The Challenges of Multiculturalism In Advanced Democracies

Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 13 (4): 616-629 (ISSN: 1353-7113), 2007

Canadian journal of law and society, 1996

While Sadr has been studied across the Middle East for his economic writings, it is ironic that he was criticized as recently as 1987 by Sunni scholars for excessive ijtihad, given the traditionalist tenor of much of the analysis-including such an outmoded notion as the vesting of ultimate land ownership in the Imamand the paucity of shar'ia guidance in this domain. No less talking is what he appears not to have been criticized for: despite the intellectual concern for human welfare, virtually no provision was made for real individual autonomy, or contemporary human rights safeguards, especially in Sadr's constitutional works. He was, in crucial respects, a captive of orthodoxy, at the very least of what Mallat calls "historicity," though struggling until his execution to mold it to a modernity that largely proved too nebulous. It bears observing here that some other Shi'i sects, like the Nizari Ismailis who are today well represented in Canada, have been considerably more dynamic in their socio-legal development than the 'Twelvers'. The strength of this volume is in the rendering of Sadr's tussle with new economic and political realities within the context of the "archetypes of Shi'i law" in a civil society of jurists, which Mallat handles with rigour and imagination. That cannot be said of the quality of editing throughout the text; one expects better from Cambridge University Press. Fortunately, the anomaly does not seriously detract from the value of this contribution to a wider understanding of the arcane but inescapably important, and often fascinating, subject.

2004

Societies where democracy is in transition present, by definition, a difficult problem in terms of conceptual determination and of scrupulous analysis. One may commence from a sociological and collective psychological fact: from the value break (ideologically and politically) with the collective and individual matrices of identity through which people and social groups, in one way or another, functioned for generations. Entering 'the terrible value-vacuum of post-communism', as some call it, distorts democratic institutions (which were designed in constitutions and desired in political programmes of parties) into a new practice of collectivist identification. This value-vacuum creates an authentic situation that is only seemingly similar to the post-modern situation of radical fragmentation where fragments of different values float freely from old and new systems in a permissive equilibrium.1

2012

the accounts of service providers who deal with difficulties, rather than successes, is illuminating. Similarly, the ethnographic work of Blee, in demonstrating that participation in radical action may precede ideological commitment, challenges existing models of politicisation preceding radicalisation. In another sphere, the promising assertion that increased bonding capital leads to better ethnic participation is usefully elucidated and qualified by Jacobs and Tilly. Additionally, many of the survey studies show that making sense of data patterns from a variety of national contexts is often difficult, but the subsequent ability of the contributors to challenge the dominant discourses of essentialism and incompatibilities of cultural identities is invaluable. In sum, the chapters reveal the added value of empirical work in providing a solid evidence base to speak to policy and media audiences. Overall, the volume constitutes a rich and rounded contribution to the area, examining the antecedents, processes and consequences of participation and radicalisation. The resonance among the chapters (even where they diverge in terms of methods and level of analysis) attests to the strength of the core political message: the need to foster and support engagement with marginalised minorities even where this involves challenging dialogue and social change.

2012

Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson’s theory of deliberative democracy has been widely influential and favorably viewed by many as a successful attempt to combine procedural and substantive aspects of democracy, while remaining quintessentially liberal. Although I admit that their conception is one of the strongest renditions of liberal democracy, I argue that it is inadequate in radically multicultural societies that house non-liberal cultural minorities. By focusing on Gutmann’s position on minority claims of culture in the liberal West, which follows from Gutmann and Thompson’s theory of deliberative democracy, I attempt to show that the theory of deliberative democracy does not do justice to legitimate claims of culture made by nonliberal minority cultural groups in the liberal West. As a result, I further argue that their deliberative democracy itself is inadequate for radically diverse societies in the West, some of whose members also belong to nonliberal minority cultural groups.

This paper tries to make the case for a variant of the good life based on a synthesis of liberalism and ethnicity. Liberal communitarianism's treatment of ethnicity tends to fall under the categories of either liberal culturalism or liberal nationalism. Both, it is argued, fail to come to terms with the reality of ethnic community, preferring instead to define ethnicity in an unrealistic, cosmopolitan manner. A further problem concerns the tendency of these theories to focus on political and cultural questions, while ignoring the deeper issues of ethnic boundary-maintenance and mytho-symbolic particularism. In contrast, this essay squarely confronts four practices that are central to the reality of ethnic community: symbolic boundary-maintenance; exclusive and inflexible ethnic mythomoteurs; the use of ancestry and race as group boundary markers; and the desire among national groups to maintain their ethnic character. This paper argues that none of these ethnic practices need contravene the tenets of liberalism so long as they are reconstructed in such a way as to minimise entry criteria and decouple national ethnicity from the state. The notion of liberal ethnicity thereby constitutes an important synthesis of liberal and communitarian ends.

2003

I provide a short review of Carol Greenhouse and Roshanak Khesti's "Democracy and Ethnography: Constructing Identities in Multicultural Liberal States" (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998).

Difference and Democracy: Exploring Potentials in Europe and Beyond, Kolja Raube & Annika Sattler (dir.), Campus Verlag, Hamburg, 2011, pp. 159-181