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tyler.com [Music] hello this is Tyler Cowan with another episode of conversations with Tyler and I'm here today with Eric cman who is a political scientist at birbeck College here in London he has just published the
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highly influential book wh shift populism immigration and the future of white majorities Eric welcome great to be here Tyler let's go back a bit earlier in your career I have some questions about Northern Ireland is real estate in Northern Ireland underpriced
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I've been to placees say an anre where you can buy a normal house that appears to be in good shape for about $60,000 or a beautiful huge house on the water for $30,000 why are those prices so low is that an Arbitrage opportunity
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um well it depends maybe it's only about five or six days of sunshine a year no I'm just kidding but yeah I agree with you there's some lovely parts of Northern Ireland and uh I mean one of the other things is the sectarian real
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estate market which is another wrinkle that we could talk about but is Northern Ireland undervalued by the market future prospects yeah I think so I I certainly don't think they're going to have sectarian violence so it may be an
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opportunity am I wrong in thinking a kind of Coan argument applies that there are gains from trade there won't be much future conflict they speak the English language they're a member of either the UK or the EU or under some scenarios
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both and it will just be the world's biggest boom area say 10 15 years from now why is that wrong I don't necessarily think it is wrong other than the fact that right now the economy is about 85% government and and so unless
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there is some sort of private investment then it's going to be a government run essentially an economy funded from the mainland Britain so I'm just not sure it has the dynamism yet but tourism's increasing and like you say it's a very
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pleasant place with a lot of advantages why isn't there more private investment because I think for a long time essentially the security situation kept investors away Republic of Ireland drew a lot of the investment in it remained a
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kind of dependency situation in relation to the UK so for those reasons I think there just hasn't been the investment but you're right I think it has a lot of potential and the people are are very smart so I can't see a reason why not
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what's the most plausible scenario for Irish reunification I think the most plausible scenario is that I mean Northern Ireland Protestants don't have the same hostility to The Republic that they have have traditionally had so
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maybe a kind of charm offensive and perhaps a I mean in a way the unionist population is the one they have to win over and they are kind of Four Square against reunification somehow the Irish Republic has to find a way to reassure
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them that's going to be the ticket to reunification but it'll never really happen just through economic integration I think there's got to be something symbolic that will win over the unionists if the unionists feel so tied
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to Great Britain why does to me Belfast feel so much more Irish than say Dublin does really it does you obviously haven't been to East Belfast and seen all of the Union Jacks you know or down the Shankle um you should visit the uh
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the orange orders headquarters I think in East Belfast I think that would cure you of that you mentioned the Orangemen say I belong to a Grand Lodge of the Orangemen what private benefits do I get why might I be joining well you get to
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take part in an annual spectacle which is the July 12th parades where you're parading in front of your community I actually don't think there are a whole lot of material benefits I I just don't think that's the reason people have drawn into it I think it's a family
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tradition it's a a communal thing a historical symbolic thing now that was different in the past when really that was the ticket to you know getting into the police force the mayor's office a whole series of of jobs at the aircraft
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Factory or the shipyards that's no longer the case so the the incentives are different now and you wrote in one of your books on Northern Ireland quote parading is about power and also quote parading is the issue which most
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concerns orange men today explain that why who cares about par I don't for many orangen it's the you know many of them won't really attend these Lodge meetings which are quite boring and the what they're really in it for is that once a
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year spectacle and if you take that away uh that's a big reason why they joined in the first place so it's very emotional also these these roots are in some cases hundreds of years old so they you know there there is that symbolic
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attachment it is also about power you know certainly in the older days this this was about showing who was in control particularly in areas that where the Protestants were parading through Catholic areas um but now most of those
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roots have been re-rooted or or closed and so yeah it's it's very much a symbolic issue and the sense amongst the unionists is that they're right their culture is being taken away from them in a way that that in in a sense only
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Protestant cultures being targeted in other forms of cultural expression such as the Irish language are supported so I think that's part of the the issue there if the Orange Order is some form of white identity politics why is there an
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orange order in Ghana and why is it appear to be growing well I don't think it is a form of white identity politics actually and that's why you're right that in West Africa and actually by the way there are native Indian lodges in
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Canada for example as well which Thrive so it's mainly about being Protestant so it's a Protestant identity but of course depends on the setting in Northern Ireland for a long time the Protestants were the dominant ethnic group as well
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and so it it functioned as a sort of Association and fraternity for that group similarly in Canada uh where or in Newland both of which were very strong orange jurisdictions the orange order also functioned as a kind of Association
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for the dominant ethnic group but it doesn't have to be that way in Northern Ireland today what is roughly the rate of intermarriage across Catholic Protestant it is a few percent it is very very small extremely low and it has
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not no statistics I've seen have shown that unfreezing so it's it's extremely rare many come over to Britain who who are who you know if they marry across the sectarian divide they might just come over to Britain because life will
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be less complicated for them and let's say I meet someone in Northern Ireland and other than what they might say what's the first thing they will do or show that might indicate they're Catholic rather than Protestant or vice
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versa right what's the empirical correlation that they will show well I mean they will they're very good at reading the signs it could be what what clothing color you're wearing it could they they might ask innocuous questions
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like which school did you go go to and if it starts with a saint you know that's Catholic right so that's these are the signs that they pick up on if we think about Catholics and Protestants in the United States it's striking how much
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the fertility Gap has closed why has that happened well what happened is the Protestants went through the demographic transition first in Northern Ireland 80 years before the Catholics did but then the Catholics entered into that so they
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started reducing their fertility by 1980 in the US the uh the two fertility rates were were pretty much identical yeah so this is just a convergence as groups enter into the demographic mature phase of demographic transition but some
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groups are lagging a little bit behind you know given that the Amish have apparently a total fertility rate of 5.3 and a high retention rate that is Amish stay Amish uh why don't they take over the world or will this happen like what
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exactly is the limiting factor in this kind of calculus well this is an interesting question because I don't see the limiting factor yet you could imagine in an authoritarian country like China they would just impose was a sort
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of two child policy on the Amish but in the absence of that you're right I mean there were I think 5,000 Amish in the US in 1900 there are probably 300,000 now in the 2200s there will be 300 million uh you know with this rate of growth so
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what is the limiting factor one of the test cases will be Israel with the ultra Orthodox where you know they were a few percent of the uh first grade population in 1960 they're now past a third of the Jewish School first grade population so
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yeah at what point does a high reproducing group that retains its members either drop their fertility or or start bleeding into the rest of the population I mean that's that's going to be a big question and Israel will be the
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test case for that with the Amish could it be there's a limited number of people who can either work in agriculture or sell to tourists so if we say double the number of Amish once again in essence they'll start making good livings and
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out movement will be much higher or they'll have fewer kids well I I think these World denying fundamentalist sects really are not that motivated by economic incentives I mean one of the reasons their populations have exploded
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is partly because they reject modern not modern contraception so well contraception but also limiting family size they're sort of really setting their face against the Modern Trend towards secularism liberalism low fertility and so they're kind of
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inoculated from a lot of these pressures and the M particularly the material pressures which really drove for ility in the past now that we have contraception you don't need to have a lot of kids to work the land anymore the material incentives are no longer the driver fertility is cultural and religious so I think we shouldn't expect their fertility to come down even if they run out of land will the Mormon birth rate crash or are they too going
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to take over the world and they have a head start on the Amish right many more Mormons than Amish that's right six million versus 300,000 in in America their B fertility rate is almost twice that of the rest of the population and
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if the American fertility rate continues to go down it could be that the Mormon one actually goes up to about twice as much yeah I mean when you're maintaining twice the fertility rate as the rest of the population and you've got fairly
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High retention you multiply that over generations and it rises exponentially so the or we should expect the Mormons to be more influential in future Generations in the United States but there seems to be a lot of outm movement
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from the side of Mormon males who don't repudiate Mormonism but they might be to marry a Christian woman who is not Mormon and they slowly bleed into just being Christian over time and the number of unmarried Mormon women who were
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somewhat older seems to be an extreme imbalance indicating retention rates are not as high as they're measured perhaps yeah I mean I think it depends whether we're talking about the core in Utah and perhaps spilling into Idaho versus
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Mormons who live outside the core I think Mormons outside the core have a higher intermarriage rate and perhaps are more likely to assimilate into the mainstream but if you take that kind of core settlement area I think the
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intermarriage would be pretty low do you think that the very religious will always have much higher birth rates than secular individuals is there some technology that could overturn that or is that just baked into us I think it's
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pretty baked in I mean if you look worldwide next to women's education religiosity is the next predictor of strongest predictor of total fertility rate there's almost no country in the world where committed religious women
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have a below replacement fertility and you know the difference in Western developed countries the religiosity actually matters more than women's education so I don't see that factor going away I think it's it's going to be a key factor driving fertility
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differences going forward could wealth overturn that so now it's like an in thing for say a billionaire family to have four kids five kids and of course they can handle it rather readily but if you extrapolate out say 80 years and
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many more people are quite wealthy and maybe they're a cheap way ways using surveillance robots whatever to take care of kids and then the wealthiest families have the most kids and they may or may not be religious but the gradient
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of extreme religion and fertility might go away possibly you know I mean we we're already seeing that the the wealthiest and the best educated women actually are now having more kids than those with just a ba uh or of moderate
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uh wealth so some of what you're saying is already kicked in in the last say 10 20 years but it's still below replacement uh even amongst that wealthy High educated group so but it's certainly possible I mean if if as you
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say we get some cheap child care but I I still fundamentally think there's something there in the theology about go forth and multiply and and women having a tra traditional role that tends to be associated with higher fertility the
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other part of this is participation in a congregation kind of gives a support network around child minding and child care and and creates more pronatalist atmosphere to some extent in Israel even because of the sort of high birth rate
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amongst the religious it seems to have sort of bled into the secular population as well so the secular Jewish women have on average 2.2 kids which is extremely high for any secular population do conservative Muslims also have a much
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higher fertility rate um the the gradient between very conservative and sort of secular and liberal is is not as strong in Islam as it is in Judaism or Christianity but it's about a 2:1 it's it's about a you know twice higher
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fertility of for women who are most in favor of sharia compared to those who are most opposed to Sharia so in the cities so I do think there is also this Dynamic within Islam yes if we look at a country such as Iran which now has a
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very low total fertility rate is that a sign they're not actually very religious or there's something unusual about religion in Iran or what accounts for that well if you go back to KI I mean they actually issued fatwas that
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endorsed the family policies of the so so the mullers themselves the religious authorities themselves actually endorsed Family Planning and contraception so this is not a secular secular thing necessarily in Iran but getting back to the question of
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whether the very religious might end up with lower birth rates isn't that a scenario whatever reasons those religious leaders had to endorse birth control why couldn't a more distant future have say other religious leaders
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in the west doing the same I agree so if the religious leaders say so then I think they can bring the birth rates down very quickly as we saw in Iran in the space of you know what was it 20 years from 6 to 1.8 you know per woman
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yeah that is a scenario so you could have leaders who would say we just can't sustain this runaway population growth we have to bring the the birth rate down and and by the way God says it's the right thing to do and so if that is
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certainly a scenario that I could imagine occurring but by then they've taken power and I think for the seculars you'd have to ask the question do you want that and that's in your view a kind of theological strength of Islam that it
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can be flexible in this way the Western Christianity can't if Iran needs a lower birth rate Muslim theology has brought it there well I I get I want I guess I one of these people who thinks the theology can be kind of tweaked to give
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you any interpretation so that the Christians and Jews could come up with something similar in a pinch so I guess that would be my take on the matter yeah what's your projection for the longr Run percentage of Muslims in Western Europe
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This is much debated you hear a lot of exaggerated claims that by year X fill in the blank there'll be more than half the population what should we actually think and why I don't think we're going ahead to much more than about 20 25 at
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the most percent and there's a number of reasons I say that number one even if the European C population consisted only of immigrants if the Immigrant immigration flow is is only minority Muslim and in I think the average is
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only about 20 25% then that's going to be your population the other thing is the birth rates for Muslims are really not that different in including if we go into the Muslim World particularly the Arab world uh the birth rates have
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really come down dramatically in the last two decades added to that is that intermarriage is a route through which Muslims or or their children lose religion so in this I've looked at individual level census data in this country where we can see that The
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Offspring of people who are part say Pakistani or Arab and part white British that that kind of person between 2001 and 2011 had a quite a high chance of moving from saying I'm a Muslim to saying I have no religion so I and there
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are certain groups like The bosnians who have a quite high I would I would say kind of fall off from religion so I think there's sort of secularization potential through intermarriage as and also the the immigration flow is just
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not Muslim enough to to produce this majority so I don't think it'll ever be more than about 20 25% and which group of French Muslims has assimilated most successful and why well the Algerian the outm marriage rate is is almost 50% for
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French Algerian men but even across the Franco Algerian Community I think it's in the 40 to 50% outm marriage and they're marrying ethnically white French women right right or man and this is I think part of this stems from Algeria in
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its history you know so you have a a large Berber population in Algeria who many of whom are anti the regime they're anti the kind of Arab islamist regime so they're actually quite secular in many ways so so that's part of it but even
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amongst the Moroccans in France there's quite a high out marriage rate um like 40% even so yeah the French Muslims do seem to be melting in better than Muslims even of the same ethnicity so compared to Moroccans in the Netherlands
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for example there's a much higher out marriage in France um and that's the barber factor in your view I think it is the Burber factor I don't think there's anything magical that the French are doing that the Dutch are not in terms of
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integration policy I think there's much much much too much is made of that what's your assessment for Turkish assimilation in Germany because a lot of the Turks have been there now quite a while yeah I would I would have thought
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I guess I would I would think that long term they will intermar that that I mean if you look at Turkey itself it's actually a reasonably secular country uh and you know the birth rates have come down quite a bit once the intermarriage
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starts intermarriage is going to be the roote it's not going to be Turks within the Turkish Community moving away from Islam but I think intermarriage is a route through which The Offspring will then be relatively secular and I do
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think even though those rates are not high now I I I think they probably will increase that would be my projection and I know this is a hard one to call but what is your prediction for Syrian refugees now living in Germany again the
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syrians are not I mean they're not a sort of strongly salop group that's you know so I would think groups from South Asia pakistanis in particular tend to be more very unlikely to intermarry you know in this country for example there's a very
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low whereas I would have thought the syrians would have a higher intermarriage rate and a higher secularization rate long term so I do think they will they also will I believe assimilate maybe it takes a couple of
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two three generations but that would be again a prediction I would make yeah why do pakistanis in the United States seem to assimilate so much better and they have very high per capita incomes High rates of Education it seems like almost
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a complete success well yeah and I I would have to sort of know the the intermarriage race there I mean there are different meanings of assimilation one is acquiring the language and doing well in the economy the other would be
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sort of intermarrying in and essentially becoming part of the ethnic majority but just no one complains about them take that as a kind of brute standard yeah so the first thing that they're probably selected so you know Pakistan has a kind
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of relatively educated Urban Elite in the cities and then it has sort of let's say not tribal but but sort of areas of the country particular in the border with Afghanistan but baluchistan and and other areas that where people are more
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traditional agricultural this is the issue with cousin marriage that we have here in in Britain amongst a subset of the Pakistani population my impression is that that's not so Sil hat would be a region where people were or was it m
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poor I keep getting mixed up who the people were recruited into the textile factories and you have these familiar cousin marriage links my impression is the American pakistanis wouldn't have been drawn from that same subpopulation
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so that might explain the difference sometimes the argument is made I think this comes from Jack goody that high rates of cousin marriage are inimical to liberalism or free Society do you have an opinion on this I know again data are
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hard to bring to bear but you have an intuition yeah I mean that would certainly make sense to me I mean when you're oriented around family and an extended family in that way and that's sort of the worldview that you acquire then then yes that is obviously the opposite of of a kind of liberal individualistic worldview so so it makes sense to me but again I would have no data on that but the most religious Americans with big families sometimes
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extended families they almost seem to be the strongest supporters of the American brand of liberal individualism they're not marrying their cousins per se but well depends which aspects of of liberal individualism I mean they may sort of
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give lip service to things like low tax and Independence but it's not clear you know if you consider individualism to also extend to expressive cultural forms such as divorce or different forms of sexuality or uh you know then I think
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there would be more of a clash between that brand of say American Christianity or Christian fundamentalism and individualism so yeah I think economic individualism is probably okay but the cultural or expressive kind I think
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there'd be more of a clash the data are imperfect on this one but you often hear it claimed that many parts of Africa when they urbanize they're relatively slow to undergo secularization and falling birth rate and if you go to
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Nigeria just visually this seems to be true there are churches everywhere do you have an account of why this might be the case the fertility stall in Africa you mean no when they move to cities the fertility rate doesn't fall much it
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doesn't I mean it does in some cases so Adis Ababa and Ethiopia has got a two you know a two total fertility rate so it does seem to be happening in some places and not in others I don't have a good sense of necessarily why that's
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happening I mean some societies where there's strong ethnic and religious competition uh local politicians want to keep numbers up and their constituencies strong and growing that could be one factor um patriarchal attitudes another
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but it is the case that in some subsaharan African countries clearly South Africa where South African blacks have about a two also a replacement level fertility so there are some countries where this has occurred I know some people say the data might not be
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very accurate in in in some countries on fertility but I I think in general the consensus is that that you're right that these fertility rates have not dropped I I would put it down more to a cultural reason um rather than anything economic
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in that case yeah now I have some friends who obsess over the long term and they're fond of making the argument that dorinian forces over sometime Horizon will bring almost the entire world to Greater religiousness if
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religious families keep on having more children and that maybe 400 years from now we'll have a world where most people are just Flatout religious do you attach any Credence to this at all I do well with some caveat so it's true that sort
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of secular populations defined as people who say they have no religion everywhere in the world have very low you know well below replacement fertility so if and people who are regular attenders all have replacement or above with
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fundamentalists having very high fertility now you run that forward it's hard to see how we get to a situation in which it's not mainly religious unless there's an equilibrium where the rate of religious loss is fast enough to offset
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set the demographic deficit of the seculars there is a scenario I mean I do think that the kind of liberal tolerant secular society is quite an ideal one for uh religious groups to expand demographically if you if we imagine
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China having Amish or Ultra Orthodox or these groups growing rapidly the Chinese government would say okay you're allowed to have two kids or one kid and that would be the end of it right so so it it depends very it's within a certain
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environment that the religious can take over and that is a sort of democratic liberal environment but within an authoritarian environment they do very badly so just depends on what is the environment in which they're operating
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now you've lived in Japan for what eight years why is Japanese fertility so low so okay well the way it works with fertility is that if you're very patriarchal you have high fertility if you are sort of not patriarchal at all you have moderate fertility and you're if you're in the middle you tend have really low fertility so the thing in Japan is that women they know that once they stop working they will essentially just be folding shirts
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for their husband and I think that part of this is that because the society is still relatively patriarchal um that it has that very low fertility something similar in southern Europe that we see also again very low fertility and so one
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of the ways this is explained is that if you give women the opportunity to enter and exit the workforce relatively easily and you don't impose a kind of very sort of patriarchal gender role then you will get somewhat higher fertility so Japan
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fits that pattern of southern Europe how secular is Japan really so if I watch a Miyazaki movie there's Spirits all over the place is that just for kids and for fun is that a substitute religion are they simply as secular as they appear to
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be yeah it's a hard one to know I mean I remember you know having to to in in kindergarten having to kneel down with with the buddh Statue there and and them you know there are all these sort of Quasi religious rituals but I don't
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think they really believe in a sort of cosmological way in in sort of a otherworldly way so yeah I think that it is a relatively secular society but with these almost cultural rituals like Shintoism lighting you know this is not really about
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praying to a god so I think it isn't I wouldn't classify it as as having a relationship with with the other world so not religious in my view and how pacifistic has Japan actually become in your opinion well I think pretty
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pacifist you know and this is why there's many dimensions of nationalism so you can have a dimension which is about militarism and pride in in your military which Japan doesn't have but then they have a very strong sort of attachment to an ethn communal definition of the nation a few questions about what sometimes called populism it seems that Portugal is fairly immune to alt-right or populist politics do you have any sense of why that's the case
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well I there there I think really it's as simple as the share of Muslim non-Christian immigrants is low is very low so it's your core thesis that populism is responding to immigration yeah if they were getting large numbers
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of Muslims or or non-christians then I think you'd see it there yet I don't think they're immune what about Canada which is one of the most welcoming Nations for immigrants right and I of course being Canadian I I think I know Canada fairly well so there's french
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Canada and English Canada French Canada is I think very similar to Continental Europe and is responding so the caq which won the provincial election on a immigration reduction platform is something I would classify as a populist
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right party English Canada well we've we've obviously had elections such as in Ontario the Doug for conservative Administration which has elements of this populism and also there's a new party called The People's Party which
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which did get 11% in a byelection in Greater Vancouver so I think the idea that English cada is immune from this is actually wrong and I do think we're going to see more of it going forward the electorate is now more polarized on
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cultural issues than it's ever been in in Canada now we're going to have to see where that goes but I don't think Canada will be the great exception that it has been for much much longer so there'll be more of a turn against immigration yeah
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or and it's it's going to immigration is immigration attitudes are now very different depending if you're a conservative or liberal voter that didn't used to be the case even 5 years ago so that's there is more of a politicization of that issue now yeah what about Scotland so when you Paul Scots they seem to be about as worried about immigration as are the English but they're not as strongly leave by any means from the European Union does that
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fit your story or run counter to it it doesn't run that counter to it I mean I think first of all Scotland has a smaller immigration it has less uh of a non-Christian population but in addition uh Scottish nationalism is explicitly a
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kind of pro-european pro-immigration that is the message that they have been uh running with and and so given that PR pressure it's just Scottish nationalism is in some way a cross-cutting cleavage to this sort of anti-immigration
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populism and that explains some of the Scottish Dynamics around leave and remain you get upset at England instead of at the EU yeah that's right and you you think of Scotland in the EU and so it's Scottish independence within the
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European Union although it is interesting that actually whether we're looking at those who voted for or against Independence in Scotland they both have uh roughly similar views on on brexit so it's there's a lot of people
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who want Scotland to leave who are also brexiteers I know this has been going on for years now but do you in fact have a brexit prediction I still believe it'll sort of slouch towards some soft brexit in the end when people are looking over
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the cliff only at the last minute will they come up with a decision I mean that's because I think that the labor party has to sort of come up with a story that will that it can get away with with it with its supporters so if
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they say we had to vote for this deal or else we would have had a hard crash out brexit that's the only reason we voted for this deal that might be acceptable to its remain supporters whereas if they say we supported this deal and now
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that's pushed Britain out of the EU their supporters will punish them so I think it it'll be a sort of last minute somewhat soft brexit deal that would be my my undoubtedly wrong prediction I've been saying that but as time passes I
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wonder that whether or not we can predict anything yeah about this matter of course going back to the United States as a group why aren't educated women more worried about immigration because they don't seem to be in polling data no
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they they're less worried right I mean there are still you know there's still a lot of educated women who voted for Trump for example but just less so than than other groups of people I mean I don't put a lot in the social categories
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as whether it's class or even age or gender in terms of predictors most of the variation is Within These groups and is in my view largely down to psychology whether you like diversity or change um in a disposition that would be linked to
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O openness one of the Big Five personality traits or whether you prefer stability and continuity and we find those kinds of people amongst educated women white workking class men Etc but I wouldn't say that there's necessarily
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much in the educated female experience per se that would make somebody be pro-immigration how much of American politics do you think is explained by Jonathan height moral foundations Theory uh right I know it works on his data set
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but when you in other ways try to measure personality differences across liberals and conservatives they appear to be quite small so something is wrong somewhere what ought to get okay so here here's the kind of way I I would make
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sense of it moving from those Big Five personality Dimensions which don't explain that much of the variation in let's say immigration attitudes or populist right voting but according to say Robert pman once you have a particular disposition you then select
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SE an environment that's different so if you are high in openness you will select different environments different newspapers to read maybe different political parties and they will reinforce those dispositions so by the
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time you hit age 50 or 60 you're way over here so the effect is magnified over time so I think what's happening with you start with these psychological dispositions that are different but then they select environments which magnify
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and play on those differences so it's the interaction effect and you think that's becoming larger with time well I think because this issue is is a sort of strikes on that open V closed cultural Dimension values Dimension more directly
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than the economic Left Right which didn't engage that Dimension as much I think the fact that these that immigration diversity related issues very much do engage those psychological Dimensions I think that then becomes more the basis of politics over time yes in the United States why have so few Catholics been elected president no one seems to care right no well you know it's interesting because John when John kery was running really
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his Catholicism was just not an issue um in a way it was for Kennedy right so I don't think I think it's a Catholic could easily be elected I really think it's just a random thing that they they they haven't I think Carrie could have
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been elected it wouldn't have been his Catholicism would have would not have been the issue you know it's like the Supreme Court having a lot of Catholics and no Protestants I think it's somewhat accidental so I I really think we could
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quite easily have a Catholic come in I don't think there's any whereas prior to Kennedy I think there was really a structural reason why you wouldn't have had a Catholic uh president because there was a strong anti-catholic
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dimension in the population but even if there's no structural bias today in American electoral politics could there be some deep roots reason why Catholics don't end up in the positions to be successful presidential candidates I
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don't think so honestly I think that you know could it be said that a Catholic may be seen as less All-American less presidential and therefore would would tend not to do as well I'm not sure I I I just don't think the electorate would
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be attuned enough into that to sort of not select such a person going up the chain so but again there's a good study in that I think we we'd have to see it do you think American Muslims will evolve as a relevant interest group for
34:15
either American foreign policy or any other set of issues or are they too diverse and that will never happen they will outnumber Jews soon probably yes the 2020s they will I think they should yeah probably they will evolve as an
34:26
interest group but as you say they are extremely ethnically diverse and that will impede their ability to to coordinate and organize what would their issue be well I think policy towards Israel Palestine would be an obvious one you know but is there even a choice
34:41
variable there at this point I mean years go on and the situation I wouldn't say it stays the same but the role of the US in brokering a solution doesn't really progress no but the US is is Shoring up the Israeli side and so even
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the moving of the embassy or you know defending Israel at the United Nations and all of these sorts of things which I guess one could imagine with a stronger Aslam Islamic block maybe countering that perhaps but I mean the the whole
35:10
Jewish thing will be interesting because the Jews have a very low fertility rate but the ultra Orthodox have a very high one so that's a whole another wild card what did teville most get wrong about America h i God that's a good question I
35:26
have to think about that I mean I he he made a lot of the associationalism and how that sort of butress American democracy this this what putam talks about the kind of Social Capital through associations and we've seen that decline
35:40
dramatically so I think perhaps you might say that he overestimated the tenacity and durability of that associational life that that it it may not survive the current sort of secularization and individualism so maybe that's what he got wrong and do you think think of yourself as Tok villian at all or you're a descendant from Daniel Bell or where do your views come from if you have to place yourself I don't mean in a partisan political way but
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intellectually well I think similar to Bell in that sense of being sort of Center Center left on on economics somewhat culturally conservative politically liberal uh and when I say culturally conservative perhaps more on
36:17
this this dimension of social cohesion rather than religion which I'm I I don't have a strong affinity for but yeah I don't know about Tov yeah to villian in the I'm not a sort of libertarian individualist and I do think there's an
36:30
importance in having uh social cohesion and a social fabric to to underpin some of the good things that we enjoy in Western democracy in the middle of all these conversations there's a segment underrated or overrated are you game
36:45
sure okay these are easy hit me yeah first one Neil Young you're a Canadian under I would say underrated and what's his best stuff well I I I I mean I just like some of his older material you know um old man you know look at my life you
37:01
know that sort of thing Glen Gould I don't know much about Glen Gould except that he he composed pieces about the north U but I don't know a whole lot about his music I I so I can't comment Michelle Fuko Michelle Fuko um I'd say
37:16
overrated why well even though I think it's he's interesting and I think that encountering him at that time he would have been fresh and interesting but by now there have been so many imitators and there's been so much reprocessing
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that it's just not that exciting anymore in in in our day and age so now I'd say the number of people studying Fuko is vastly disproportionate to his importance for advancing human knowledge French food in Tokyo where did you live in Japan when
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you lived I lived in Tokyo um there was not much French food at the time I'd say it would be well overrated I guess I mean it' be horrendously expensive no out uh I wonder if they have the sort of plastic models of the food with the
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French food as they do with the Japanese sushi versus Sashimi where's your loyalty uh I'd say Sushi um I don't have any good reason for that Northern England overrated or underrated it's future prospects I would say perhaps underrated
38:17
I mean it's certainly got a in many ways a better quality of life than than greater London unless you're on a high income you'd live much better there so to extent that the high-speed rail connections are put into place maybe
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that's where uh a lot of the activity will be in the future other than rentals what's the worst thing about living in London the crowding on the streets uh on the roads driving is terrible here you mean just traffic congestion traffic
38:43
congestion yeah is is it's no no fun driving in London and what's your favorite movie why maybe The Good the Bad and the Ugly yeah that's a great one now your in your book wh shift what do you think is the best empirical argument
38:56
that it's immigration that is behind the political turmoil in the west as of late well I think you just see it time and time again doesn't matter which data set you use so you can look at Europe you can look at the United States and it's
39:08
just about finding a correlation between voting for Trump or brexit or or Le Pen you know what is it that predicts that it's not being poor uh versus being rich it's not disliking politicians cuz farle voters are as likely to to say that as
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populist right voters so it is really around views on whether immigration should be reduced and by how much and secondly how important that issue is to you and then we also see it over time that that as concern over immigration
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Rises uh populist right support Rises nine out of 10 West European countries so I I think the evidence is pretty strong in the fact that we're still talking about the economically left behind and devolving power to localities
39:50
as some way of somehow making this disappear I think is it's more about Hope over reality I'd say now you argue in your book White shift that we should in some way enable people to recognize and Grant legitimacy to whiteness as an
40:04
ethnic category that can have a dialogue about whiteness which is not racist not evil is that a fair way of putting your point yeah I mean I think what you what I would say is that attachment to um ethnic attachment to is not the same as
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hatred of the oak group right and this is something Ashley jardina points out also in in her book that and if you look at the American national election study the thermometer of whites who are warmer towards whites are not colder towards
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blacks quite the opposite so there just isn't and this is Again part of the psychological literature we've we've known that for a long time unless there's a violent conflict going on attachment to your own group is not the
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same as hating in out group attachment to being uh being white or attachment to a North European ancestry is not um a predictor of disliking a minority the problem is if we then if we try and mash those together and Outlaw this identity
40:52
we I think store up more trouble than if we simply say okay this is a f you can express this identity like anybody else but it's got to be moderate and you have to bear in mind the common good so it should be subordinate to that what do
41:04
you think of the argument that appeasement in politics ethnic politics rarely works and that even if the view you're putting forward is logically sound it will de facto just encourage the crazies and we need to be a bit straussian and keep a lid on talk about
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whiteness realize a lot of it's going to happen but sort of penalize it a bit more than ideally we ought to just to keep things under control right so the question is this and that is is penalizing going to make things less
41:32
dangerous or more dangerous you know so so if you penalize let's say and then the far right is able to say okay everyone else gets to have an identity we don't that's a double standard which actually I'm afraid is true that then is
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the sort of foundation that they build the crazy stuff on you know Jews and globalists taking you know wanting to have race suicide for white people Etc I think they call it white genocide right so what you've then done is I if you
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look at the uh Christ Church uh or the bravic shootings you know where are they getting their ideas from the sort of furthest corners of the dark internet where these conspiracy theories grow and those conspiracy theories I think thrive
42:13
on this double standard much more than if the argument was out in the open so for example if you look at even the correlation between populist right support and farri attacks there's actually an inverse correlation if you
42:26
look since from 1990 to 2015 uh Jacob rendal in Norway has looked at this sort of quite systematically and part of the reason is that if you get this out into the light you can shoot down the the bad arguments populists come out they can be
42:40
attacked in the newspapers their arguments can be shown to be false whereas if you really suppress it it goes underground I think that's actually the worst solution quite apart from the fact that I think you're doing violence
42:50
to this idea of equal treatment which I think um is always problematic and you believe that for the most part American Latinos will assimilate into whiteness I think for the most part they will I mean maybe I'm partly an example of that
43:03
being a quarter Latino myself but I do think that it's just the pull of the culture will tend to to lead to this mixing and that over time I mean part of the thing is that there is a sort of white majority now but as that group
43:15
becomes more admixed there won't be such a clear kind of Monolithic white group to sort of uh riff off and I think the mixed population will therefore be more inclined to identify with the kind of majoritarian aspect of their identity so
43:30
yeah I I think the direction of assimilation will be towards the majority we already see it to some extent where I think 60% of people who have at least some one Mexican grandparent identify as white rather than Latino so there's already this this
43:44
is already occurring to some extent I think it'll occur more so as we move in the future there are already fewer Pusa restaurants in Northern Virginia and they're not as good as they used to be uh some questions about
43:56
Switzerland which you've written about right on the surface Switzerland appears to be so diverse and yet it also has this incredibly strong national identity perhaps falling less under question than almost anywhere else in Western Europe
44:08
what's the secret to that blend like what is it that we Outsiders don't get about Switzerland well first of all it is diverse but the the German component is much larger than the French and Italian and Roman that's number one the
44:20
other thing is that the identity it's built up from the commune level communes and cantons tend to be ethnically and religiously homogeneous and when they're not they will tend to you know Jura for example broke off I think it was the
44:33
Canton of burn so at that subnational level there's a high degree of cultural homogeneity and then they Federate into a larger hole it's not the case that this is sort of a a highly Multicultural Society down to the lowest level it's
44:48
Multicultural in the cities but at the sort of communal and cantonal level outside those It Isn't So I'm not sure it's really a great counter case really and is this all an accident or was it political engineering or how did the
45:01
Swiss end up having such a strong and effective national identity so a number of things first of all the the line between Catholicism and protestantism cut across the German French line in terms of language so those that
45:15
crosscutting cleavage I think helped it helped that that that if the language and the religion were aligned as in say Quebec versus the rest of Canada then you would have had much stronger uh pressures towards a breakup I think um
45:28
the other thing is as a relatively successful uh Society you know economically I think that helps although that is more recent but the main thing I think is the fact that at a time when religion was the most important thing
45:40
Geneva was Protestant and also other parts of German speaking Switzerland were Protestant whereas the central Swiss cantons were catholic but yet that held together because of that crosscutting cleavage and why is Switzerland now so much richer than the
45:54
rest of Europe uh well it's a market difference right yeah I mean I'm not the economist I mean I so I don't but you know plenty about Switzerland you they've done something right they have done something what have they done I
46:06
mean I'm thinking about their economy it's sort of a relatively I think a free market type of economy and yet the the culture seems to be have a high degree of or a high enough degree of social cohesion so they all can keep a a rifle
46:21
at home and they're not all shooting each other um somehow they've they've managed to get that combination right of having enough social cohesion and also having a a dynamic Market with good education I I don't I don't have the
46:33
Swiss Silver Bullet unfortunately why doesn't India fragment more politically its future as a nation state seems fairly secure but if you just read about it on paper you would think my goodness this couldn't last so many languages
46:46
religions cast system right again I think there was partly a cross cutting cleavage issue there with cast and religion so so even though you have the Muslim Hindu divide you then have the cast divide which to some extent pushes
47:03
against a simple Hindu Muslim division so some lower cast Hindus will will not vote for the BJP for example they'll vote for congress along with Muslims now that could be one reason the other thing by the way is the Indian States I as I
47:16
understand it have moved more towards being more ethnically delated I I don't know I'm pry to remember when that occurred it was in sometime in the last few decades the other thing of there is a kind of Hindu overlay I mean even
47:28
though yes I mean 80% Hindu so you're right that there are Tom Hills and and there are different languages Marathi in these different languages but still you could argue that the the Hinduism offers a commonality at least to 80% of the
47:42
population how should the French rebuild notredam well in my view they should just rebuild it as it was um I I I think that U adding bells and whistles wouldn't do much for it do you think that reflects anything about your
47:54
underlying worldview or it's just an arbitrary aesthetic I think yeah you're probably right is I I I I guess I'm I'm sort of relatively I think we should obviously have new architecture and change but an ion I uh iconography like
48:09
that I think should be preserved in the form that it was um and that's that's what people are attached to now doesn't mean I'm close to an argument for making some alterations but I think the essence of it should be preserved yeah if we're
48:24
in the middle of the 19 Cy and the French are debating whether to put up that Spire in notredam are you for that or against it um I I think I probably would be against it so I think perhaps that does suggest that uh you know a
48:38
certain leaning that that you know things of beauty that that have a long Providence I tend to want to to preserve them and and this I guess you know brings up this other issue about preservation versus change you have to
48:49
have some change and some preservation and then people are oriented differently towards both and actually if you're consistent if if you want local communities and historic buildings and things which are associated typically with progressivism then that's also
49:03
actually consistently associated with things like uh preservation of you know existing ethnic compositions or histories which is a more right populist right thing some people suggest the age of modernism in the western world was a
49:17
kind of aesthetic Peak so take the 1920s you have Picasso you have Thomas man you have prce you have rela you have so much in art classical music is still quite alive tradition though coming to an end and that after that something weird
49:30
happens and we never somehow got on track what's your take on that view is it correct well I I take more the Daniel Bell View that essentially modernism represents a a break sort of towards the end of the 19th century with with
49:43
tradition that it's about novelty difference immediacy it's kind of an expressive individualism where you're constantly negating the past negating tradition and I don't see a whole lot of difference between the 1920s and pop
49:57
artart and Jackson Pollock or or even contempor what you find in the Tate modern I think they're all but that's now all old stuff mostly Andy Warhol I mean it's a long time ago but even the new stuff I mean it's all about trying
50:08
to be shocking and new and different which is which is fine but it's I think it's the same sensibility it's the same thing that's driving the art but has it been exhausted for decades yeah I think it's probably been exhausted since the
50:19
30s as Belle says I think the most creative phase was when they were where where you still had a a traditional culture to sort of push against and that I think gave creativity to modernism most of the modernism that I like is
50:32
from that period of the sort of 1910s 20s 30s I think beyond that it gets a bit uh well I think there's a lot of repetition is not as interesting for me anyway do you think of yourself as a kind of cultural pessimist for this reason I'm not a pessimist I mean I I
50:47
think we we you know I don't think things are going to hell in a hand basket I think though that there has been a downgrading of respect for people who who want sort of continuity and and tradition and and who want to rework
51:01
those Traditions perhaps but who are not on board with this modernist aesthetic of novelty difference and and complete individuality so I think there has to be a balance between those two I think we've simply moved the high culture as
51:13
moves as Bell writes really heavily in that direction of just the expressive individualism and the novelty and I think some balance perhaps some more respect from the high culture for that uh tradition there's respect for foreign
51:26
traditions and you know exotic Traditions but there isn't really a respect for kind of Western or native Traditions Martin gur has put forward the thesis that because of the internet people get a much closer look at their
51:37
Elites including political Elites and they see how crummy they are and they're disillusioned and this turns politics into something negative do you agree I well I think that television's kind of began that perhaps you know I'm not sure
51:50
the internet really is the is explains that much I mean East Asia I always returned to East Asia because you can see where they have the internet and they've got a lot of modernity but I'm not sure that politics has changed
52:02
anywhere near as much there as it has say in the west and again the difference I would say is around issues of migration and multiculturalism similarly if you look at support for the populist right those who are heavy internet users
52:15
or heavy social media users are not more likely to be populist right voters so I mean I'm I'm less I'm less convinced by the by the technological arguments two questions on your development also known as the Eric cman production function all
52:29
right having lived for eight years in Japan how has that influenced your research and your subsequent views definitely I think when you grow up abroad and you are a sort of a foreigner in another country you think more about
52:41
identity and particularly national identity so this is how that question and you say you're broad now you're just give us your history you're born in Hong Kong born in Hong Kong and then but that was just for a year and then moved to
52:53
Japan for about 6 years years and then back to Canada for two and then over to Japan for another two before moving back to Canada so yeah it's more that second phase particularly age 10 and 11 in in Tokyo and you just become aware at
53:06
school I went to an international school so you have a day where each you know everybody has their Booth with their country and there's 60 countries so it just makes you more aware of that uh I think it's fairly common that people get
53:18
more of a whereas if I just grown up in in the middle of Alberta somewhere then then it would have been a very I probably wouldn't be looking into these questions no final question how did writing your first two books about
53:29
Northern Ireland influence your subsequent views and research directions well I mean the the nor the work on the oranges was kind of my first book which wasn't on the US was looking at the decline of the kind of wasp in the 20th
53:45
century in the United States and oh so that's before the Ireland this before the Ireland but but the the orange interest was partly because very few Canadians realize that you know four Canadian Prime ministers and and almost
53:56
every mayor of Toronto from 1870 to the 1950s was an orangeman so I was very interested in this but it's also in keeping with his interest in ethnic majorities right so that was that's sort of an understudied area that I've been
54:07
in for some 20 20 odd years right just so the the Northern Ireland question was really about the the Protestants who were declining dominant group in Northern Ireland and that was kind of a a similar interest to in the American
54:22
case with the anglo-protestant decline so I was just f focusing very much on another instance of a demographically and in the Northern Ireland case also economically declining majority group isn't it also a region where everyone in a sense is some kind of white
54:36
nationalist not necessarily in a racist way and they may even disagree as to what the nation should be but there's some form of Nationalist and they identify that with whiteness and that's just taken for granted yeah I mean I
54:48
think the whiteness really doesn't play in in Northern Ireland actually I mean it's interesting I've seen sort of you know black spectators at the at the 12th will be welcomed whereas you know there there's a lot of Suspicion of anyone
54:59
Catholic I think it's very much a non-racial thing in that sense but it's you're right that there are people take history and identity quite seriously and they see themselves connected to Feats of their ancestors Etc so history very
55:12
much lives in the present even though the society looks totally modern so that's what fascinated me about about Northern Ireland is just the way that those the sort of argument that societies are going Beyond history is clearly untrue for Northern Ireland
55:27
where history is very present even as many other dimensions of modernity continue oh and one final question actually what is it you're going to do next your book is out published what now um well I'm I'm quite in I mean one part
55:39
of the book of course is about progressivism and that that sort of liberal left synthesis which is not socialism and and not liberalism and I'm kind of want to look at the history of that all the good things it did but also
55:51
perhaps where it's overshot and perhaps some of the the places where it's going wrong now so this is an idea that I have whether I will pursue that I'm not sure Eric kman thank you very much thanks Tyler thanks for listening to
56:05
conversations with Tyler you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Stitcher or your favorite podcast app and if you like this podcast please consider rating it on iTunes and leaving a review this helps other people find the [Music] show