to defend, however. The argument is seldom taken to its logical conclusion; if it were, it would give rise to a host of problematic political and theoretical questions. Moreover, grounding political claims in this line of argument is politically risky because public opinion on what contributing to the economy actually means is often changeable and even contradictory.
It is often less than entirely clear just what kind of work immigrants economically contribute to the nation by performing, or whether being gainfully employed counts as an economic contribution to the nation at all. Some use the Monetized Contract view to argue that immigrant workers should be recognized as legitimate members of the polity because they contribute to the national economy; others appeal to the same perspective to argue that they should be excluded because they take jobs from native workers. If unemployment rises and jobs become scarce, popular opinion may switch from one position to the other. And if immigrants can fulfill their economic duty of contributing to the national economy and thus earn entitlement to recognition as citizens by working, what sort of work is the worthy immigrant supposed to perform? Public opinion on this point is also often contradictory. As Honig notes, successful migrants’ accumulation of great wealth and ascension to very desirable positions are often lauded in the American press as evidence of their industriousness and eagerness to contribute to American society (1996: 187–88). Yet, in other cases, immigrants are said to be contributing economically to the nation (not taking scarce jobs from native workers) because they are willing to work for low wages (saving the community money) or to take jobs native workers regard as undesirable. This very willingness is also sometimes blamed for lowering wages and standards for native workers.
Another difficulty with the Monetized Contract model is that it logically points to a much broader extension of citizenship than almost anyone seems ready or willing to accept. If contributing to the national economy entitles those immigrating to perform necessary labor for national companies to political rights, what if the same companies set up export platforms and hire the same workers to perform the same tasks outside the national territory? According to the society-centered Monetized Contract view, their membership status and the rights associated with it should be the same in both cases. Yet one would be hard pressed to find advocates of such a position, even among those relying most heavily on the work-centered view of entitlement to citizenship as a basis for legitimating extension of new rights to immigrant workers.
Moreover, if one were logically to extend the society-centered Monetized Contract argument to employees of national firms who work outside the country, a new series of questions would then need to be answered. What of the peasants who grow the grain to feed the workers who work for the national company abroad? What if a worker changes jobs, leaving an American plant to work for a Japanese one? Should his citizenship change accordingly? What if the company is an international joint venture, or is bought out by a foreign competitor? Some of the same problems may arise regardless where the worker lives, since there need be no correlation between the nationality of a corporation and the territory where it operates, let alone the nationality of its owners.
In an increasingly internationally integrated economy, the society-centered Monetized Contract approach to membership is thus apt to be exceedingly difficult to apply. It is too difficult to determine just which political community is the ultimate beneficiary of any given worker’s labor for it to be at all practical to determine who should count as a member of what nationstate on that basis. Moreover, defining citizenship that way would make changes in national status highly unpredictable for individuals, and for some possibly quite frequent as well. Defining citizenship on such an unstable basis would greatly reduce its value in providing people with a secure legal status on the basis of which to plan and organize their lives. Nonetheless, implicit references to this model of citizenship in political discussion are quite common; it is often seemingly taken for granted that the model itself makes sense.
It is important to note the distinction between the state-centered and the society-centered versions of the Contract and Monetized Contract models because, when used in arguments about contemporary issues, they often have ultimately different implications. For instance, Walzer (1983) uses the state-centered variant to defend guest workers’ entitlement to citizenship, arguing: “Men and women are either subject to the state’s authority, or they are not; and if they are subject, they must be given a say, and ultimately an equal say, in what the authority does” (61). While working “in the local economy” is one of the conditions Walzer mentions as giving rise to a right to citizenship in the sense of enjoying equal political rights, his argument is not, as one might expect, that guest workers are entitled to rights because they contribute to the national economy. Instead, he emphasizes that guest workers are subject to national law. That explains why, in his view, working in the local economy gives rise to rights to citizenship only where the workers concerned also live on a given (democratic) state’s territory, so that they are “subject to local law” (60).
If Walzer had based his argument for guest workers receiving citizenship on the society-centered version of the Monetized Contract model instead, an argument that also readily suggests itself in this case, his claims would then have become much less tenable, as the above discussion of the limitations of the society-centered version of the Monetized Contract model suggests.
Distinguishing Between the Culture and Belief Models
One may wonder whether the values and principles stressed by the Belief model are really distinct from culture and thus whether the Belief and Culture models truly differ. Are shared values and principles not cultural products? And are they not in most, if not all, cases culturally specific? Answering these profound ethical and philosophical question is unfortunately beyond the scope of this study.
However, whether or not values and political principles are culturally based, or can even be shown to be entirely culturally specific, the Culture and Belief conceptions of political membership are still analytically distinct ideas. As defined in this study, the Culture conception of citizenship grounds commonality in the kinds of shared language, manners, customs, and habits typically associated with primary socialization. The Belief model focuses more narrowly on political culture, values, and identification.
Where one might logically expect the Belief and Culture models to come into the most direct conflict would thus be in the case of migrants raised in a non-European cultural milieu who nonetheless come to identify politically with a European state or the values for which it claims to stand. The case of native non-European soldiers who fought on the French side during the Algerian War (the harkis) is an excellent example in this regard. The Belief and Culture conceptions of being French had notably different implications for harkis’ treatment after the war; in practical policy terms, the two models were clearly opposed.
The harkis had Belief as well as state-centered Contract claims to French political membership that were stressed throughout the war, but eclipsed in practice by more Culture and Descent-based understandings of political membership in the war’s immediate aftermath. During the conflict in Algeria, not only the harkis’ military service but also their love of and political identification with France were frequently emphasized. Indeed, their numbers were taken to demonstrate the justice of the French cause, showing that not only European settlers in Algeria but also significant numbers of native Muslims had become “French” and wished to remain so. Those who demonstrated their love and loyalty by fighting on France’s side were promised faithful French support; their Contract- and Belief-based claims to political membership were thus validated and encouraged. When the military conflict ended, however, far more refugees than anticipated sought immediate departure to France, overwhelming French authorities and officials. Perhaps seeking to thin the numbers, the director of France’s Military Cabinet ordered the military to try to prevent resettlement of “French Muslims” in the metropole (Perville 1991: 121), even though the former harkis were in imminent danger in Algeria (Hamoumou 1990: 25–45, 1991: 112–14; Meliani 1993; Roux 1991).
The idea that those who fought for the French military, and supposedly demonstrated their
