Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. by Will Kymlicka

Review by: James Nickel
The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 93, No. 9 (Sep., 1996), pp. 480-482
Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
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480

THEJOURNALOF PHILOSOPHY

BOOK REVIEWS
MulticulturalCitizenship:
A LiberalTheoryof Minoriy Rights.WILLKMLICKA.
New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 1995. vi + 280 p. Cloth $29.95.
This excellent book sketches a theory of minority rights and argues
that such rights can find a comfortable home within liberal political
philosophy. Many themes are shared with Will Kymlicka's earlier Liberalism, Community,and Culture,' but the new book provides fuller
treatment of many issues, including the different kinds of minority
groups, minority rights, and the political representation of groups.
Kymlicka believes that special rights for minorities are needed
even in democracies that respect the human rights of individuals, because leaving questions about the status of minorities to majoritarian
decision making renders "cultural minorities vulnerable to significant
injustice at the hands of the majority" and "exacerbate[s] ethnocultural conflict" (5). He also thinks that a better understanding of the
different varieties of minority groups is needed. He believes we
should replace vague talk of "multiculturalism"with a distinction between immigrant, racial, and ethnic groups (which create "polyethnicity") and national minorities (which create "multination states").
Kymlicka views Canada and the United States as both polyethnic (because of their many immigrant, racial, and ethnic groups) and multinational (because of the semi-autonomous status given to indigenous
peoples and to national minorities such as the Quebecois and the
Puerto Ricans).
Kymlicka attempts to avoid many familiar controversies about the
nature and justification of group rights by focusing on what he calls
"group-differentiated rights." These are rights which are allocated
within a country along group lines, but they are typically held by,
and justified by reference to the interests of, individual members of
the groups that have them.
What Kymlicka offers as a theory of minority rights is more like a
menu of rights (ones that some minorities in certain situations should
have) than a general list of rights held by all minority groups. Rights
that might have a more general character, such as rights against genocide, ethnocide, oppression, and discrimination, are scarcely discussed. Kymlicka is more interested in the rights that minorities
should have in peaceful and prosperous times in developed democra1 New York: Oxford, 1989. Kymlicka has also recently edited an excellent collection of essays, TheRights of Minority Cultures(New York: Oxford, 1995).

0022-362X/96/9309/480-82

i 1996 TheJournal of Philosophy, Inc.

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BOOK REVIEWS

481

cies than he is in rights that forbid the truly horrible things that are
still being done to some minorities in countries around the world.2
The menu of rights that liberal political philosophy should attempt
to legitimate, according to Kymlicka, includes five categories of
rights. First, there are "polyethnic rights" that apply mainly to immigrant groups, distinctive religio-ethnic groups, and minorities without
territories such as African-Americans. These include rights against
discrimination, rights to financial support and legal protection for
distinctive cultural practices, rights to education that recognizes the
cultures and languages of minorities, and exemptions from laws, such
as dress codes, that disadvantage groups given their religious and cultural practices. The purpose of these rights is "to help ethnic groups
and religious minorities express their cultural particularity and pride
without it hampering their success in the economic and political institutions of the dominant society" (31). The second and third categories of minority rights, which apply to both minorities and
nationalities, are "language rights" and "representation rights." The
latter ensure fair representation for minorities in political processes
and bodies. Underrepresentation can be avoided through redistricting schemes, guaranteed representation requirements, and proportional representation systems that encourage "ticket balancing." The
fourth and fifth categories, which are restricted to national minorities, are "self-government rights" and "territorialrights."
Kymlicka's main arguments in defense of implementing the rights
on this menu are liberal rather than communitarian, and hence give
a central place to individual freedom. One argument is that minority
rights help preserve the culturally-provided contexts for choice that
meaningful individual freedom requires. A second argument claims
that minority rights make possible the preservation of cultural membership, which Kymlicka takes to be generally valuable (though he no
longer claims that it is a primary good). A third argument is that minority groups, both ethnic and national, are generally disadvantaged
by being minorities. Minority rights promote fairness by counteracting the superior political and economic power of mainstreamers.
Since group-differentiatedrights are often controversial,Kymlickadevotes many pages to rebutting objections to them. In response to the
worry that group rights are inimical to individual rights, Kymlickainsists
that minority xights must be limited by "principlesof individual liberty,
democracy, and social justice" (6). He introduces a distinction between
2For an attempt to develop rights theory in this area, see my "Ethnocide and Indigenous Peoples," Journal of Social Philosophy, xxv (1994): 84-98; and "What's
Wrong with Ethnic Cleansing?"Journal of Social Philosophy,xxvi (1995): 5-15.

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482

THEJOURNALOF PHILOSOPHY

internal restrictions,which "limitthe right of group members to question

and revise traditional authorities and practices" (37), and external protections, which protect distinctive groups against the power of mainstream culture and thereby "promote fairness between groups" (37).
Kymlicka'sview is that liberalsshould endorse minority rights that confer
external protections, but reject minority rights that authorize internal restrictions. The success of this response is limited by the fact that giving
minority groups greater power and resources so that they can protect
themselves against external pressures will often give them greater de
facto power to impose internal restrictionson their members.
Another familiar objection to group-differentiated rights is that
they will "undermine the sense of shared civic identity that holds a
liberal society together" (173). Kymlicka devotes a chapter to this
worry. He admits that creating self-government rights for national
minorities in a multination state may undermine a common civic
identity, but he denies that giving group-differentiated rights (including polyethnic rights and representation rights) to disadvantaged groups, recent immigrants, or ethnic and religious minorities
will undermine a shared national identity or inhibit integration.
Kymlicka's arguments for this conclusion are weak. He rightly asserts that the creation of such rights typically springs from an impulse
or philosophy which is integrationist, which seeks to treat members of
distinctive and disadvantaged groups fairly so that they will be content
with membership in the larger polity (176-78). But it does not follow from this that group-differentiated rights will generally have
consequences that please integrationists. Although the reasons for demanding and granting group-differentiated rights may be ones of integration and fairness, the effects of having group-differentiated rights
in important areas of civic life may be to make the original reasons for
them irrelevant and to foster forms of political discourse and types of
political demands that are hostile to the creation or maintenance of a
shared civic culture.3 Perhaps Kymlicka should not have attempted to
give a general answer to the objection that group-differentiated rights
undermine a shared civic identity. Whether or not they do so seems to
depend on a variety of factors, such as the size of the benefit that the
right confers, the size of the group, whether the group has a tendency
toward withdrawal or separatism, and whether the group has significant grievances against the larger society.
JAMESW. NICKEL

University of Colorado/Boulder
3For a recent critique of identity politics, see Todd Gitlin, TheDeathof Common
Dreams:WhyAmencaIs Wracked
byCultureWars(New York:Metropolitan,1995).

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