GROUP INTEGRATION by Dan Pfeffer a Thesis Submitted to The
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GROUP INTEGRATION By Dan Pfeffer A thesis submitted to the Department of Political Studies in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada January, 2014 Copyright © Dan Pfeffer, 2014 Abstract This dissertation argues that we ought to promote the integration of groups as groups. Group integration is characterised by the process through which a group develops its own institutions and becomes a participatory member of its host society. This dissertation is neither a refutation of previous literature on individual integration, nor is it a rejection of the idea that immigrant groups are owed different rights than are national minorities and aboriginal groups. Instead, the goal is to fortify our understanding of what treatment is owed to immigrant groups. This dissertation argues that it is normatively desirable to promote group integration both for instrumental benefits in terms of expediting individual integration, and due to reasons of justice and democratic equality between groups. Chapters Two, Three, and Four are predominantly theoretical. They involve a discussion of the importance of group rights and group deliberation, why group integration is normatively desirable, and a response to theoretical critiques of my proposal that group integration ought to be promoted. Chapters Five and Six are based on an application of the theory developed in the preceding chapters, and explore cases where we can see evidence of group integration. It is argued that group integration can justify differentiated rights for immigrant groups that may have integrated, as individuals and groups, under different historical circumstances. The Sixth chapter explores some implications that group integration may have for a group that is not easily characterised by the traditional liberal multiculturalist categories of aboriginal, immigrant group, and national minority. Finally, in Chapter Seven I provide an overview of the three main rubrics of argumentation used in this dissertation. ii Acknowledgements A number of professors, colleagues, friends and family members helped contribute to the research and writing of this dissertation. I would like to start by recognising the extensive work put forward by Professor Andrew Lister, whose generous feedback on ideas and content was always helpful and appreciated. This dissertation would not be the same if it were not for his thoughtful and constructive criticisms, and helpful suggestions. I owe special thanks to Professor Alain-G Gagnon, who, upon my return to Montreal, offered me not just office space in which to work and opportunities to participate in important conferences, but also an environment filled with motivated colleagues. I also owe thanks to Professor Will Kymlicka who has profoundly impacted my understanding of justice with regards to the treatment of minorities, and has offered helpful feedback that was critical in shaping this project into its present form. I have learned immensely from various discussions about Political Theory and Canadian Politics with colleagues and friends. Even many non-academic conversations have helped make this dissertation possible. For their contribution in this regard, I would like to thank Jean-Rémi Carbonneau, Olivier de Champlain, Catrin Wyn Edwards, Alexandre Germain, Mathieu Huard- Champoux, Edward A. Koning, Vanessa La Haye, Rémi C. Léger, Eduardo Malpica, Paul May, Marcel Nelson, Étienne Schmitt, Jean-Charles St-Louis, Marianne Simard-Veillet, Michael Szilagyi, Claudie Thibaudeau, and Valérie Vézina. I would also like to thank a highly competitive group of friends, some of which I have known for more than a quarter of a century. Michael Abrams, Michael Dunkelman, Michael iii Guttman, Michael Katz, Michael Kaufman, Richard Roskies, Glen Schwartz, and Brandon Zimmerman, your humour, advice, and drive to succeed have helped motivate me throughout my academic career. I wish to thank all of my family and family in law, but especially my parents, for their years of support and encouragement; my brother Gerald, for his constant interest in my research and for teaching me to aim for the best; and my brother Edward, for teaching me about justice in a way no one else can. Finally, I would like to thank my loving wife Gail for showing me support and patience throughout the entirety of this degree. iv Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents v Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 The Philosophical Framework of Group Rights and Group Integration 11 Chapter 3 Group Integration 61 Chapter 4 The Post Culturalist, and Minorities within Minorities Critiques 114 Chapter 5 Québécois Society: pre, and post 1977 Immigrant Groups 151 Chapter 6 Beyond Ideal Types: The Case of Anglophone Quebec 188 Chapter 7 Conclusion 230 Bibliography 245 v Chapter 1 Introduction Cultural diversity should not be viewed as a brute fact to be reluctantly accepted and accommodated but as a positive value to be cherished and fostered. -Bhikhu Parekh (2000, 12) To attribute ‘equal value’ to all cultures … destroys the very notion of value. If everything is of value, nothing is of value: the value loses its content. -Giovanni Sartori (2000, 69) Multiculturalism is in crisis. Critics have proclaimed “the end of multiculturalism”, and Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, went as far as declaring that the application of this concept has been an “utter failure” (Weaver 2010).1 Is multiculturalism in as dire straits as many scholars and statespersons would have us believe? To answer this question it is first necessary to have a baseline understanding of multiculturalism. There are three different ways of characterising the concept, and while two of these three have been confronted with considerable obstacles, it is scarcely disputed that business is booming for multiculturalism by its third definition. The first area in which multiculturalism is said to be in crisis is with respect to policy. The Netherlands is one of the most dramatic cases thereof (Entzinger 2003; Koopmans 2006; Vink 2007). Once committed to instructing the children of immigrants their respective mother tongues in primary school (in the mid 1970’s), by 2005 the majority of Dutch parliamentarians supported a ban of the niqab and burka in all public spaces (Phillips 2007, 6-8). Australia is another case that is often cited as quintessential of the decline of multiculturalism (Ang and 1 See Rainer Bauöck (2002, 2) for a discussion of the end of multiculturalism. 1 Stratton 1998). Once touting Australian identity to be multicultural, the government has scaled back this idea referring more directly to specific characteristics that define the country, such as its British heritage. The failure of multiculturalism as a policy has become almost a populist slogan with not only the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, echoing Merkel’s words, but even Nicolas Sarkozy pronounced its failure despite France not really being a clear embodiment of this policy (Laborde 2011). Most recently, Quebec’s minority parliament is also poised to table legislation that would entrench so called “values” that would outlaw the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols for all public sector employees. These cases receive considerable media attention, so it is no wonder that policies of multiculturalism are perceived as being in retreat. Second, multiculturalism as a political theory has come under fierce criticism.2 Objections include that: (i) it mistakenly advocates that different cultures are of equal worth (Sartori 2000), (ii) multiculturalists, as Brian Barry puts it, are guilty of “an unargued move from fact [of diversity] to norm” that should be valued (2001, 22), and finally, (iii) multiculturalism takes complex identities and simplifies them into non-representative ideal types. On the one hand, a rigid conception of culture leads to groups being misrepresented and to the oppression of vulnerable minorities as their viewpoints are glossed over. On the other, multiculturalism needs to be able to simplify cultures and represent them as overly uniform in order to have a target for policy. Thus, critics argue that multiculturalism has no exit to this dilemma. The third way of approaching multiculturalism is simply as a way of describing the empirical fact of pluralism. In this sense, there has been no retreat since we can say that the world is suffused with diversity. To help avoid confusion caused by this way of understanding 2 Christian Joppke (2004) and Rainer Bauböck (2002) give a good overview of this aspect of the retreat of multiculturalism. 2 the term, Bhikhu Parekh aptly distinguishes between multicultural, and multiculturalist societies (2000, 6). The former refers to societies that are constituted of a diverse population, and the latter refers to societies that have accepted the need to apply theories of multiculturalism to govern this diversity. But even this tripartite understanding of multiculturalism is too simple to hone in on what exactly about multiculturalism is in crisis. It is not clear, for example, that all policies of multiculturalism are in retreat. According to Will Kymlicka (2010), only one of three policy areas has seen some retreat, while the other two have clearly advanced. More specifically, states and international bodies have come to recognise the rights of aboriginal communities, as well as national minorities. Protections for aboriginals have been entrenched in international law, and national minorities continue to obtain more rights