24.1 Multiculturalism: The Concept
Most countries today are internally plural — they have people of different religions, races, and cultures living within their boundaries. The central question multiculturalism poses and seeks to answer: How can these diverse communities be treated as equals within the framework of democracy?
Multiculturalism begins with the understanding that granting equal civil and political rights was an important democratic achievement, but it has not adequately addressed the issue of discrimination in society. Marginalised cultural communities, as minorities, continue to be disadvantaged even within the democratic nation-state. Culture-based discrimination exists even in the most advanced liberal polities of the West, and it cannot be redressed simply by giving identical rights to all persons as citizens. What we need instead are a set of special arrangements that enable minority cultures to survive and flourish in the public arena.
24.1.1 The Ideal of Non-Discrimination
Multiculturalism aims to minimise discrimination of minority cultural communities and to promote the ideal of non-discrimination. Over the last three centuries, democratisation has occurred by identifying sources of discrimination within the polity and finding ways to eliminate them — religion, gender, caste, and race. Multiculturalism contributes to this ongoing project of democratisation by pointing to a site of discrimination that had received little attention before: cultural identity. The singular contribution of multiculturalism to democratic discourse is the recognition that cultural identities may be a source of marginalisation, and that actions of the liberal state may disadvantage members of minority communities.
24.1.2 Promoting Cultural Diversity
To counter existing patterns of culture-related discrimination in liberal democratic polities, multiculturalism recommends policies that enhance cultural diversity. Protecting and promoting cultural diversity is a primary value within multiculturalism, favoured for the sake of: (i) minimising minority discrimination; (ii) creating conditions in which minority cultures survive and flourish.
Reasons for valuing cultural diversity:
- Policies of the liberal nation-state disadvantage minority communities by placing external pressures upon their members to assimilate into the majority culture.
- Charles Taylor: if we cannot contribute to our inheritance, we must at least ensure that the diversity that exists survives (Taylor 1994:73).
- Parekh: no culture can “ever express the full range of human potentialities” (1998:207) — each articulates only an aspect of it. The presence of many cultures contributes to the “overall richness of society” and enables critical self-understanding.
- Different cultures enable us to experience different ways of living and thinking, making us aware that our cultural horizon is only one of many. This consciousness of the finitude of our existence prompts critical examination of inherited beliefs and institutional structures.
- Kymlicka: diverse cultures offer concrete alternatives — since diverse cultures present diverse projects and systems of organisation, they provide individuals with substantive options and choices as they define what is good and desirable (1991:165).
What needs to be underlined: multiculturalism is concerned about the diversity of cultures (not merely diversity of thought, belief, and perspective as liberalism is). It is particularly concerned about minority cultures that face external pressures to assimilate or disintegrate, and by attending to them it aims to protect diversity of cultures. Since the concern is always for cultural diversity, it is the community rather than the individual that has merited greater attention within the multiculturalist framework.
24.1.3 Multiculturalism, Pluralism and Diversity
Cultural communities are not voluntary associations — people do not consciously choose cultural membership as we choose goods in the market. A cultural community is defined by a shared language, history, economic, political, and social institutions — it is characterised by common customs, institutions, and practices (Kymlicka 1995:76–78).
Since each culture has its own distinct identity and practices, cultures are seen as incommensurable entities that cannot be judged in terms of the values of another culture. They can only be known and understood in their own terms. There is no ground for assuming that the same values must be cherished in or worthwhile for all cultures.
Multiculturalism is more than a statement of value pluralism — it does not merely suggest that different value systems exist and individuals may commit to any of them. It argues that each culture incorporates a distinct value different from that expressed in another, and the life of an individual is shaped to a considerable extent by the value framework of the culture to which he belongs.
Multiculturalism vs. Pluralism: The mere presence of different religions, races, and languages is not enough for a multicultural democracy. The latter requires that each of these cultural communities flourish and receive equal treatment. It is this concern for equality between diverse cultures that is distinctive of multiculturalism and sets it apart from pluralism. Pluralism at the societal plane may co-exist with a state that is mono-cultural. Multiculturalism points to this predicament and shows that many liberal democracies that tolerate social differences nevertheless discriminate against minority cultures.
24.2 Multiculturalism and Liberalism
The liberal solution to discrimination: Liberalism took note primarily of discrimination based on socially ascribed identities (religion, race, caste, gender) and suggested that individuals be conceived as citizens, dissociated from their social identities, all receiving the same rights and treated alike. The principle of formal equality — setting aside distinctions and privileges based on ascribed identity, treating all individuals equal in the eyes of the law, making the category of “citizen” religion and colour-blind. All other identities (ethnic, religious, etc.) were to be restricted to the private domain.
Within liberalism, ascribed identities are discredited as they are not chosen by the individual. The state must ensure that received identities do not fix roles, positions, and opportunities. The community is perceived as an authoritarian entity that constrains individual autonomy — hence it receives no rights. It is the individual and not the community that is designated as the bearer of rights.
The multicultural challenge to liberalism: Membership of a cultural community is valuable to the individual — it defines, at least in part, their personal identity and forms a “context of experience” (Kymlicka 1995:189). Community membership provides a framework within which things acquire value. Since membership of a cultural community forms an “anchor for self-identification” (Margalit & Raz 1990:447), individuals cannot be expected to enter the public domain as “unencumbered” selves devoid of social identities.
Contrary to liberal perception, community identities are bound to enter into the public domain. According to Kymlicka, when we expect individuals to bracket their cultural identity, we deprive them of “something that they are reasonably entitled to” (1995:86). Excluding a cultural community from the political and public domain, denying it recognition or misrecognising it, causes grievous injury to the individual (Taylor 1994:25–28). When a cultural community has low prestige in the public arena:
- Individuals belonging to them develop a sense of low esteem.
- They become nervous and diffident, unable to perform successfully in society (Parekh 1992).
- Some respond by distancing themselves from their family — creating intergenerational conflicts and depriving the individual of a secure social environment.
For multiculturalists, a secure cultural context is an essential condition for leading a reasonably autonomous existence and exercising choices. When a culture is misrepresented or threatened, its members become closed and resistant to change. Even for promoting the liberal ideal of autonomy, a secure culture that receives due public recognition is absolutely essential.
24.2.1 Critique of Liberal Democracies
Multiculturalism argues that liberal democracies have not been able to ensure equal citizenship for all members. Even though equal civil and political rights have by and large been given to all, persons belonging to minority cultural communities remain disadvantaged in the public arena because the state, through its laws and policies, endorses the culture of the majority community. Policies on language, education, declaration of holidays, dress codes, and ceremonial rituals and symbols of the state all reflect the culture of the majority, popularising and sustaining it and encouraging assimilation.
National culture is in actuality rooted in the culture of the majority. When the liberal democratic state promotes that culture, it privileges the majority while simultaneously disadvantaging minorities.
Examples:
- When English is made the official language in Canada, Francophones (French speakers) are necessarily disadvantaged — they must learn a non-mother-tongue language to compete equally, invest greater effort, and acquaint themselves with another culture. Parents send children to English-medium schools; the French language and culture lose support and viability.
- The declaration of Sunday as a public holiday implicitly favours the Christian community (can attend church) but disadvantages devout Muslims who wish to offer Friday prayers — since Friday is a working day, they get no time off.
“Seemingly neutral laws and policies of the state have an implicit bias that favours the majority community.” Since the option for minority communities is only to assimilate or disintegrate, multiculturalism is critical of liberal democracies. It questions the central principles of formal equality and neutrality, and offers in their place an alternate framework based on group-differentiated rights and differentiated citizenship.
24.2.2 Multiculturalism as a Liberal Theory of Minority Rights
Multiculturalism rejects the liberal idea of an autonomous, atomised self and the belief that the state is, or must be, neutral. No state is, or can be, completely neutral — even liberal states make laws on marriage, divorce, property, inheritance, euthanasia, and suicide, each endorsing one view. The liberal principle of neutrality must therefore be replaced by the notion of “evenhandedness” (Carens 1999:46–50) — the state must act so as to be evenhanded towards diverse communities.
This must not be taken to imply that multiculturalism is anti-liberal. Most theorists present these alternatives to make liberal democracies consistent with the liberal ideal of equality for all. Kymlicka offers an important argument: liberalism values not just individual autonomy but the condition of revisability — the freedom to reflect upon and revise inherited beliefs and institutions. Revising cultural inheritances is only possible when the culture is secure within the nation-state. When a culture is under threat and struggling to survive, options tend to close and community members have little possibility of reshaping their cultural context. Hence, as liberals, we need to be concerned about the fate of minority cultures, and supplement individual-based rights with special arrangements that allow minority cultures to survive and flourish (Kymlicka 1991:9–19).
24.3 The Idea of Differentiated Citizenship
Liberalism addressed social discrimination by extending the same rights to all as citizens. Multiculturalism, in sharp contrast, argues that identical rights for all are inadequate for minimising culture-based discrimination — what we require are special rights for identified minorities.
The concept of differentiated citizenship rejects the liberal ideal of universal citizenship. Multiculturalism maintains that universal citizenship assumes that all persons are alike, eclipsing group differences. In a society where some groups are privileged and others marginalised, universal citizenship implies that the latter forsake their identity and take on the outlook of the dominant group. At the same time, it allows the “privileged group to ignore their group specificity” (Young 1990:165), making the norms and point of view of the privileged majority appear neutral and universal — perpetuating “cultural imperialism” (ibid.).
24.3.1 Different Kinds of Special Rights
Within the framework of differentiated citizenship, multiculturalism sanctions three kinds of special rights for minority communities:
1. Cultural Rights: Minority communities require special rights to have access to their culture in the public domain. In western democracies, cultural rights have been demanded in three forms:
- Exemptions from existing laws — e.g., Sikhs in Canada received exemption from the law prescribing helmet wearing for motorcycle riders; Asian women nurses were granted exemption from prescribed dress codes. The argument: prescribed codes did not take note of minority cultures.
- Assistance (financial and other infrastructural support) — to establish museums, run minority educational institutions, and hold public festivals.
- Recognition for distinct cultural practices — e.g., in India, religious communities were given recognition for their family law (personal law). The most significant aspect of recognition claims is that through them communities seek endorsement of traditional cultural practices and institutional structures. They bring into effect plural structures of jurisdiction and governance.
2. Self-Government Rights: These too create dual structures of jurisdiction, but are linked to territorial claims. Communities concentrated in a given region with historical claims over that territory and a desire to protect their cultural identity may receive political autonomy to govern themselves in a way that protects and promotes their distinct cultural identity in that region. These rights are defended only for communities that are a distinct nation with historically supported claims over a territory.
3. Special Representation Rights: Minority communities must have an opportunity to participate in the political process, set agendas, and voice their specific point of view. Iris Marion Young (1990:186): “People in different groups often know about somewhat different institutions, events, practices and social relations, and often have different perceptions of the same institutions.” Their participation enriches public discourse while bringing marginalised groups into the mainstream. Deliberate inclusion of oppressed minorities can be a powerful tool for defining public norms and creating deliberative consensus.
Special representation is a way of including and empowering marginalised groups, giving them a sense of participating in and contributing to policy outcomes while also enriching policymaking with diverse perspectives. In India, special representation was granted to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes by the Constitution to include populations historically excluded from the public and political domain.
24.3.2 Differentiating Between Minorities
Not all minorities should receive the same special rights. Most theorists agree that these rights are intended only for minorities that have been historically oppressed. Which set of rights should be granted depends on the specifics of the case — different contexts demand different remedies, depending on the kind of minority, its experience of discrimination, and the nature of the state.
Kymlicka’s distinction between national minorities and immigrant communities: Self-government rights may only be given to communities that see themselves as nations with a distinct societal culture and historical claims over a given territory. Immigrants come to a country with the clear understanding that they will have to live by the norms of that country — so they cannot claim rights to protect and promote their culture in the same way. Special rights are not supported unconditionally for all communities, nor are all minorities expected to receive exactly the same rights.
24.4 Critiques of Multiculturalism
Four main criticisms:
1. Empowering communities at the expense of individuals (especially women): The multicultural framework empowers communities and traditional structures of authority. It allows communities to continue with existing practices in the name of protecting community culture. This sanction given to communities can be used to quell internal differences and promote conformity with the views of traditional leaders. Individuals — and particularly marginalised groups within the community, like women — are placed at a disadvantage. While multiculturalism addresses equality between groups, it neglects the equally important concern for equality within the group.
2. Assumption of homogeneous, bounded communities: Discussing special rights for minorities assumes that each community is a homogeneous entity with a clearly identifiable membership — slotting the individual into one community. This may have been appropriate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but today individuals are continuously exposed to many different cultural and social influences. Individuals see themselves as members of many different communities simultaneously (e.g., as Indians, Hindus, Brahmins, and Women — each identity generating different and sometimes incompatible concerns). We need a more complex picture of the individual and community membership.
3. Weakening the nation-state: By associating the culture endorsed by the state with the majority community, multiculturalism undermines the very possibility of a shared culture of the people in the nation-state. It threatens the national project and calls upon minorities to distance themselves from the state. The system of special rights creates a framework of dual jurisdiction and dual loyalties — itself seen as a source of state disintegration.
4. Neglect of redistribution (Marxist critique): Multiculturalism conceives minority marginalisation narrowly as a cultural phenomenon requiring cultural remedies (recognition and protection of minority cultures). This causes it to overlook the multiple ways in which discrimination occurs and manifests itself in society. In particular, its analysis diverts attention from the urgent task of seeking redistribution of resources and opportunities in society.
24.5 Multiculturalism: An Assessment
Theorists of multiculturalism have increasingly been attentive to these concerns. Two points to emphasise:
1. Multiculturalism aims to strengthen, not weaken, existing states: Based on the understanding that threats to territorial integrity come from ethnic conflicts within the polity, it tries to accommodate marginalised communities by giving them a voice in the political and public sphere. Special rights — including self-government rights — provide mechanisms by which oppressed groups may participate and develop a sense of commitment to the state. Citizenship is not simply a legal status; it has a psychological dimension. Unless people have a sense of “emotional attachment,” identification with the state is not likely to occur (Carens 1996–7:113). Special rights are expected to provide avenues for inclusion and equality among minority communities.
2. The most serious challenge: protecting cultural diversity without negating individual freedom and equality: Advocates address this by suggesting that communities must develop institutions of democratic deliberation so that the voice of marginalised groups within the community can be heard and accommodated internally. Others maintain that the state could prescribe a framework of minimum rights that cannot be violated, within which communities may determine how best to govern their members. While these suggested alternatives are not entirely adequate, they indicate that multiculturalism is not simply a theory of community rights — the concern for intra-group equality is not absent within it. Having placed inter-group equality on the agenda of liberal democracies, multiculturalism is increasingly addressing the question of equality within the community.
24.6 Summary (Key Takeaways)
- Multiculturalism draws attention to cultural discrimination within liberal democracies — the recognition that cultural identities may be a source of marginalisation is its singular contribution to democratic discourse.
- Protects and promotes cultural diversity because: (i) it minimises minority discrimination; (ii) rich mosaic of plurality should survive; (iii) diverse cultures enrich lives and enable critical self-understanding; (iv) cultures offer concrete alternatives for individual choice.
- Challenges liberal principles of formal equality, neutrality, and the unencumbered individual self — cultural community membership is an “anchor for self-identification” and must receive public recognition.
- Critique of liberal democracies: seemingly neutral laws and policies of the state have an implicit bias favouring the majority — making the option for minorities only to assimilate or disintegrate.
- Differentiated citizenship: Three kinds of special rights — cultural rights (exemptions, assistance, recognition); self-government rights (territorial autonomy); special representation rights.
- Critiques: empowers communities over individuals (gender concern); assumes homogeneous bounded communities; may weaken nation-state; neglects redistribution.
- Significance: Multiculturalism has compelled a re-thinking of cherished liberal ideals — particularly whether individual rights, indivisible sovereignty, and uniform citizenship can effectively ensure equality for all in a plural society — and has become one of the most influential strands of democratic theory today.
