Transcript Definitions of the state - Univerzita Karlova v Praze

State Response to Minority Groups
Requirements and Impact of of Liberalism
Communitarianism Debate
Selma Muhić-Dizdarević, MA
Faculty of Humanities
Department of Civil Sector Studies
[email protected]
Definitions of the state
 Weber:
monopoly on use of
legal force
 Gellner: monopoly on
education
Arguments against ethnocultural
neutrality of the state
Education
 Legal system
 Diffusion of language
 Relation to different ethnical/ethical
questions:
slavery, polygamy, polyandry, incest,
euthanasia, suicide, capital punishment,
abortion, coerced marriages, divorce on
demand, gay and lesbian marriages, etc.

Criteria for differentiation between
liberal and illiberal nation-building
states (Kymlicka)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Degree of coercion in
promoting national
identity
Diminished concept of
public space, expanded
concept of private space
Minorities can express
publicly their requests
Inclusiveness
Thinner concept of
national identity
6. National identity is not the
ultimate value
7. More cosmopolitan
8. An individual can have
more national identities
9. Willing to share social
space with minorities,
who consider important
to be recognized in such a
way
Definition of societal culture
(Kymlicka)
It is the concept of culture, which
includes common language and
political institutions, and does not
relate to religious beliefs, family
customs or individual habits
Three models according to
public/private difference (Parekh)
1.
2.
3.
Procedural assimilationism (minimal
state)
Civic assimilationism
(Verfassungspatriotismus)
Millet model (loyalty to primarily to the
cultural groups)
Belonging to a group
Subjective path: taking as relevant how an
individual sees her/his belonging
 Objective path: after satisfying certain
stated demands, an individual will be
considered to be a member of a group

Issues that challenge state
sovereignty
1.
2.
3.
Fiscal responsibility (i.e.
economic issues)
International stability (i.e.
security)
Human rights agenda
Different minority groups, different
claims and expectations








National minorities
Indigenous people
Immigrants
Refugees
Guestworkers
Descendants of slaves
Roma
Religious groups

Autonomy

Fair terms of
integration

Inclusion
Affirmative action
Difficult cases


Liberal position
Dworkin: substantial and procedural rights
 Rawls: individual autonomy supplemented
by non-discrimination provisions should
always carry more importance than
collective rights

Communitarian position
Decision-making on the concept of good
life is in the individual's competence, but
environment in which the competence is
applied is not
 Extra-individual predeterminations, like
culture

Five Regimes of Toleration
(M. Walzer, On Toleration)





Multinational Empires
International Society
Consociations
Nation-state
Immigrant Society
Questions:
Does the importance of culture for an
individual mean that the culture should be
state sponsored and protected?
 Does that take away it's vitality and reduces
it to endangered species?
Habermas – Taylor – Walzer debate

Ethnocultural justice (Kymlicka)
Two main ideas:
 Minorities are also entitled to various
degrees of nation-building
 Minority rights are a supplement not a
substitute for human rights
Two types of rights minorities can
claim (Kymlicka again)
Internal restrictions, i.e. rights of a group
against its own members
 External protection, i.e. rights of a group
against the larger society

Benhabib



Tension between universalism (French American
revolutions) and particularisms (nationality, ethnicity,
religion, gender, “race”), between nation-states and
identity-driven struggles.
Havel – our world needs to be multicultural and multipolar
Benhabib suggests a deliberative democratic model, which
permits maximum cultural contestation within public
sphere. Keep constitutional and legal universalism at the
level of polity and permit legal pluralism and institutional
power-sharing through regional and local parliaments.
Benhabib



Distinction: democratic and multicultural theorist. The
latter operates on a presumption of purity of cultures.
Do we want to preserve a culture because of minority
difference in a liberal society or because we want to
expand the circle of democratic institutions. The latter
process leads to hybridization of cultural legacies on both
sides (minority and majority).
If one must choose between democratic inclusion and
conservation of cultures, Benhabib values the former.
Benhabib



Multicultural justice emerges at the interstices of conflicts
and paradoxes.
The way to reconcile individual freedoms and cultural
expression can be in concepts of “flexible citizenship” and
“dispersed sovereignty”.
A multicultural dilemma par excellence: perplexities of
Muslim groups trying to retain their cultural integrity
within a secular, liberal and democratic state.
Benhabib
Cultural group existed always – what is new is
that they demand legal recognition and resource
allocations from the state.
 Reductionist sociology of of culture lies on the
following epistemological premises:
1. Cultures are clearly delineable wholes
2. Cultures are congruent with population groups
3. Even if they do not stand in one-to-one
correspondence, this is of no importance for
politics or policies.

Behabib



Turner – this position risks essentializing the idea of
culture, reifying cultures as separate entities,
overemphasizing their boundaries and it fetishizes them
and puts them beyond critical analysis
Benhabib is in favor of social constuctivism, which means
that each analysis of a culture must begin by distinguishing
standpoint of a social observer and of a social agent. The
social observer imposes unity and coherence on cultures.
From within, culture need not appear as a whole. “…it
forms a horizon that recedes each time one approaches it.”
Example – Hindu practice of sati
Benhabib

Her critique of strong or mosaic multiculturalism – it
supposes that human groups and cultures are clearly
delineated and they coexist as pieces of a mosaic, always
maintaining their boundaries. It is also morally wrong,
because intercultural justice between groups should be
defended in the name of freedom and justice and not of
preservation of cultures.
Benhabib



What does it mean to be a member of a group? It means to
participate in the established code of narratives in various
cultures. That defines our capacity to tell individual stories.
Strong multiculturalism must face the fact that most
individual identities are defined through many collective
affinities and many narratives.
She sees group identities as dynamic and not focused on
what a group IS, but on what the political leader of a group
DEMAND in the public sphere.
Benhabib
Democratic theorists are concerned with
public manifestations of cultural identities
in civic space. Multicultural theorists are
concerned with in classifying and naming
groups.
 But, political attitudes cannot be derived
from group identities.

Benhabib




The main argument: as long as pluralist structures do not violate three
normative conditions of egalitarian reciprocity, voluntary selfascription and freedom to exit and association, they can be quite
compatible with universalist deliberative democracies.
Egalitarian reciprocity means that members of minorities must not be
entitled to a lesser degrees of rights than majority.
Voluntary self-ascription means that an individual must not be
automatically assigned to a group, s/he should be able to self-identify,
even asked when adult if s/he wants to remain a member of a
community of origin. State should not have a power to assign one to a
group.
Freedom of exit and association should be unrestricted for an indivdual
Benhabib



The question is universalism ethnocentric presupposes that
we know who us and them are. But cultures, as well as
societies, are not holistic but polyvocal, multilayered,
decentered and fractured systems.
Some (Lyotard, Rorty) claim heterogeneity and
incommensurability of regimens and discourses, but there
is no argument for it, just assertion.
Understanding other is not just a cognitive, but also a
moral and political act.
Benhabib



1.
2.
3.

Confrontation of cultures produces a community of conversation but
also a community of interdependence (what we burn, what we waste
affect also those, who we don`t know).
Therefore, Benhabib advocate for pluralistically enlightened ethical
universalism, based also on a pragmatic imperative to understand
each other.
She differentiates among three types of evaluation:
The moral – what is right or just for human beings as such
The ethical – what is appropriate for us insofar as we are members
of social collectivities
The evaluative – what we individually strive for, happiness
She criticizes Michael Walzer, for too holistic claims.
Conclusion

Ethnocultural neutrality is a myth in the sense that
believing in it narrows the space for non-dominant cultures
to participate in division of social space, but it does not
imply that society can become culturally neutral, once this
awareness is achieved. Gaining the awareness though does
open the possibility to manage different cultural interests
in a way similar to managing different interests, which are
not of the cultural origin (e.g. sexual or financial). This
again in my opinion requires constant spelling out of the
“ground rules” of the changing society.