Questioning the limits of the political and just how democratic is
the nation-state, Habermasís essay, ëThree Normative Models of
Democracyí (1996) notices how both the ëliberal viewí and the
ërepublican viewí of the modern nation-state ëlies not primarily in the
protection of equal private rights but in the guarantee of an inclusive
opinion ñ and will-formation in which free and equal citizens reach an
understanding on which goals and norms lie in the equal interest of
all.í^15 Hence: ëFor republicans rights ultimately are nothing but deter-
minations of the prevailing political will, while for liberals some
rights are always grounded in a ìhigher lawî of [Ö] reason.í^16 A ënew
nationalismí must be antagonistic towards the ëold-internationalismí
of the nation-state that is equated with the ëall-the-same-ismí disliked
by the feminist critics of Irish nationality, Gerardine Meaney and
Ailbhe Smyth, while also recognizing the legitimacy of a collective
politics for decolonization. The Irish poet seeking to critique the limits
of the nation-state in favour of an international perspective away from
Ireland risks treading across this tension.
Such a minefield has been crossed by Homi Bhabha in his essay
ëDissemiNationí (1994). The positive difficulty with Bhabhaís writing
lies in the way his theorization juggles with the differing demands of
nationalism, post-nationalism, post-colonialism and postmodernism,
while refusing to simplify their relationship. Nikos Papastergiadis
provides a path through ëAmbivalence in Cultural Theoryí (1996) and
he undresses the density of Bhabhaís prose to provide the following
argument:
The public sphere, in a liberal democracy allows no space for heterogeneity,
and a politics of difference becomes equated with the threat of fragmentation.
The nation state has always been poised over a precarious paradox: it has
sought to defend the rights of minorities and to preserve the right to dissent,
while at the same time insisting that the nation must be inspired by unifying
themes. The nation is seen as a container whose centrist institutions must not be
challenged even while it continues to evolve through the incorporation of15 Habermas, ëThree Normative Models of Democracyí, Democracy and
Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, ed., Seyla Benhabib
(New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996), p.22.
16 Cf. F.I. Michelman, ëConceptions of Democracy in American Constitutional
Argument: Voting Rightsí, Florida Law Review, Vol.41, No.3, July 1989,
p.446f.