Randall Hansen
Encyclopedia
Randall Hansen is a political scientist and historian
at the University of Toronto
, where he has held a Canada Research Chair in Political Science
since 2005. He is a Full Professor and is jointly appointed to the School of Public Policy and Governance
.
Hansen has a Bachelor's degree
from the University of British Columbia
, and a Masters and a doctorate (DPhil) from Oxford. His supervisor was the American Political Development scholar Desmond King, and he was examined by the colonial historian John Darwin. Hansen taught at the Universities of London (Queen Mary
), Oxford (where he was a tutorial fellow at Merton College
), and Newcastle (where he held an established Chair) before taking up his current position.
His fields of research are Twentieth-Century History and Public Policy. Hansen is known for tackling controversial topics, including the allied bombing
of Germany
, eugenics
and sterilization, and Islam in Europe
. He holds provocative and largely sceptical views on multiculturalism
. He has authored two books, Citizenship and Immigration in Postwar Britain (Oxford University Press, 2000) and Fire and Fury: the Allied Bombing of Germany 1942-1945 (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2008), co-edited three books, and has published numerous articles and book chapters on immigration
, citizenship
, and the history of eugenics and forced sterilization.
studies, Hansen is one of the few defenders (and probably the only one of his generation) of assimilation
. He has heaped scorn on those who believe the nation-state
has passed as the foundation of rights, and the basis of democracy
and human rights
. In contrast to the scholarly consensus that diversity
makes a common core of rules and commitments redundant or impossible, Hansen argues it renders them all the more necessary. His critics claim that he does not take into consideration the voices of the migrants themselves; Hansen replies that they, mostly white academics, patronizingly claim that immigrants in general and Muslims
in particular require special rules because they can’t grasp the same concepts (the distinction between religion
and politics
) and live by the same standards (one law for everyone) as the rest of us (Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
). He has argued that Europe will only cope with large-scale, particularly Muslim, immigration, if it adopts minimalist welfare policies and maximialist assimilationist policies. More broadly, he has insisted that the left’s obsession with identity politics
and cultural recognition is a distraction from what matters: getting Europe’s millions of unemployed ethnic minorities into work.
In the preface of his book “Citizenship and Immigration in Post-War Britain”, Hansen describes the “demonic campaign of Enoch Powell” as one of the “ugliest moments in the history of migration”.
of the combined bombing offensive against Germany. The book argues that historian
s have downplayed the differences between the US and British bombing campaigns; that the Americans brought the Germans close to defeat on several occasions during the war; and that only the British obsession with area bombing
kept them from doing so. It argues that, although the direct targeting of civilian
s might be justified under conditions of supreme emergency and in the absence of other alternatives, neither of these conditions applied after the July–August 1943 bombing of Hamburg
. The book was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction in 2009.
such as John Solomos and Paul Gilroy
, who repeatedly made the argument that Britain and the British state were racist
to the core. Against them, Hansen argues that the British elite was cosmopolitan, liberal, and supportive of open immigration until a restrictionist public, and above all a racist working class written out of Marxist
accounts, pushed them into accepting immigration control. While at Oxford, he abandoned scholarly detachment and urged his students to see the folly of the second Iraq war. He is highly critical of aspects of Allied policy during the Second World War
, yet is strongly supportive of the Canadian, US and British militaries, and of the retaliatory US/NATO attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan
. In 2006, when most Toronto and Canadian academics were trying to ignore the topic, Hansen organized a panel on ‘Terrorism in Toronto: What does it mean for Canadian Multiculturalism?’ In the middle of it, cultural theorist Rinaldo Walcott
stood up, accused all the panels of being racists, and denounced the event as a fraud. During Walcott’s staged walkout and against the catcalls of his supporters, Hansen replied with aplomb, ‘If anything is cheap, easy, and intellectually fraudulent, it’s indiscriminately throwing the word ‘racist’ around.”
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
, where he has held a Canada Research Chair in Political Science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
since 2005. He is a Full Professor and is jointly appointed to the School of Public Policy and Governance
University of Toronto School of Public Policy and Governance
The University of Toronto School of Public Policy and Governance is a public policy and public administration school located in Toronto, Ontario. The SPPG is headquartered in the Canadiana Gallery at 14 Queen's Park Crescent West....
.
Hansen has a Bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
from the University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
, and a Masters and a doctorate (DPhil) from Oxford. His supervisor was the American Political Development scholar Desmond King, and he was examined by the colonial historian John Darwin. Hansen taught at the Universities of London (Queen Mary
Queen Mary, University of London
Queen Mary, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
), Oxford (where he was a tutorial fellow at Merton College
Merton College, Oxford
Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...
), and Newcastle (where he held an established Chair) before taking up his current position.
His fields of research are Twentieth-Century History and Public Policy. Hansen is known for tackling controversial topics, including the allied bombing
Allied bombing
Allied bombing refers mostly to strategic bombing during World War II, as conducted by the Allies of World War II. Targets were places under control by the Axis powers, which included e.g...
of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
and sterilization, and Islam in Europe
Islam in Europe
This article deals with the history and evolution of the presence of Islam in Europe. According to the German , the total number of Muslims in Europe in 2007 was about 53 million , excluding Turkey. The total number of Muslims in the European Union in 2007 was about 16 million .-Early history:Islam...
. He holds provocative and largely sceptical views on multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
. He has authored two books, Citizenship and Immigration in Postwar Britain (Oxford University Press, 2000) and Fire and Fury: the Allied Bombing of Germany 1942-1945 (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2008), co-edited three books, and has published numerous articles and book chapters on immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
, citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
, and the history of eugenics and forced sterilization.
Immigration
Among scholars in immigrationImmigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
studies, Hansen is one of the few defenders (and probably the only one of his generation) of assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
. He has heaped scorn on those who believe the nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
has passed as the foundation of rights, and the basis of democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
. In contrast to the scholarly consensus that diversity
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
makes a common core of rules and commitments redundant or impossible, Hansen argues it renders them all the more necessary. His critics claim that he does not take into consideration the voices of the migrants themselves; Hansen replies that they, mostly white academics, patronizingly claim that immigrants in general and Muslims
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
in particular require special rules because they can’t grasp the same concepts (the distinction between religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
and politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
) and live by the same standards (one law for everyone) as the rest of us (Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005...
). He has argued that Europe will only cope with large-scale, particularly Muslim, immigration, if it adopts minimalist welfare policies and maximialist assimilationist policies. More broadly, he has insisted that the left’s obsession with identity politics
Identity politics
Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
and cultural recognition is a distraction from what matters: getting Europe’s millions of unemployed ethnic minorities into work.
In the preface of his book “Citizenship and Immigration in Post-War Britain”, Hansen describes the “demonic campaign of Enoch Powell” as one of the “ugliest moments in the history of migration”.
Allied bombing during World War II
Fire and Fury: the Allied Bombing of Germany 1942-1945 was published in 2009. It is a narrative historyNarrative history
Narrative history is the practice of writing history in a story-based form. It can be divided into two subgenres: the traditional narrative and the modern narrative....
of the combined bombing offensive against Germany. The book argues that historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
s have downplayed the differences between the US and British bombing campaigns; that the Americans brought the Germans close to defeat on several occasions during the war; and that only the British obsession with area bombing
Area bombardment
In military aviation, area bombardment is aerial bombardment targeted indiscriminately at a large area, such as a city block or an entire city.Area bombing is a form of strategic bombing...
kept them from doing so. It argues that, although the direct targeting of civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
s might be justified under conditions of supreme emergency and in the absence of other alternatives, neither of these conditions applied after the July–August 1943 bombing of Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. The book was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction in 2009.
Politics
Hansen’s politics are particularly difficult to place. His first book, Citizenship and Immigration in Postwar Britain, attacked the hegemonic race relations industry and critical race theoristsCritical race theory
Critical Race Theory is an academic discipline focused upon the intersection of race, law and power.Although no set of canonical doctrines or methodologies defines CRT, the movement is loosely unified by two common areas of inquiry...
such as John Solomos and Paul Gilroy
Paul Gilroy
-Biography:Born in the East End of London to Guyanese and English parents , he was educated at University College School and obtained his bachelor's degree at Sussex University in 1978. He moved from there to Birmingham University where he completed his Ph.D...
, who repeatedly made the argument that Britain and the British state were racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
to the core. Against them, Hansen argues that the British elite was cosmopolitan, liberal, and supportive of open immigration until a restrictionist public, and above all a racist working class written out of Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
accounts, pushed them into accepting immigration control. While at Oxford, he abandoned scholarly detachment and urged his students to see the folly of the second Iraq war. He is highly critical of aspects of Allied policy during the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, yet is strongly supportive of the Canadian, US and British militaries, and of the retaliatory US/NATO attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
. In 2006, when most Toronto and Canadian academics were trying to ignore the topic, Hansen organized a panel on ‘Terrorism in Toronto: What does it mean for Canadian Multiculturalism?’ In the middle of it, cultural theorist Rinaldo Walcott
Rinaldo Walcott
Rinaldo Walcott is a Black Canadian academic and writer, currently employed as an associate professor at OISE/University of Toronto in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education. He was previously an assistant professor in the Division of Humanities at York University...
stood up, accused all the panels of being racists, and denounced the event as a fraud. During Walcott’s staged walkout and against the catcalls of his supporters, Hansen replied with aplomb, ‘If anything is cheap, easy, and intellectually fraudulent, it’s indiscriminately throwing the word ‘racist’ around.”