Whiteshift

Last updated

Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities
Whiteshift.jpg
First edition
Author Eric Kaufmann
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
SubjectWhiteshift, white identity politics
Published2018
Publisher Allen Lane
Media typePrint, e-book
Pages624 pp
ISBN 978-1-46831-697-1 (Hardcover)

Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities is a 2018 non-fiction book written by Eric Kaufmann, a professor at Birkbeck College, University of London. [1] Described by The Economist as a "monumental study of ethno-demographic change", [2] Whiteshift covers politics in both Europe and North America and looks into the political views of the populist right. [3] [4] Kaufmann argues that the rise of Donald Trump in America and the populist right in Europe is a reaction to sweeping demographic change rather than to "economic anxiety". [5]

Contents

Reviews

On release, The Times made Whiteshift the 'Book of the Week' but with a sceptical review by David Aaronovitch, [6] who called it "a big controversial book about a big controversial subject". [7] Publishers Weekly said it was "likely to make a big splash", [8] and The Financial Times listed it as one of the 'Best books of 2018' in the politics genre. [9] The New Yorker wrote that Kaufmann and Whiteshift were defending white identity politics. [10] Daniel Trilling, in the London Review of Books , was critical of the book, describing Kaufmann's frame of reference as "both too broad and too narrow". [11]

Kenan Malik wrote that "Whiteshift is a hefty work crammed with data and graphs. The trouble with viewing the world primarily in demographic terms, though, is that, for all the facts and figures, it is easy to be blind to the social context." [12]

In a review symposium about Whiteshift published in the journal Ethnicities, political scientist Robert Ford wrote that "There is much to admire here. Kaufmann is methodologically catholic and draws on a rich range of different resources to examine and interrogate evolving white identity politics." However, he also noted "Kaufmann’s rather Manichean account of white ethnic politics involves some curious omissions and misunderstandings" and that "lack of balance is a recurring feature of Kaufmann’s discussions about the competing claims of ethno-cultural whites, cosmopolitan whites and ethnic minorities." [13] Sociologist John Holmwood argued that the lack of any discussion of "settler colonialism or of the place of first Nation populations and enslavement of African Americans and Jim Crow segregation in the USA" represent "serious – in fact, fatal – omissions in a book concerned to rehabilitate symbols of white identity." Holmwood writes that "It is a very large book – 619 pages – but it is also poorly edited, repetitive and, I have suggested, partial." [14]

Related Research Articles

A nation is a large type of social organization where a collective identity has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, territory or society. Some nations are constructed around ethnicity while others are bound by political constitutions.

Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, and social class. The term could also encompass other social phenomena which are not commonly understood as exemplifying identity politics, such as governmental migration policy that regulates mobility based on identities, or far-right nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic others. For this reason, Kurzwelly, Pérez and Spiegel, who discuss several possible definitions of the term, argue that it is an analytically imprecise concept.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eurabia conspiracy theory</span> Far-right Islamophobic conspiracy theory

"Eurabia" is a far-right, anti-Muslim conspiracy theory that posits that globalist entities, led by French and Arab powers, aim to Islamize and Arabize Europe, thereby weakening its existing culture and undermining its previous alliances with the United States and Israel.

Whiteness studies is the study of the structures that produce white privilege, the examination of what whiteness is when analyzed as a race, a culture, and a source of systemic racism, and the exploration of other social phenomena generated by the societal compositions, perceptions and group behaviors of white people. It is an interdisciplinary arena of inquiry that has developed beginning in the United States from white trash studies and critical race studies, particularly since the late 20th century. It is focused on what proponents describe as the cultural, historical and sociological aspects of people identified as white, and the social construction of "whiteness" as an ideology tied to social status.

Cultural conservatism is described as the protection of the cultural heritage of a nation state, or of a culture not defined by state boundaries. It is sometimes associated with criticism of multiculturalism, anti-immigration sentiment, and opposition to illegal immigration. Because their cultural preservationist objectives are in conflict with those of anti-racists, cultural conservatives are often accused of racism. Despite this, however, cultural conservatism can be more nuanced in its approach to minority languages and cultures; it is sometimes focused upon heritage language learning or threatened language revitalization, such as of the Distinctive local dialect of French in Quebec, Acadian French, Canadian Gaelic, and the Mi'kmaq language in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, or the Irish language in Newfoundland. Other times cultural conservatism is more focused upon the preservation of an ethnic minority's endangered ancestral culture, such as those of Native Americans.

The United Kingdom is an ethnically diverse society. The largest ethnic group in the United Kingdom is White British, followed by Asian British. Ethnicity in the United Kingdom is formally recorded at the national level through a census. The 2011 United Kingdom census recorded a reduced share of White British people in the United Kingdom from the previous 2001 United Kingdom census. Factors that are contributing to the growth of minority populations are varied in nature, including differing birth rates and Immigration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Right-wing populism</span> Combination of right-wing politics and populist themes

Right-wing populism, also called national populism and right-wing nationalism, is a political ideology that combines right-wing politics and populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric employs anti-elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establishment, and speaking to or for the "common people". Recurring themes of right-wing populists include neo-nationalism, social conservatism, economic nationalism and fiscal conservatism. Frequently, they aim to defend a national culture, identity, and economy against perceived attacks by outsiders. Right-wing populism has remained the dominant political force in the Republican Party in the United States since the 2010s.

Nativism is the political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of "native-born" or established inhabitants over those of immigrants, including the support of anti-immigration and immigration-restriction measures. Despite the name, and in the US in particular, this position is usually held by the descendants of immigrants themselves, and is not a movement led by Indigenous peoples, as opposited to Nativists in Europe who are descended from native peoples such as Celts, Anglo-Saxons or Norsemen.

White backlash, also known as white rage or whitelash, is related to the politics of white grievance, and is the negative response of some white people to the racial progress of other ethnic groups in rights and economic opportunities, as well as their growing cultural parity, political self-determination, or dominance.

Criticism of multiculturalism questions the ideal of the maintenance of distinct ethnic cultures within a country. Multiculturalism is a particular subject of debate in certain European nations that are associated with the idea of a nation state. Critics of multiculturalism may argue against cultural integration of different ethnic and cultural groups to the existing laws and values of the country. Alternatively critics may argue for assimilation of different ethnic and cultural groups to a single national identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Goodwin</span> British political scientist

Matthew James Goodwin is a British academic who is professor of politics in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. His publications include National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy and Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics.

Political demography is the study of the relationship between politics and population change. Population change is driven by classic demographic mechanisms – birth, death, age structure, and migration.

Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric approach to various political issues related to national affirmation of a particular ethnic group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Kaufmann</span> Canadian political and religious demographer

Eric Peter Kaufmann is a Canadian professor of politics from the University of Buckingham. He was appointed in October 2023, following his resignation from his post at Birkbeck, University of London, after two decades of service, citing political differences. He is a specialist on Orangeism in Northern Ireland, nationalism, and political and religious demography. He has authored, co-authored, and edited multiple books on these subjects.

The Great Replacement, also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory espoused by French author Renaud Camus. The original theory states that, with the complicity or cooperation of "replacist" elites, the ethnic French and white European populations at large are being demographically and culturally replaced by non-white peoples—especially from Muslim-majority countries—through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans. Since then, similar claims have been advanced in other national contexts, notably in the United States. Mainstream scholars have dismissed these claims as rooted in a misunderstanding of demographic statistics and premised upon an unscientific, racist worldview. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Great Replacement "has been widely ridiculed for its blatant absurdity."

The politics of resentment, sometimes called grievance politics, is a form of politics which is based on resentment of some other group of people.

A majority-minority or minority-majority area is a term used to refer to a subdivision in which one or more racial, ethnic, and/or religious minorities make up a majority of the local population.

White demographic decline is a decrease in the self-identified White populace as a percentage of the total population in a city, state, subregion, or nation. It has been recorded in a number of countries and smaller jurisdictions. For example, according to national censuses, White Americans, White Canadians, White Latin Americans, and White people in the United Kingdom are in demographic decline in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the United Kingdom, respectively. White demographic decline can also be observed in other countries including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Zimbabwe.

National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy is a 2018 book by political scientists Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin, published by Pelican Books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immigration to the Western world</span> Immigration to mainly European-descent countries

Immigration has had a major influence on the demographics and culture of the Western world. Immigration to the West started happening in significant numbers during the 1960s and afterward, as Europe made its post-war economic recovery and the United States passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 allowing non-European immigration.

References

  1. Isaac Chotiner (30 April 2019). "A Political Scientist Defends White Identity Politics". The New Yorker .
  2. "Two new books explain the Brexit revolt". The Economist. 3 November 2018.
  3. Park MacDougald (1 March 2019). "A Different Way to Think About White Identity Politics". New York magazine.
  4. Zack Beauchamp (26 February 2019). "The Virtue of Nationalism and Whiteshift: Books that explain Trump". Vox.
  5. Theodore Kupfer (4 April 2019). "Whiteshift: Identity Politics in an Era of Demographic Change". National Review.
  6. David Aaronovitch (26 October 2018). "Review: Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities by Eric Kaufmann — are white people really in decline?". The Times.
  7. Jasper Hamill (30 January 2019). "Will racist white people 'exit into a 1950s-style simulation' to avoid growing diversity in the West?". Metro.
  8. Whiteshift: the turbulent journey from a world of racially homogeneous white majorities to one of racially hybrid majorities. Abrams Books. 5 February 2019. ISBN   9781468316971.
  9. Gideon Rachman (23 November 2018). "Best books of 2018: Politics". Financial Times.
  10. Isaac Chotiner (30 April 2019). "A Political Scientist Defends White Identity Politics". The New Yorker .
  11. Daniel Trilling (201). "'I'm not racist, but ...'". London Review of Books. 41 (8).
  12. Malik, Kenan (21 October 2018). "White identity is meaningless. Real dignity is found in shared hopes". the Guardian. Retrieved 25 July 2022.
  13. Ford, Robert (15 April 2019). "Raising the white flag". Ethnicities. SAGE Publications. 20 (1): 228–233. doi:10.1177/1468796819839071. ISSN   1468-7968. S2CID   150881075.
  14. Holmwood, John (15 April 2019). "Claiming whiteness". Ethnicities. SAGE Publications. 20 (1): 234–239. doi:10.1177/1468796819838710. ISSN   1468-7968. S2CID   220049657.