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In politics, dual loyalty is loyalty to two separate interests that potentially conflict with each other, leading to a conflict of interest.
Historical examples
| Separation of church and state in the history of the Catholic Church |
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| Sovereignty and loyalty |
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Current topics
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Other historical examples of actual or perceived "dual loyalty" include the following:
- During World War II, a number of United States citizens of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry, including some born in the U.S., were confined to internment camps (see Internment of Japanese Americans).
- Roman Catholics are subject to the Pope on religious matters. This has often perceived as dual loyalty by powers opposed to the Holy See.
- During the English Reformation, many important English and Scottish Catholics, such as Thomas More, Mary, Queen of Scots and Edmund Campion, were tried and executed for their alleged double loyalty to the Papacy and infidelity to the Crown.
- During John F. Kennedy's campaign for and brief tenure as U.S. President, some opponents questioned whether a Roman Catholic President of the United States had a divided loyalty with respect to the Papacy and Vatican City.
- Chinese Catholics have been forced by the government of the People's Republic of China of substituting the Roman Catholic Church in China by the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
- Jews who were part of the Jewish diaspora have been accused of dual loyalty by the Romans in the 1st century, by the French in the Dreyfus Affair in the late 19th century, and in Stalin-era Soviet Union in the 20th century. Before the creation of Israel, Jewish anti-Zionists used the accusation against other Jews. While today some use the phrase in a "neutral and non-pejorative fashion," John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt say this use can obscure the fact that home nations and Israel may have sharp political differences. The 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq lead to such accusations against Jewish neoconservatives, vocal proponents of war against Iraq who were alleged by some critics of the Iraq War to have sought to undermine Arab nations hostile to Israel (e.g., by the term "Israel-firster").
- The loyalty of many Americans to the U.S. government was called into question during the Cold War due to alleged Communist sympathies, resulting in "witch-hunts" of various government officials, celebrities and other citizens (see McCarthyism).
- Muslims living in Western countries, especially during periods of heightened tensions between Muslim minorities and non-Muslims, such as after September 11, 2001, or during the Jyllands-Posten cartoons controversy of 2005–2006, are sometimes accused of being more loyal to the Muslim ummah than to their country.
- "Dual loyalty" continues to be a concern of critics of US immigration policy, particularly in those states which border Mexico.
- The Hindu minority in the majority-Muslim Bangladesh has often been accused of dual loyalty to the neighbour state of India by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and even by Sheikh Hasina who heads the largest political outfit in Bangladesh hailing secularism.
- The Ahmadiyya movement in Islam has been accused by some Muslims of dual loyalty to the state of Israel, or less frequently the Hindu-majority state of India.
- The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has accused the Baháʼí Faith minority of having loyalty to foreign powers (see Iranian anti-Baháʼí conspiracy theories).
- During the impeachment of Donald Trump in 2020, some Republican Members of Congress accused Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Vindman of dual loyalty towards Ukraine due to his Ukrainian heritage.
Transnationalist interpretations
Some scholars refer to a growing trend of transnationalism and suggest that as societies become more heterogeneous and multicultural, the term "dual loyalty" had increasingly become a meaningless bromide. According to the theory of transnationalism, migration and other factors, including improved global communication, produce new forms of identity that transcend traditional notions of physical and cultural space. Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch, and Cristina Blanc-Szanton define a process by which immigrants "link together" their country of origin and their country of settlement.
The transnationalist view is that "dual loyalty" is a potentially-positive expression of multi-culturalism and can contribute to the diversity and strength of civil society. That view is popular in many academic circles, but others are skeptical of the idea. As one paper describes it,
On occasion, these imagined communities conform to the root meaning of transnational, extending beyond loyalties that connect to any specific place of origin or ethnic or national group. Yet what immigration scholars describe as transnationalism is usually its opposite... highly particularistic attachments antithetical to those by-products of globalization denoted by the concept of "transnational civil society" and its related manifestations.
Beyond its usage in particular instances, the terms "dual loyalty" and "transnationalism" continue to be the subject of much debate. As one academic wrote:
Although the events of September 11th may have shaken some assumptions – at least in the United States – about the nature of transnational networks and their capacity to facilitate flows of people, goods, and ideas across borders, the terms "globalization" and "transnationalism" remain relatively stable, albeit frustratingly imprecise additions to the language of social sciences, including anthropology.
See also
References
- "AmericanPresident.org article on John F. Kennedy". Archived from the original on 2006-10-01. Retrieved 2006-03-17.
- ^ Leonard P. Zakim, Janice Ditchek, Confronting Anti-Semitism: a Practical Guide, KTAV Publishing House, Inc., p. 26, 2000 ISBN 0-88125-629-3, 9780881256291
- Rory Miller, Divided Against Zion: Anti-Zionist Opposition in Britain to a Jewish State in Palestine, 1945–1948, Routledge, pp. 129–135, 2000 ISBN 0-7146-5051-X, 9780714650517
- John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, pp. 146–149, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007 ISBN 0-374-17772-4
- Dore Gold, Blaming Israel for the Iraq War, Institute for Contemporary Affairs, Jerusalem Issue Brief, Vol. 3, No. 25 3 June 2004.
- Postscript 9/11 Media Coverage of Terrorism and Immigration Archived February 17, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, Center for Immigration Studies, April 2003.
- Linda Chavez, "Mexican law to challenge loyalties Archived November 13, 2005, at the Wayback Machine," Abilene Texas News, April 8, 1998.
- Bangladesh slammed for persecution of Hindus, Rediff.com
- A Bleak Future for Bangladesh Hindu's Archived February 3, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, hinduismtoday.com
- The Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Legally Identified Enemies, Human Rights Documentation Centre
- Breach of Faith. Human Rights Watch. p. 14. Retrieved May 6, 2014.
- "Ahmadis and the State of Israel". Al Islam. Retrieved May 6, 2014.
- Relman, Eliza. "Republicans tried to smear Alexander Vindman by implying the US military officer has dual loyalty to Ukraine". Business Insider. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
- Waldinger, Roger; Fitzgerald, David (March 2004). "Transnationalism in Question" (PDF). American Journal of Sociology. 109 (5): 1178. doi:10.1086/381916. S2CID 143317592.
- Wagner, Sarah (2002), Putting a Face on Transnationalism: Migration, Identity, and Membership in the Transnational City of Johannesburg (PDF), p. 2, archived from the original (PDF) on April 8, 2005.