  This liberal nationalist account invites all the usual questions: Do liberal democracies really depend upon sufficient trust and fellow-feeling among their compatriots, and, if so, is a common culture genuinely necessary to secure this trust and mutual concern? Just how homogenous must such a culture be? Liberal democracies like the United States and Canada seem to operate just fine despite a great deal of cultural diversity, for instance. In light of this, why worry that outsiders pose a substantial threat? Is it plausible to think that immigrants will not assimilate to the requisite degree once they have settled in their new state? And even if this account can in some cases justify excluding culturally distinct foreigners, it would appear to provide no grounds for limiting outsiders who share the requisite cultural attributes. Assuming that the answers to these empirical questions ultimately vindicate the liberal nationalist account, tricky moral questions remain. For instance, do the inhabitants of well-oiled liberal democracies have not only an interest, but a moral right to the exclusive protection afforded by their enviable political regimes? Finally, even if each of these questions can be satisfactorily answered, this account applies solely to democratic welfare states, and thus other types of states could not invoke this line of reasoning in defense of excluding outsiders.