the results have been mixed. Some of these groups have achieved remarkable success, such as the Indian Hindus who have come to the United Kingdom. But in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, on balance the educational and economic progress of Muslim immigrants has been more limited and their cultural alienation greater.
How much of the problem can be traced to discrimination, how much to the cultural patterns of the immigrants themselves, and how much to the policies of European governments is difficult to determine. But a number of factors, from official multiculturalism to generous welfare states to the ease of contact with ethnic homelands, seem to have made it possible to create ethnic islands where assimilation into the larger culture and economy is limited.
As a result, some of the traditional contours of European politics have been upended. The left, for example, has tended to embrace immigration in the name of egalitarianism and multiculturalism. But if there is indeed a link between ethnic homogeneity and a population’s willingness to support generous income-redistribution programs, the encouragement of a more heterogeneous society may end up undermining the left’s broader political agenda. And some of Europe’s libertarian cultural propensities have already clashed with the cultural illiberalism of some of the new immigrant communities.
Should Muslim immigrants not assimilate and instead develop a strong communal identification along religious lines, one consequence might be a resurgence of traditional ethnonational identities in some states — or the development of a new European identity defined partly in contradistinction to Islam (with the widespread resistance to the extension of full EU membership to Turkey being a possible harbinger of such a shift).
Since ethnonationalism is a direct consequence of key elements of modernization, it is likely to gain ground in societies undergoing such a process. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it remains among the most vital — and most disruptive — forces in many parts of the contemporary world.“