AN EXAMINATION OF THE EXTENT TO WHICH IMMIGRATION AND ETHNIC RELIGIOUS Essay

AN EXAMINATION OF THE EXTENT TO WHICH IMMIGRATION AND ETHNIC RELIGIOUS PLURALISM THREATENS THE WELFARE - Essay ExampleAs briefly indicated in the above, ethnic and religious plurality constitute a potential threat to the very notion of the offbeat state and its associate welfare citizenship. Plurality, implying conflict and difference, is antithetical to the very principles upon which the welfare state is predicated the principles of shared identity, commonality and homogeneity. Even while conceding to the reality of the stated threat, however, this research will define the claim that the management of plurality through multiculturalism has the potential to control and limit this threat.Understanding the extent to which ethnic plurality and religious diversity can buy the farm as a threat to the welfare state, is predicated on an appreciation of the implications of acres-hood and the tender citizenry to which it gave rise. If the idea of the nation was invented, imported, and im plemented by elites, it had also to appeal to the liberalisation of the population who had not known dignity before the age of nationalism. Weber observes that the idea of the nation for its advocates stands in very intimate relation to their prestige interests (Weber 1978 9251530). man the dominant political strata, such as feudal lords, modern officers, and bureaucrats are the primary exponents of a desire for the political power of the state, since power for their political biotic community means political, economic, and social power for themselves (Weber 1978 911/520), it is those who appropriate leadership in a community of culture, the carriers of culture. who promote the idea of a nation (Weber 1978 9261530). These are, for Weber, primarily intellectuals, but also artists, editors, authors, journalists, etc. (Weber 1946a 1791485). While, originally, the masses had little to gain and little to lose within the political project of the state, or within the cultural mission o f the nation (Weber 1978 9211527, 9251530), they can progressively identify with the nation-states prestige due to the democratization of state, society and culture (Weber 1946 1781485). The implication here is that the nation emerged as an imagined entity but attained concrete reality because of a shared social identity, a common culture which, in turn, gave rise to shared historical memories and heritage. In other words, the state is inherently founded upon shared social identity and it is the latter which gave rise to the nation, and not vice-versa. Within the context of the stated, the nation may very well be an imagined entity but it, nonetheless, bestows identity upon its populace (Greenfield, 1992).Citizenship derives from the nation which, in turn, emerged as a direct outcome of