Citizenship and Immigration in Postwar Britain
Randell S. Hansen(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 1. June 2000
Book
Hardback
314 pages
978-0-19-829709-3 (ISBN)
Description
The author draws extensively on archival material and theortical advances in the social sciences literature on citizenship and migration to examine the UK's transformation, since 1945, from a homogeneous into a multicultural society. Rejecting a dominant strain of sociological and historical inquiry emphasizing state racism, Hansen argues that politicians and civil servants were overall liberal, relative to a public to which it owed its office, and pursued policies that were rational for any liberal democratic politician. He explains the trajectory of British migration and nationality policy - its exceptional liberality until the 1950s, its exceptional restrictiveness after then, and its tortured and seemingly racist definition of citizenship. The combined effect of a 1948 imperial definition of citizenship (adopted independently of immigration) and a primary commitment to migration from the Old Dominions, locked British politicians into a series of policy choices resulting in a migration and nationality regime that was not racist in intention, but was racist in effect.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
618 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-829709-3 (9780198297093)
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Schweitzer Classification