Introduction: An Emerging Consensus?

Author(s): Will Kymlicka

Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Vol. 1, No. 2, Nationalism, Multiculturalism and
Liberal Democracy (Jun., 1998), pp. 143-157
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27504025
Accessed: 08-03-2019 22:42 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ethical
Theory and Moral Practice

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 WILLKYMLICKA

INTRODUCTION: AN EMERGING CONSENSUS?

ABSTRACT. This paper is an introduction to a special issue on "Nationalism, Multicultur

alism and Liberal Democracy". It attempts to describe the state of the debate on issues of
multiCUltliralism and nationalism Within liber?l-democratic theory. I suggest that there may
be an emerging consensus on ob?rai culturalism' - the view that certain group-specific
rights or policies aimed at recognizing or accommodating ethnic and national groups are
legitimate so long as they operate within certain constraints of liberal justice. I explore the
possible reasons for this emerging consensus (including the lack of clear alternatives), and
conclude with some suggestions about the likely avenues for future research in this area.

KEY WORDS: citizenship, ethic groups, liberalism, minority rights, multiculturalism,

nationalism

With one exception, the papers in this symposium were originally pre
sented at a Dutch-Israeli colloquium on "Nationalism, Multiculturalism
and Liberal Democracy", held at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts
and Sciences in November 1997. (Yael Tamir's paper was written after the
symposium, to complete the issue). One goal of the colloquium was to try
to determine whether there is a distinctly liberal-democratic approach to
issues of ethnocultural diversity. How do the claims of ethnic and national
groups relate to the underlying principles of liberal democracy, such as
individual freedom, social equality and democracy? When do these claims
respect or promote liberal values, and when do they conflict with them?
The philosophical debate on these questions is relatively new. Indeed,
for most of this century, issues of ethnicity have been seen as marginal
by political philosophers.1 Much the same can be said of other academic
disciplines, from sociology to geography to history.
Today however, after decades of relative neglect, the question of rights
of minority cultures has moved to the forefront of political theory. There
are a number of reasons for this. Most obviously, the collapse of Commu
nism in 1989 unleashed a wave of ethnic nationalisms in Eastern Europe
which dramatically affected the democratization process. Optimistic as
sumptions that liberal democracy would emerge smoothly from the ashes

1 In his paper in this symposium, Chaim Gans suggests that this is due to the lingering
influence of Enlightenment cosmopolitanism on political philosophers.

* Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1: 143-157,1998.

? 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 144 WILLKYMLICKA

of Communism were derailed by issues of ethnicity and nationalism. But

there were many factors within long-established Western democracies
which also pointed to the salience of ethnicity: the nativist backlash against
immigrants and refugees in many Western countries (especially France,
Britain, Germany, and the United States); the resurgence and political mo
bilization of indigenous peoples, resulting in the draft declaration of the
rights of indigenous peoples at the United Nations; and the ongoing, even
growing, threat of secession within some of the most flourishing Western
democracies, from Quebec to Scotland, Flanders and Catalonia.
All of these factors, which came to a head at the beginning of the 1990s,
made it clear that Western liberal democracies had not in fact resolved
the tensions which ethnocultural diversity can raise. It is not surprising,
therefore, that political theorists have increasingly turned their attention to
this topic. For example, the last few years have witnessed the first philo
sophical books in English on the normative issues involved in secession,
nationalism, immigration, multiculturalism, and indigenous rights.2

l. The Emerging Consensus

While this debate is relatively new, I think we can already detect an emerg
ing consensus in the literature. First, there seems to be growing acceptance
of the legitimacy of some or other form of liberal nationalism? According
to liberal nationalism, it is a legitimate function of the state to protect
and promote the national cultures and languages of the nations within its
borders. This can be done by creating public institutions which operate
in these national languages; using national symbols in public life (e.g.,
flag, anthem, public holidays); and allowing self-government for national
groups on issues that are crucial to the reproduction of their language
and culture (e.g., schemes of federalism or consociationalism to enable
national minorities to exercise self-government).

2 See Young, 1990; Buchanan, 1991; Taylor, 1992; Gallenkamp, 1993; Tamir, 1993;
Baubock, 1994; Spinner, 1994; Miller, 1995; Phillips, 1995; Tully, 1995; Kymlicka, 1995a;
Walzer, 1997.1 am not aware of full-length books written by philosophers in English on
any of these topics predating 1990. For collections of recent philosophical articles on these
issues, see McDonald, 1991; Baker, 1994; van Willigenburg et al., 1995; Kymlicka, 1995b;
Raikka, 1996; McMahan and McKim, 1997; Shapiro and Kymlicka, 1997; Lehning, 1998.
3 For recent defenses of liberal nationalism, see Raz and Margalit, 1990; Taylor, 1992,
1997; Tamir, 1993; Spinner, 1994; Miller, 1995; Canovan, 1996; Kymlicka, 1997; Walzer,
1997.

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 INTRODUCTION: AN EMERGING CONSENSUS 145

These are familiar nationalist principles; what defines a liberal nation

alism, however, is a set of constraints on these nationalist principles, such
as:

? A liberal form of nationalism does not attempt to coercively impose

a national identity on those who do not share it. Under a scheme of
liberal nationalism, public institutions may be stamped with a partic
ular national character (i.e., the institutions may adopt the language,
holidays and symbols of a particular national group). But individuals
who do not belong to that national group are not prohibited from
expressing and cherishing their own national identity. Individuals re
main free to speak or publish in other languages, or to celebrate the
holidays and symbols of other national groups. By contrast, illiberal
forms of nationalism are likely to use coercion to promote a common
national identity.
? Relatedly, whereas illiberal nationalisms often seek to prohibit forms
of speech or political mobilization which challenge the privilegin
of a national identity, a liberal nationalism allows political activities
aimed at giving public space a different national character. People are
free to urge the adoption of a different official language, or even to
seek the secession of a region to form a separate state. Advocating
such changes is not necessarily seen as disloyalty, and even if it is
seen as disloyal, this is not viewed as sufficient grounds for restrictin
democratic rights.
? liberal nationalisms typically have a more open definition of the n
tional community. Membership in the national group is not restricte
to those of a particular race, ethnicity or religion. Generally speak
ing, anyone can join the nation if they want to do so. In illiberal
nationalisms, by contrast, non-nationals are often prevented from in
tegrating into the national group even as they are prohibited from
expressing their own national identity. Until recently, to be a 'true'
Bulgarian, for example, one needed to have a Bulgarian surname, be
descended from ethnic Bulgarians, belong to the Orthodox church,
speak Bulgarian without an accent, and dress like a Bulgarian. Need
less to say, it was very difficult for Turks living in Bulgaria to ever b
accepted as members of the 'Bulgarian' nation, even if they wish to
integrate.
? Partly as a result of this inclusiveness, liberal nations exhibit a much
thinner conception of national identity. In order to make it possible
for people from different ethnocultural backgrounds to become full
and equal members of the nation, and in order to allow for the widest
possible range of individual diversity and dissent, the terms of admis

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 146 WILL KYMLICKA

sion are relatively thin - e.g., learning the language, participating in

common public institutions, and perhaps expressing a commitment
to the long-term survival of the nation. Joining the nation does not
require one to abandon one's surname, or religion, or customs, or
recreational practices, etc. This is reflected in the naturalization re
quirements adopted by most liberal states, which emphasize acquiring
the language, learning something about the nation's history and in
stitutions, and expressing allegiance to the long-term survival of the
nation, but do not require adopting a particular religion or conception
of the good life.4
? liberal nationalism is non-aggressive, and does not seek to disman
tle the self-governing institutions of other national groups within the
same state or in other states. Liberal nationalism is therefore willing
to accord public recognition to, and share public space with, those na
tional minorities within a state which consistently and democratically
insist upon their national distinctiveness. In particular, territorially
concentrated groups which were involuntarily incorporated into the
state are not forced to adopt the majority's national identity. If groups
like the Qu?b?cois, Catalans, Flemish or Scots see themselves as
distinct nations within the larger state, then their national distinctive
ness will be recognized in public life and public symbols, through
such things as official language status, self-government rights, and
recognition of their distinct legal traditions. In accepting the legit
imacy of these minority nationalisms, liberal nationalists reject the
goal of a world of homogenous nation-states, and accept the neces
sity and legitimacy of 'multination' states within which two or more
self-governing nations are able to co-exist.

This is just a thumbnail sketch of liberal nationalism, and how it dif

fers from illiberal forms of nationalism.5 Theories of liberal nationalism

4 Insofar as liberal nation-building involves diffusing a common national culture

throughout the territory of the state, it is a very thin form of culture - what I've elsewhere
called a 'societal culture', centred on a shared language which is used in a wide range
of societal institutions (schools, media, law, economy, government, etc.), rather than on
common religious beliefs, family customs or personal lifestyles. Societal cultures within a
modern liberal democracy are inevitably pluralistic, containing Christians as well as Mus
lims, Jews and atheists; heterosexuals as well as gays; urban professionals as well as rural
farmers; conservatives as well as socialists. In non-liberal states, by contrast, acquiring a
national identity typically requires a much thicker form of cultural integration, involving
not only a common language and public institutions, but also elements of religion, ritual
and lifestyle. See Kymlicka, 1995a: chapter 5.
5 Some commentators have attempted to summarize the differences between liberal and
illiberal nationalism under the labels of 'civic' versus 'ethnie' nationalism (e.g., Ignatieff,

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 INTRODUCTION: AN EMERGING CONSENSUS 147

provide us with a set of guidelines for how liberal democracies should

accommodate those groups which see themselves as 'nations', and which
seek rights of national recognition and self-government.
But in addition to these nations, there are also many types of non
national cultural groups which seek recognition and accommodation, such
as immigrant and refugee groups, religious minorities, or even non-ethnic
cultural groups like gays or the disabled. This leads us to the second area of
possible convergence in the recent literature - namely, on ideas of liberal
multiculturalism.6 Liberal multiculturalism accepts that such groups have
a valid claim, not only to tolerance and non-discrimination, but also to
explicit accommodation, recognition and representation within the institu
tions of the larger society. Multiculturalism may take the form of revising
the education curriculum to include the history and culture of minority
groups; creating advisory boards to consult with the members of minority
groups; recognizing the holy days of minority religious groups; teaching
police officers, social workers and health-care professionals to be sensitive
to cultural differences in their work; developing regulations to ensure that
minority groups are not ignored or stereotyped in the media; and so
on.

Here again, we can specify a number of constraints that must b

spected on a distinctly liberal conception of multiculturalism: membe
of these groups must not be imposed by the state, but rather is a m
of self-identity; individual members must be free to question and re
any inherited or previously adopted identity, if they so choose, and
an effective right of exit from any identity group; these groups mus
violate the basic civil or political rights of their members; and multi
tural accommodations must seek to reduce inequalities in power betw

1993). Civic nationalism, on this standard view, defines national membership pur
terms of adherence to democratic principles; whereas ethnic nationalism defines nati
membership in terms of a common language, culture, and ethnic descent. But th
be misleading. Even in the most liberal of democracies, nation-building goes beyon
diffusion of political principles. It also involves the diffusion of a common langua
national culture. What distinguishes liberal nation-building from illiberal national
not the absence of any concern with language, culture and national identity, but rathe
content, scope and inclusiveness of this national culture, and the modes of incorpo
into it. Moreover, there is not one distinction between liberal and illiberal nationa
but several. And each of these distinctions is a matter of degree. We cannot, therefo
vide real-world nationalist movements into two categories: 'liberal' and 'illiberal'. R
nationalist movements will turn out to be more liberal on some scales, and less libe
others. For further discussion, see Kymlicka, 1998.
6 For defenders of liberal multiculturalism, see Young, 1990; Taylor, 1992; Bau
1994; Raz, 1994; Spinner, 1994; Phillips, 1995; Kymlicka, 1997.

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
148 WILL KYMLICKA

groups, rather than allowing one group to exercise dominance over other
groups.
We can describe both liberal nationalism and liberal multiculturalism as
forms of 'liberal culturalism'. Liberal culturalism is the view that liberal
democratic states should not only uphold the familiar set of common civil
and political rights of citizenship which are protected in all liberal democ
racies; they must also adopt various group-specific rights or policies which
are intended to recognize and accommodate the distinctive identities and
needs of ethnocultural groups. Such policies range from multicultural ed
ucation policies to language rights to guarantees of political representa
tion to constitutional protections of treaties with indigenous peoples.7 For
liberal culturalists, these various forms of group-specific measures are of
ten required for ethnocultural justice, although to be consistent with lib
eral culturalism they must meet a number of conditions, like those Usted
above.8 In particular, liberal culturalists support policies which make it
possible for members of ethnic and national groups to express and promote
their culture and identity, but reject any policies which impose a duty on
people to do so.
Liberal culturalism has arguably become the dominant position in the
literature today, and most debates are about how to develop and refine
the liberal culturalist position, rather than whether to accept it in the first
place. The five papers presented in this symposium reflect this emerging
consensus.

2. What are the Alternatives to Liberal Culturalism

How has this consensus been achieved so quickly, given that the claim
being defended by liberal culturalists were ignored or decried by most

7 For a helpful typology, see Levy, 1997.

8 Elsewhere, I have explained these constraints in terms of two categories: externa
protections and internal restrictions. Liberal culturalism rejects the idea that groups c
rightfully restrict the basic civil or political rights of their own members, including thei
right of exit. Such 'internal restrictions' are deeply problematic from a liberal point of view
However, a liberal conception of multiculturalism can accord groups various rights agains
the larger society, in order to reduce the group's vulnerability to the economic or politic
power of the majority. Such 'external protections' are consistent with liberal principle
However, they become illegitimate if, rather than reducing a minority's vulnerability
the economic or political power of the larger society, they instead enable a minority
exercise economic or political dominance over some other group. To oversimplify, we c
say that group-specific measures are consistent with liberal culturalism if (a) they protec
the freedom of individuals within the group; and (b) they promote relations of equalit
(non-dominance) between groups. See Kymlicka, 1995a: chaps. 3, 8.

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 INTRODUCTION: AN EMERGING CONSENSUS 149

liberals until very recently? One possible explanation is that the arguments
provided by liberal culturalists have been so compelling and convincing
that everyone has been persuaded by them. As a defender of liberal cultur
alism, I wish this were true. But a more plausible explanation, I think, is
that there is no clear alternative position. Liberal culturalism has won by
default, as it were.
Of course, one can imagine alternatives to liberal culturalism, even if
they have not yet been well-developed in the literature. Two broad options
come immediately to mind. One alternative would be to try to show that the
earlier model of a unitary republican citizenship, in which all citizens share
the identical set of common citizenship rights, can be updated to deal with
issues of ethnocultural diversity, even though it was originally developed in
the context of much more homogeneous political communities. One could
argue that the interests we share in common are much more important
than the identities which divide us, and that liberal culturalism is therefore
distracting us from our more important common interests as fellow human
beings. Moreover, one could argue that too great an emphasis on diversity
threatens to undermine the very capacity for democratic deliberation about
the common good.9
This position, however, faces the problem that its traditional pretensions
to ethnocultural neutrality can no longer be sustained. Republicans used to
argue that a regime of common citizenship rights was neutral amongst eth
nocultural groups. By avoiding group-specific rights, the state treated eth
nocultural identities as a matter of individual choice in the private realm,
neither hindering nor helping any particular ethnocultural group.
However, this claim to neutrality has been effectively demolished by
recent writers.10 What appears on the surface to be a neutral system of
common rights turns out, on inspection, to be a system which is heavily
weighted in favour of the majority group. It is the majority's language
which is used in public institutions; the majority's holidays which are
recognized in the public calendar; the majority's history which is taught
in schools; and so on. Moreover, these examples of the privileging of the
majority's language and culture cannot be seen as minor or accidental de
viations from the ideal of ethnocultural neutrality; they help define the very
structure of the liberal state, which in turn shapes the structure of the larger
society. Once the pretence of neutrality has been removed, the republican
commitment to unitary citizenship becomes deeply problematic. It avoids,

9 This is arguably the position of van Gunsteren, 1998. Other republican critics of
liberal culturalism include Ward, 1991; Miller, 1995.
10 For critiques of this neutrality claim, see Tamir, 1993; Spinner, 1994; Kymlicka, 1997.

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 150 WILL KYMLICKA

rather than squarely addresses, the sorts of issues of ethnocultural justice

which liberal culturalism seeks to address.
Republican concerns about protecting the possibility of civil dialogue
and common public reason are valid, and so one area of recent work by
liberal culturalists has focused on how to reconcile deliberative democracy
and group-differentiated citizenship.11 Whether republican concerns about
civic virtue can be fully accommodated within liberal culturalism remains
to be seen. However, claims by 'neorepublicans' that the unitary concep
tion of citizenship can deal with issues of language, culture and identity
in a way that is fair to all ethnocultural groups remain little more than
promissory notes.12
A second alternative would be a more radical kind of pluralization of
citizenship; one which rejects not only the republican commitment to a
unitary citizenship, but also the liberal insistence that group-specific rights
be constrained by liberal principles of individual freedom, social equality
and political democracy. This sort of position draws on a variety of authors
(William Connolly, Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler etc.), and
can be given a variety of labels: postliberal, postmodernist, postcolonial.
What all of these versions of a politics of difference share is that they
do not seek to contain differences within the constraints of liberal justice.
After all, they argue, liberal justice is itself just one amongst many cultural
norms, none of which should be privileged, all of which must be politicized
and contested in a multicultural society.13
One difficulty with this approach is that it operates at a more abstract
or metatheoretical level than liberal culturalism, and so finding the exact
points of debate is not always easy. It is sound advice that theorists in a
multicultural society should not take 'our' liberal norms for granted, and
should instead be willing to consider the objections and alternatives raised
by non-liberal groups. But to say that we should consider such objections
and alternatives is not yet to say that we should accept them. We should not
exempt liberal culturalism from contestation, but nor should we rule out

11 See, for example, Spinner, 1994; Phillips, 1995; Young, 1997; Williams, 1998.
12 In his paper for the colloquium, Herman van Gunsteren defended a 'neorepubli
can' model (or a 'republicanism without illusions') which admits that unitary citizenship
is non-neutral while remaining hostile to most forms of group-differentiated citizenship
(particularly to group representation and self-government rights). However, his argument
stayed at such a level of abstraction that it was difficult to tell what concretely it implied for
the sorts of issues about language, education, electoral systems etc., raised in this debate.
See van Gunsteren, "Multiple Belonging in the Community of Fate", unpublished paper
presented at the Netherlands-Israeli colloquium on "Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and
Liberal Democracy" (November 1997).
13 For a classic statement, see Connolly, 1993, 1996.

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 INTRODUCTION: AN EMERGING CONSENSUS 151

the possibility that it will emerge from the contest as the most promising
approach to issues of ethnocultural justice. In any event, I do not think that
postmodernists have provided any compelling reasons for ruling this out.
Indeed, insofar as the postmodernist approach attempts to offer a pos
itive account of ethnocultural justice, it is not clear how it differs from
liberal culturalism.14 Postmodernists are often motivated by (a) a desire to
avoid essentiahzing identities; (b) a desire to avoid Eurocentric cultural
imperialism. How does this differ (except in rhetoric) from the liberal
constraints I discussed above: i.e., (a) that individuals be free to question
and reject ascribed identities; (b) that group-specific policies should aim to
promote equality/non-dominance between groups? How would the post
modernist concern with essentialism and ethnocentrism lead to a different
theory of language rights, say, than the liberal culturalist approach? So far
as I can tell, the postmodernist approach has simply not been developed in
sufficient detail to determine whether and how it differs on concrete issues
from liberal culturalism.
So neither unitary republicanism nor postmodernism provide a clear
alternative to liberal culturalism.15 As a result, the liberal culturalist ap
proach has become dominant by default. The old model of unitary citi
zenship has been exposed as a fraud; and the postmodern alternative is
underdeveloped.
This is arguably the greatest shortcoming in the debate. We simply
need a broader range of approaches to issues of ethnocultural justice. It
is impossible to properly evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of liberal
culturalism until we have a clearer idea of what the alternatives are.

3. Unresolved Issues in Liberal Culturalism

While most authors in the literature are working within the broad camp
of liberal culturalism, this doesn't mean that they are satisfied with the
existing theories of liberal nationalism or of liberal multiculturalism. On
the contrary, many questions have been raised about these theories. These
questions can be organized under two broad headings: methodological and
normative.

14 There is a long-standing dispute about whether postmodernists can endorse any sub
stantive norms of justice or freedom without engaging in a 'performative contradiction' -
i.e., without violating their own metatheoretical critiques of 'reason' and 'truth'. However,
I will set that issue aside.
15 There are other possible approaches (e.g., religious fundamentalism; racialized forms
of nationalism), but these are not likely to win many converts amongst mainstream Western
political theorists.

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
152 WELL KYMLICKA

3.1. Methodological Questions

Theories of liberal culturalism are often praised for having recognized
and tackled issues of real-world importance which had previously been
neglected. But they are also criticized for having misconceived the appro
priate relationship between theory and practice.
For example, it has often been said that:

? existing theories have been developed on a biased or selective sample

of cases, and then wrongly generalized to all Western democracies.
The worry here is not just that there may be complicating factors
present in some countries (e.g., historical tensions between groups)
which make it difficult to apply the theory, but also that the basic cat
egories of liberal culturalism (e.g., 'multiculturalism', 'immigrants',
'minority rights') only make sense in some countries but not others.
? existing theories neglect important developments in the study of eth
nicity and culture by anthropologists, sociologists or political sci
entists. In particular, liberal culturalism underestimates the strategic
uses of identity and group membership; and overestimates the role
of shared norms or beliefs in explaining the cohesion of cultural or
political entities.
? existing theories fail to adequately distinguish different levels of analy
sis. In particular, they fail to distinguish ideal theory (what an ideally
just society would look like) from second-best prescription (what jus
tice requires here and now) from empirical description (what are ex
isting groups actually demanding). Or they conflate normative and ex
planatory statements. For example, the fact that certain group-specific
rights may in theory be consistent with liberal-democratic values does
not mean that the groups demanding these rights are in practice mo
tivated by liberal-democratic values. Yet it is often difficult to de
termine which claim is being made by theorists of liberal cultural
ism. Are they defending the theoretical consistency of group-specific
rights and liberal values, or offering a description and explanation of
the motives of actual minority groups within liberal democracies?
? existing theories lack the sort of institutional specificity that is needed
to assess whether their proposals are attractive or even coherent. For
example, what would it mean to ensure proportional representation of
ethnocultural groups in the political process? How would we decide
which groups are entitled to such guaranteed representation, and how
would we decide who belongs to such groups? Without institutional
specifics, it is difficult to evaluate principles of group representation.

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 INTRODUCTION: AN EMERGING CONSENSUS 153

These criticisms are discussed in Adrian Favell's paper in this symposium,

and have been raised by others as well.16 I think that they are all valid
criticisms of at least some of the major writings on liberal culturalism
(including my own). Yet it is unclear what exactly follows from them.
After all, similar critiques could be made about virtually all of contem
porary political philosophy, whether liberal, communitarian, republican or
postmodernist. These are the hazards of the profession, rather than the
infirmities of any particular author or approach. It's not clear that these
flaws are any worse in liberal culturalism than in other approaches, or that
the central claims of liberal culturalism rest crucially on these flaws.17
In any event, it is worth recalling that this is still a relatively new field,
and one has to expect a certain lack of sophistication at the early stages of
any debate. Indeed it is impressive how much progress has been made in a
relatively short period of time in correcting some of these methodological
flaws. Theorists of liberal culturalism today are examining a much broader
range of groups and countries, developing a broader range of arguments
and principles, drawing on the expertise of a wider range of disciplines,
and working at a much greater level of institutional specificity, than was
evident just 5 or 10 years ago.18
Moreover, my own reading is that the increasing methodological so
phistication of the debate has tended to strengthen, not weaken, the central
claims of liberal culturalism. The more cases we study, the stronger is the
claim that ethnocultural justice cannot be secured by a regime of common
rights.

3.2. Normative Questions

Theories of liberal culturalism cover an enormous range of policy issues,
from language rights to group representation to immigration policy to mul
ticultural education. It would take a book to try to describe all of the
proposals which liberal culturalists have made on these issues, or to eval

16 See also Veit Bader's paper "Unity, Stability and Compliance in Modern Societies
and Recent Political Philosophy", unpublished paper presented at Netherlands-Israeli
colloquium on "Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Liberal Democracy" (November 1997).
17 Indeed, I would argue that the traditional liberal hostility to group-specific rights rests
on a series of selective cases and over-generalizations. For example, models of state/church
relations have been wrongly generalized to other areas of ethnocultural diversity; and ob
jections to segregated institutions for African-Americans have been wrongly generalized
to all forms of 'separate but equal' treatment for ethnic groups.
18 To take one example, compare the discussions of group representation in Phillips,
1995 and Williams, 1998 to those in Young, 1990 or Van Dyke, 1977. I think any im
partial reader would agree that enormous progress has been made in comprehensiveness,
interdisciplinarity, and in institutional specificity.

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
154 WILL KYMLICKA

uate all of the arguments which have been advanced for or against these
proposals.
I would like, however, to mention a few more general questions which
have been raised about the moral foundations of liberal culturalism. I noted
earlier that liberal culturalism, in its more general formulation, is the view
that liberal-democratic states should not only uphold the familiar set of
common civil and political rights of citizenship, but should also adopt var
ious group-specific rights or policies which are intended to recognize and
accommodate the distinctive identities and needs of ethnocultural groups.
But why is it so important to recognize and accommodate ethnocultural
identities and practices? Why does it matter whether society is multicul
turalist? Why should we view membership in ethnocultural groups, or the
potential loss of diverse cultures, as a matter of political importance, rather
than simply private lifestyle choices? We can identify at least three distinct
arguments within the liberal culturalist camp:

? some theorists emphasize the importance of respect for identity. On

this view, there is a deep human need to have one's identity recog
nized and respected by others. To have one's identity ignored or mis
recognized by society is a profound harm to one's sense of self-respect.
Minority rights satisfy the need for recognition.
? some theorists provide a more instrumental argument for cultural
rights, emphasizing the role that cultural membership plays in pro
moting individual freedom or autonomy. On this view, one's culture
determines the boundaries of the imaginable, so that if the options
available in one's culture diminish, so too does one's autonomy. Mi
nority rights protect these cultural contexts of choice.
? finally, some people emphasize the intrinsic value of the diverse cul
tures present in a society. Different cultures are seen as the repository
of unique forms of human creativity and accomplishment, and to let
cultures die out is to lose something of intrinsic value. Minority rights
preserve these intrinsically valuable cultures.

These different arguments are discussed at length in the papers in this

symposium. For example, Yael Tamir discusses and defends the centrality
of the identity argument in Isaiah Berlin's work; Eerik Lagerspetz relies
heavily on the instrumental argument in his defense of language rights
while avoiding reliance on the identity argument; Chaim Gans argues that
the identity and freedom arguments are mutually interconnected, but need
supplementing by other arguments; Albert Musschenga explores the in
trinsic value argument, but concludes that it must be subordinate to the
freedom and identity arguments; and Wibren van der Burg examines the

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 INTRODUCTION: AN EMERGING CONSENSUS 155

identity argument, but concludes that it works better for some cases of
recognition than for others.
In short, while all of these authors are working within a broadly liberal
culturalist framework, there is no consensus amongst them concerning the
normative foundations of this position. There is no agreement on the rel
ative merits of these three justifications for liberal culturalism, or on what
we should do when these justifications lead in different policy directions.
Several other recent papers have also explored these disputes about the
moral grounding of liberal culturalism.19
It is safe to say, I think, that liberal culturalism has struck an intuitive
chord with many people. And this, combined with the lack of any well
developed alternatives, helps to explain why it has so quickly become the
consensus position in the literature. But as the papers in this symposium
show, much work remains to be done in developing these intuitions into
methodologically sophisticated and philosophically satisfying theories.

References

Baker, J. (ed.), Group Rights. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.

Baubock, R., Transnational Citizenship: Membership and Rights in Transnational Migra
tion. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1994.
Buchanan, A., Secession: The Legitimacy of Political Divorce. Boulder: Westview Press,
1991.
Canovan, M., Nationhood and Political Theory. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1996.
Connolly, W., Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.
Connolly, W., The Ethos of Pluralization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1995.
Galenkamp, M., Individualism and Collectivism: the Concept of Collective Rights. Rotter
dam: Rotterdamse Filosofische Studies, 1993.
Gunsteren, H. van, A Theory of Citizenship: Organizing Plurality in Contemporary
Democracies. Boulder: Westview Press, Boulder, 1998.
Ignatieff, M., Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism. New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1993.
Kymlicka, W., Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995a.
Kymlicka, W. (ed.), The Rights of Minority Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1995b.
Kymlicka, W., States, Nations and Cultures: Spinoza Lectures. Amsterdam: Van Gorcum
Publishers, 1997.

19 For other discussions of the moral foundations of liberal culturalism, attempting to

identify and evaluate the sorts of interests people have in their language, culture and na
tional identity, see Margalit and Halbertal, 1994; Reaume, 1995; Tomasi, 1995; Waldron,
1995.

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 156 WILL KYMLICKA

Kymlicka, W., "Ethnie Relations in Eastern Europe and Western Political Theory", in M.
Opalski (ed.), Managing Diversity in Plural Societies: Minorities, Migration and Nation
building in Post-Communist Europe. Ottawa: Forum Eastern Europe, 1998, pp. 275
322.
Levy, J., "Classifying Cultural Rights", in Shapiro and Kymlicka (eds.), 1997, pp. 22-66.
Lehning, P. (ed.), Theories of Secession. London: Routledge, 1998.
Margalit, A. and M. Halbertal, "Liberalism and the Right to Culture", Social Research,
61(3) (1994), pp. 491-510.
Margalit, A. and J. Raz, "National Self-Determination", Journal of Philosophy, 87(9)
(1990), pp. 439-461.
McMahan, J. and R. McKim (eds.), The Morality of Nationalism. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
Miller, D., On Nationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
McDonald, M. (ed.), special issue on "Collective Rights", Canadian Journal of Law and
Jurisprudence, 4/2 (1991), pp. 217-419.
Phillips, A., The Politics of Presence: Issues in Democracy and Group Representation.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Raikka, J. (ed.), Do We Need Minority Rights?. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1996.
Raz, J., "Multiculturalism: A Liberal Perspective", Dissent, Winter 1994, pp. 67-79.
Reaume, D., "Justice between Cultures: Autonomy and the Protection of Cultural Affilia
tion", UBC Law Review, Vol. 29(1) (1995), pp. 121.
Shapiro, I. and W. Kymlicka (eds.), Ethnicity and Group Rights. New York: New York
University Press, 1997.
Spinner, J., The Boundaries of Citizenship: Race, Ethnicity and Nationality in the Liberal
State. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Tamir, Y, Liberal Nationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Taylor, C, "The Politics of Recognition", in A. Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism and the
'Politics of Recognition'. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 25-73.
Taylor, C, ''Nationalism and Modernity", in J. McMahan and R. McKim (eds.), 1997.
Tomasi, J., "Kymlicka, Liberalism, and Respect for Cultural Minorities", Ethics, 105(3)
(1995), pp. 580-603.
Tully, J., Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Van Dyke, V, "The Individual, the State, and Ethnic Communities in Political Theory",
World Politics, 29(3) (1977), pp. 343-369.
Waldron, J., "Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative", in Kymlicka, 1995b
(ed.), 1995.
Walzer, M., On Toleration. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
Ward, C, "The Limits of 'Liberal Republicanism': Why Group-Based Remedies and
Republican Citizenship Don't Mix", Columbia Law Review, 91(3) (1991), pp.
581-607.
Williams, M., Voice, Trust and Memory: Marginalized Groups and the Failings of Liberal
Representation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Wllligenburg, Th. van, R. Heeger and W. van den Burg (eds.), Nation, State and the
Coexistence of Different Communities. Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing, 1995.
Young, I.M., Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1990.

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 INTRODUCTION: AN EMERGING CONSENSUS 157

Young, I.M., "Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy", in S.

Benhabib (ed.), Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, pp. 120-135.

Department of Philosophy
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6
Canada

This content downloaded from 158.170.10.44 on Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:42:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms