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978-0-521-85450-4 - Multiculturalism and Political Theory

Edited by Anthony Simon Laden and David Owen
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Multiculturalism and Political Theory

Over the past twenty years, debate surrounding cultural diversity has
become one of the most active areas of contemporary political theory
and philosophy. The impact of taking cultural diversity seriously in
modern political societies has led to challenges to the dominance of
liberal theory and to a more serious engagement of political theory with
actual political struggles. This volume of essays by leading political
theorists reviews the development of multiculturalism, surveys the major
approaches, addresses the critical questions posed, and highlights new
directions in research. Multiculturalism and Political Theory provides a
‘‘state of the art’’ overview for both students and researchers.
Anthony Simon Laden is Associate Professor in the Department of
Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of
Reasonably Radical: Deliberative Liberalism and the Politics of Identity
(2001).
David Owen is Professor of Social and Political Philosophy in the
Division of Politics and International Relations at the University of
Southampton. He is the author of Maturity and Modernity (1994) and
Nietzsche, Politics and Modernity (1995).

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978-0-521-85450-4 - Multiculturalism and Political Theory
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Multiculturalism and
Political Theory

Edited by
Anthony Simon Laden and David Owen

© Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org

Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-85450-4 - Multiculturalism and Political Theory
Edited by Anthony Simon Laden and David Owen
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Multiculturalism and political theory / edited by Anthony Simon Laden and
David Owen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-521-85450-4 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-521-67090-6 (pbk.)
1. Multiculturalism. 2. Pluralism (Social sciences) 3. Minorities–Civil rights.
I. Laden, Anthony Simon, 1967–II. Owen, David, 1964–III. Title.

HM1271.M843151 2007
305.8001–dc22

2007003516

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ISBN 978-0-521-67090-6 paperback

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Contents

Notes on contributors page vii

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Part I Trajectories 23
1 The new debate on minority rights (and postscript)
Will Kymlicka 25
2 Structural injustice and the politics of difference
Iris Marion Young 60
3 Multiculturalism as/and/or anti-racism?
Charles W. Mills 89
4 Feminism and multiculturalism: mapping the terrain
Ayelet Shachar 115

Part II Approaches 149

5 Egalitarian liberalism and universalism
Simon Caney 151
6 Contextualism, constitutionalism, and modus vivendi
approaches
Jacob T. Levy 173
7 Negotiation, deliberation, and the claims of politics
Anthony Simon Laden 198

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vi Contents

Part III Critical issues 219

8 Multiculturalism and the critique of essentialism
Andrew Mason 221
9 Liberalism, multiculturalism, and the problem of
internal minorities
Daniel M. Weinstock 244
10 Redistribution and recognition: two approaches
David Owen and James Tully 265
11 A critical theory of multicultural toleration
Rainer Forst 292

Part IV New directions 313

12 Law’s necessary forcefulness: Ralph Ellison vs.
Hannah Arendt on the Battle of Little Rock
Danielle Allen 315
13 Imagining civic relations in the moment of their
breakdown: a crisis of civic integrity in the
Netherlands
Bert van den Brink 350
14 Democracy and foreignness: democratic
cosmopolitanism and the myth of an
immigrant America
Bonnie Honig 373

Index 408

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Notes on contributors

Danielle Allen is Dean of Humanities at the University of Chicago. Her

research interests include classical Greek literature, political philo-
sophy, the history of rhetoric, the philosophy of punishment,
democratic theory and history, and twentieth-century American
poetry. She is the author of The World of Prometheus: The Politics of
Punishing in Democratic Athens (2000) and Talking to Strangers:
Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education, as well as
numerous articles and chapters in edited volumes.
Bert van den Brink is Research Fellow of the Royal Netherlands
Academy of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of Philosophy
at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He is the author of The
Tragedy of Liberalism: An Alternative Defense of A Political Tradition
(2000), coeditor of Bürgergesellschaft, Recht und Demokratie (1995),
and The Problem of Reasons of One’s Own (2004). He is on the
editorial board of the journal Philosophical Explorations and on the
advisory board of the journal Contemporary Political Theory.
Simon Caney is Professor in Political Theory, Oxford University, and
Fellow and Tutor in Politics, Magdalen College. He has published
articles on liberalism, perfectionism, human rights, climate change,
international distributive justice, national self-determination, multi-
culturalism and intervention. He is the author of Justice Beyond
Borders: A Global Political Theory (2005). He has also has co-edited
National Rights, International Obligations (1996) and Human Rights
and Global Diversity (2000). He is currently writing books entitled On
Cosmopolitanism and Global Justice and Climate Change (co-authored
with Dr. Derek Bell.)
Rainer Forst is Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy at Johann
Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt/Main. He is the author of
Contexts of Justice: Political Philosophy beyond Liberalism and Commu-
nitarianism (2002), Toleranz im Konflikt: Geschichte, Gehalt und

vii

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viii Notes on contributors

Gegenwart eines umstrittenen Begriffs (2003; English translation

forthcoming with Cambridge University Press), and Das Recht
auf Rechtfertigung: Elemente einer konstruktivistischen Theorie der
Gerechtigkeit (forthcoming).
Bonnie Honig is Professor of Political Science, Northwestern Uni-
versity, and Senior Research Fellow, at the American Bar Founda-
tion, Chicago. She is the author of Democracy and the Foreigner
(2001) and Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics (1993), as
well as editor of the Oxford Handbook of Political Theory (with John
Dryzek and Anne Phillips) (2006), Skepticism, Individuality and
Freedom: The Reluctant Liberalism of Richard Flathman (with David
Mapel) (2002), and Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt (1995).
Her most recent work includes ‘‘The Time of Rights: Emergent
Thoughts in an Emergent Setting,’’ in The Politics of Pluralism: Essays
for William Connolly, ed. Michael Shapiro and David Campbell
(forthcoming, 2007) and ‘‘Bound By Law? Alien Rights, Adminis-
trative Discretion, and the Politics of Technicality: Lessons from
Louis Post and the First Red Scare,’’ in The Limits of Law, ed. Austin
Sarat, Lawrence Douglas, and Martha Umphrey (2005).
Will Kymlicka is the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at
Queen’s University, and a visiting professor in the Nationalism
Studies program at the Central European University in Budapest.
He is the author of five books: Liberalism, Community, and Culture
(1989), Contemporary Political Philosophy (1990; second edition
2002), Multicultural Citizenship (1995), Finding Our Way: Rethinking
Ethnocultural Relations in Canada (1998), and Politics in the
Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, Citizenship (2001).
Anthony Laden is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Illinois (Chicago). He works in moral and political philosophy, where
his research focuses on liberalism, democratic theory, feminism and
the politics of identity, and the nature of practical reason and
reasoning. He is the author of Reasonably Radical: Deliberative
Liberalism and the Politics of Identity (2001). His recent articles include
‘‘Outline of a Theory of Reasonable Deliberation’’ (Canadian Journal
of Philosophy, 2000), ‘‘The House that Jack Built: Thirty Years of
Reading Rawls’’ (Ethics, 2003), and ‘‘Reasonable Feminists, Radical
Liberals: Reason, Power and Objectivity in the Work of MacKinnon
and Rawls’’ (Journal of Political Philosophy, 2003).

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Notes on contributors ix

Jacob T. Levy is Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory at the Depart-

ment of Political Science, McGill University, and Secretary-Treasurer
of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy. He is the
author of The Multiculturalism of Fear (2000), and numerous articles
and chapters on minority rights, indigenous rights, nationalism,
federalism, and the history of liberal thought, that have appeared in
Ethics, Nomos, History of Political Thought, Social Philosophy and Policy,
and edited collections including Citizenship in Diverse Societies,
Language Rights and Political Theory, and Nationalism, Liberalism, and
Pluralism. He has been a Fulbright Scholar (1993–1994) and a visiting
Mellon Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School (2004–2005).
He is currently writing on rationalism and pluralism in liberal thought.
Andrew Mason is Professor of Political Theory at the University of
Southampton. He is the author of Explaining Political Disagreement
(Cambridge University Press, 1993) and Community, Solidarity and
Belonging (Cambridge University Press, 2000), and the editor of
Ideals of Equality (1998). His most recent book, Levelling the Playing
Field was published in 2006.
Charles W. Mills is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. He works in the general area of
oppositional political theory, and is the author of three books: The
Racial Contract (1997), Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and
Race (1998), and From Class to Race: Essays in White Marxism and
Black Radicalism (2003). Currently he is working on a joint book
with Carole Pateman, tentatively titled Contract and Domination
(forthcoming).
David Owen is Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the
University of Southampton. He is the author of Maturity and
Modernity (1994), Nietzsche, Politics and Modernity (1995), and
Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality (2007), and co-editor of Recognition
and Power (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Recent articles in
political philosophy include: ‘‘Political Philosophy in a Post-Imperial
Voice’’ (Economy and Society, 1999), ‘‘Cultural Diversity and the
Conversation of Justice’’ (Political Theory, 1999), ‘‘Criticism and
Captivity’’ (European Journal of Philosophy, 2002), and ‘‘Culture,
Equality and Polemic’’ (Economy and Society, 2003). He is currently
writing a book on the ethics of migration.
Ayelet Shachar is the Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and
Multiculturalism at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto and
the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford

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x Notes on contributors

Law School. Her research focuses on citizenship theory, immigration

law, multilevel governance regimes, state and religion, and the rights
of women within minority cultures. She is the author of Multicultural
Jurisdictions: Cultural Differences and Women’s Rights (Cambridge
University Press, 2001); and Winner of the 2002 Best First Book
Award, American Political Science Association, Foundations of
Political Theory Section. Her new book, Citizenship as Inherited
Property: The New World of Bounded Communities, will be published
by Harvard University Press.
James Tully is a Professor of Political Science, Law, Philosophy, and
Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada.
Before the University of Victoria he taught Political Science and
Philosophy at McGill University and was the inaugural Henry N. R.
Jackman Distinguished Professor of Philosophical Studies, in
Philosophy, Political Science and Law, at the University of Toronto
2001–2003. He has published eight books and many articles on
topics in contemporary political philosophy and the history of
political philosophy, including Strange Multiplicities: Constitutionalism
in an Age of Diversity (Cambridge University Press, 1996). He is a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the new
Canadian Trudeau Foundation.
Daniel Weinstock holds the Canada Research Chair in Ethics and
Political Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy of the
Université de Montréal, where he is also a Full Professor. He is
the founding director of the University’s Ethics Research Center. He
has published many articles on the interface between culture and
justice. He is presently working on a book project exploring the
complex relationship between children, families, and the liberal-
democratic state.
Iris Marion Young was Professor of Political Science at the University
of Chicago. Her research interests covered contemporary political
theory, feminist social theory, and normative analysis of public
policy. Her books include Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990),
Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social
Theory (1990), Intersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender, Political
Philosophy, and Policy (1997), and Inclusion and Democracy (2000).

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Acknowledgments

The original thought for this volume arose in a conversation with John
Haslam at APSA in 2000. In this respect, John has seen the project
through from glint in the eye to conception to, finally, gestation.
Throughout this process, he has been encouraging, helpful across a
range of issues, and – above all – patient (despite the temptations to the
contrary). We are deeply grateful to John for all his support as well as his
editorial acumen.
Early versions of the chapters by Laden, Levy, Mills, and Young were
given as papers at a Chicago Political Theory Network conference in
November 2004. The editors are grateful to all who attended and in
particular to Peg Birmingham, David Ingram and Paul Gomberg, who
served as discussants, and to Stephen Engelmann, who helped to
organize the conference.
We would also like to thank our respective colleagues in Chicago and
Southampton who have provided a working environment within which
these issues are fiercely debated in an utterly non-dogmatic spirit, and,
in particular, Chris Armstrong, Russell Bentley, Chris Brown, Samuel
Fleischacker, Andrew Mason, and Aaron Ridley. We are both much in
debt over several years to the intellectual generosity of James Tully.
Andrew Brearley was of great assistance in putting the final manuscript
into a consistent form.
Finally, we would like to thank our respective Carolines for – yet again –
covering the father-shaped holes in family life that occurred in the
course of constructing this volume with their characteristic grace and
good humor. This volume is dedicated to our children, Arthur,
Miranda, Clara, Raphaël, and Jacob who will, in their turn, engage with
a world where (we hope) the debates discussed herein have made a
difference. Several of the chapters in this volume have been previously
published, and we gratefully acknowledge the permission to republish
them here. ‘‘The New Debate over Minority Rights,’’ by Will Kymlicka,
was previously published in Will Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), and is reprinted here with the
xi

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xii Acknowledgments

permission of Oxford University Press. ‘‘Law’s Necessary Forcefulness,’’

by Danielle Allen, previously appeared in the Oklahoma City University
Law Review 26(3) (Fall 2001), pp. 857–896, and is reprinted here with
permission of the Oklahoma City Law Review. ‘‘Democracy and for-
eignness’’ by Bonnie Honig was published in a slightly different form as
‘‘The Foreigner as Citizen,’’ chapter 4 of her Democracy and the For-
eigner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) and is reprinted
here with permission of Princeton University Press.
Iris Young died as the final touches were being made to this volume.
Those who knew her, even slightly, will feel the loss of a vibrant,
humorous, and passionate human being whose commitment to justice
made a difference. Those who knew her work will feel the loss of one of
political philosophy’s most practically grounded and theoretically
imaginative voices. We hope that those who will meet her for the first
time in this collection will understand why we join so many colleagues
and friends in missing her.

Anthony Simon Laden, Chicago

David Owen, Southampton

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