tions of democracy. Several recent studies suggest that high support for anti-democratic leaders, ideas, and institutions is not the result of the economic dislocations produced by globalization. Rather, we can find the source of this anti-democratic shift in anxieties related to the presence and political empowerment of racial and ethnic out-groups in our midst. Hence the paradox of liberal democracy: many of our fellow citizens, raised with access to the privileges afforded by liberal democratic institutions, are willing to give up hard-won rights and guarantees, in exchange for assurances that their cultural and social primacy will be respected and maintained. “The challenge for our section today is to look at the relationship between citizenship, immigration, identity, and democracy through fresh eyes” The challenge for our section today is to look at the relationship between citizenship, immigration, identity, and democracy through fresh eyes. All regimes, but more so democratic regime, require public support for their legitimacy and survival. As scholars from Aristotle to Machiavelli to modern day civic republicans have warned, republics collapse when the people give up on them and are lured by the promises of powerhungry leaders. This is the time to ask ourselves if we know enough about what the average Jane and Joe think when presented with terms such as democracy, citizenship, or rights. Contrary to our idealistic normative assumptions, citizens do not have a principled or ideologically constrained approach to democracy any more than they have a principled approach to governance and policy. Rather, they may be prone to understand democracy through the lens of group memberships. When the social position of cherished groups is perceived as threatened, and when trusted in-group elites use narratives of group threat and out-group dehumanization to justify anti-democratic actions, group members may become more vulnerable to authoritarian leaders and parties that promise protection or restoration of the group’s status but at the cost of institutional democracy. Developing theories as well as empirical analyses that explain the likely contingent relationship between citizens their value systems and their institutions, and thus address the paradox of liberal democracy in a substantive way, should be a top priority for us as scholars and as citizens. To contact the Co-Presidents, email Alexandra Filindra (aleka@uic.edu) and Sara Wallace Goodman (s.goodman@uci.edu). http://community.apsanet.org/migrationcitizenship/home 5