In this chapter I shall consider a challenge which applies not only to the dominant liberal conception of political community but to other liberal conceptions as well, and which maintains that a stable liberal political community cannot be realized unless citizens share a national identity – in effect, form a national community. According to this view, when conflicts arise in a liberal polity between national community and communities below the level of the state, they should be resolved in favour of the former. In the version I shall consider, this challenge comes from a perspective friendly to liberalism, which I shall call liberal-nationalism. The charge it makes against anti-nationalist liberals is that they fail to appreciate what is required in order to realize their ideals of political community, and as a result are too permissive towards communities below the level of the state.

Many anti-nationalist liberals have feared that fostering a shared national identity would require assimilating minority cultures, which can only be achieved (if it can be achieved at all) by oppression. This does not meet the liberal-nationalist's argument that a liberal political community cannot be sustained unless citizens share a national identity, but it explains why, even in the light of it, many liberals have been reluctant to support policies for fostering a national identity.