United in Difference: Overcoming the Impasse Between Unity and Diversity

United in difference: Overcoming the impasse between unity and diversity

Erica J. Rayment Department of Political Science McGill University, Montreal March 2010

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jacob Levy for his support and supervision of this project – his patience, generosity and encouragement were invaluable to me. I would also like to thank Arash Abizadeh and Hudson Meadwell for their feedback and comments on the proposal of this project. I am grateful to the Montreal Groupe de Recherche Interuniversitaire en Philosophie Politique for fellowship support throughout my degree and especially to those who attended the January 29, 2010 meeting of GRIPP, at which I presented an earlier draft of the first chapter of this project for their feedback, comments and suggestions. Finally I would like to thank Safia Haq for her creative help coming up with a title for the project and Shadia El Dardiry for proofreading the French abstract.

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the tension between unity and difference in contemporary political theory. It argues that this tension can be resolved by understanding unity and difference in their political and institutional context rather than in isolated abstraction. The first section examines some existing responses to the challenge of diversity, and suggests that the incompatibility of unity and difference is grounded in a misconception of how we should approach and understand each of the concepts. The second section seeks to ground the compatibility of unity and difference in a diverse and inclusive communicative public sphere. Unity, conceived as the product of political cooperation, in fact relies upon engagement with difference, understood as fluid and relational. The third section shows how the compatibility between unity and diversity proposed in the second chapter can ground alternate institutional and policy opportunities for the integration and accommodation of religious minorities, looking at the examples of France, the Netherlands and Quebec.

Ce mémoire traite la tension entre l’unité et la diversité dans la théorie politique contemporaine. Elle postule qu’une résolution à cette tension peut être atteinte si l’on considère l’unité et la différence dans leur contexte politique et institutionnel, et non dans une abstraction isolée. La première section examine des réponses au défi posé par la diversité et suggère que l’incompatibilité entre l’unité et la différence est fondée dans une mécompréhension de comment on devrait approcher et considérer chacun des concepts. La deuxième section cherche à fonder la compatibilité de l’unité et la différence dans une sphère publique inclusive, communicative et hétérogène. L’unité, conçue comme produit de la coopération politique, dépend sur la participation avec la différence, conçue comme étant fluide et relationnelle. La troisième section indique comment la compatibilité entre l’unité et la différence développée dans le deuxième chapitre peut créer des opportunités institutionnelles et politiques alternatives pour l’intégration et l’accommodement des minorités religieuses, examinant les exemples de la France, des Pays Bas et du Québec.

Contents

Introduction 4

Chapter 1: The Impasse of Contemporary Theory 8

Chapter 2: Breaking the Impasse 32

Chapter 3: Testing and Applying the Solution 59

Conclusion 85

Bibliography 88

Introduction

Since the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent Wars of Religion in sixteenth and seventeenthcentury Europe, questions about the rights, obligations and social roles of religious minorities in political society have raised pressing political and philosophical concerns. These concerns about the role of religious minorities remain no less relevant in contemporary western democracies, although the religious pluralism in our current political context is notably more diverse and runs much deeper than that of early modern

Europe. Contemporary religious diversity is also very often intertwined with questions of culture, race and ethnicity within the broader context of the multicultural society.1 In our current context, the political pressures created by the fact of religious diversity are very much real and urgent. Cases such as the controversy over Shari’a courts in Ontario, the headscarf law in France, the murder of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands, and the widespread crisis of reasonable accommodation in Quebec all place cultural and religious minorities (very often Muslims) and the state in direct confrontation with one another and call into question popular assumptions about fundamental political concepts such as equality, democracy and citizenship in the face of plurality.

These kinds of cases draw our attention to the need for a coherent theoretical framework according to which they can be understood and negotiated. This project will seek to establish such a framework by grounding the compatibility of unity and diversity

1 The primary object of my inquiry is the treatment of religious diversity in political communities, but in contemporary political life, religious identity is invariably tied up with other questions of culture, ethnicity, and immigration and it would be impossible to treat the issue of religious diversity in isolation (see Levey 2009). Throughout this project, therefore, I will deal with broader more general theorizations of diversity and integration, but remain ultimately motivated by the question of the place of religious minorities in contemporary political communities.

within an inclusive political communication and practice. Many existing approaches to diversity fall short. The complete isolation of and social fragmentation among religious and cultural groups that might result from a thoroughgoing politics of difference would be undesirable, but at the same time so too would be an insistence upon assimilation or homogenization and the abandonment of religious and cultural identity, motivated by a desire to ensure social unity within the political community.

Given these two extremes, the challenge of establishing a framework according to which diversity can be negotiated is fundamentally related to the tension between the protection of difference and the maintenance of unity in a plural society – both are desirable ends, but it is not clear how both can be simultaneously maintained, given what each seems to require.2 James Bohman articulates the nature of this tension by noting that

On one hand, the segmentation of distinct political jurisdictions […] without overarching common constitutional essentials and rights might sustain a semblance of political unity, but at the cost of disparate cultural communities that deliberate alongside of rather than with each other. On the other hand, not to recognize distinct cultural rights leads to forced integration and unity at the price of diversity.3

Given this, he suggests, it follows that “there is a clear tradeoff between unity and plurality, and the unity of the larger groups clearly conflicts with the plurality and integrity of smaller cultural groups.”4 There is thus a need to move beyond this tension

2 A more rigorous distinction is sometimes made between diversity and difference, but for the purposes of this project I will generally use the term diversity to refer to the more widespread fact of plurality that exists within a political community and the term difference to refer more specifically to the identity or particularity of minority cultural or religious groups. 3 James Bohman, “Public Reason and Cultural Pluralism: Political Liberalism and the Problem of Moral Conflict,” Political Theory, 23 (May 1995): 257. 4 Bohman, 258.

between unity and diversity in order to provide a meaningful response to the challenges created by diversity.

I contend that this tension can be resolved by understanding unity and difference in their political and institutional context rather than in isolated abstraction. I will begin my enquiry by examining the logic and character of the tension between unity and diversity within existing approaches to diversity. The first chapter will present some of the existing responses to the challenge of diversity that can be understood to fall under one of two broadly conceived categories: theories that are primarily concerned with unity through the promotion of a shared identity or set of political principles, and theories that prioritize the recognition and preservation of cultural and religious difference. Each approach seeks to protect and ensure something that is undeniably valuable, but by conceiving of unity and difference in abstract, static, prepolitical terms, each of these views seems to require internal homogeneity and as a result can only achieve its aims at the expense of what the other values. I will argue that this incompatibility, however, is grounded in a misconception of how we ought to approach and understand each of the concepts and that it will only be possible to move toward an alternative way of thinking about religious diversity in political community if we can move beyond this insistence upon sameness.

In the second chapter I will explore an alternative approach. The understanding of unity and diversity that I will defend here makes the two concepts compatible in the context of a diverse and inclusive communicative public sphere. The compatibility of the two concepts is constructed on the basis of a reconceptualisation of unity and difference themselves, whereby unity is understood as the product of political cooperation and

difference is understood as fluid and relational rather than static and fixed. From this it follows that the compatibility of unity and diversity is grounded in the fact of political engagement from diverse perspectives, thus making unity itself dependent upon the inclusion of difference.

The conceptions of unity and difference explored in the first two chapters of the project inform the kinds of policies adopted in practical political life. In the third chapter, therefore, I will show how the theory proposed in the second chapter can open up new institutional and policy opportunities when it comes to thinking about the integration and accommodation of religious minorities. Contrasted with the policies of assimilation and accommodation in France and the Netherlands, I will suggest that the policy if interculturalism in Quebec can provide an interesting point of departure for thinking about how the theory proposed in the second chapter might be practically realized, given its attention to democratic dialogue and inclusiveness.

Grounded in a philosophical tension, the challenges created by the fact of cultural and religious plurality are particularly relevant in contemporary political life. By examining the aims of unity and difference in the relational context of democratic interaction and exchange, rather than as abstract, prepolitical aims in themselves, I intend to demonstrate the compatibility of social unity and the recognition of difference as well as the capacity of this compatibility to give direction to policies and institutions that can ensure social peace and the successful functioning of diverse political communities.

I. The Impasse of Contemporary Theory

Over the past two decades, the fact of cultural plurality within political communities has been the object of an extraordinary amount of intellectual attention. I understand many of the existing responses to the challenge of diversity within contemporary theory to fall under one of two broadly conceived categories, each with a distinct approach and motivation. On the one hand, there are theories that prioritize social unity or cohesion, by way of a shared identity or commitment to a public common good or set of political principles (call these the unity arguments). On the other hand, there are theories that emphasize the importance of the recognition and preservation of cultural and religious difference (call these the difference arguments).

By focusing on either unity or difference, these approaches to diversity privilege one element of political life, conceiving of it in abstraction and isolation from the experience of political practice and, as a result, take only one component of the political challenge at hand seriously. In doing so, they ignore the multifaceted and relational character of political life, the challenges created by the fact of diversity and the complex array of goals and projects that must be negotiated and attended to in a diverse political community. Each approach seeks to protect and ensure something that is undeniably valuable, but because of the way in which unity and difference are each understood, can only do so at the expense of what the other values.

In this chapter, therefore, I will seek to show that the incompatibility of unity and difference within contemporary theory is grounded in a misconception by both sides of how we should approach and understand each of the concepts. By approaching social unity and the recognition of difference both as abstracted static ends that ought to be

promoted in isolation and for their own sake, the concepts take on the appearance of being mutually exclusive and incompatible goals – a conception which, I contend, is not logically necessary. By working out the relationship between unity and diversity in existing approaches and the shortcomings thereof, it will be possible to establish the theoretical context in which more practical questions of how accommodation practices and policies of integration ought to be considered.

This chapter will outline some of the existing approaches in contemporary political theory in order to identify the value in what each seeks to protect and will establish that there is indeed a difficult tension between these two views. I will begin by exploring nationalist and liberal accounts that focus on the importance of unity and will then go on to explore recognitionbased accounts that seek to ensure the preservation of particular groupbased identities. Once each of the positions has been laid out, I will clarify the conceptual challenge of making the two compatible and suggest that existing attempts to overcome this challenge have been either misplaced or unsuccessful.

Unity

Social unity is generally understood by those who promote and prioritize it to be in some measure necessary to the successful functioning of a democratic state. I will focus here on unity in the form of shared identity or agreement on political values as presented by nationalist and liberal responses to diversity.

As a response to diversity and as a political aim in itself, nationalist political theory seeks to establish unity on the basis of shared identity within a political

community. Liberal nationalist theorists such as David Miller resist a conception of national identity as a purely ethnic concept, but also insist that national identity is grounded in something more robust than a set of political values or principles. National identity is grounded in a shared belief in the existence of nationality itself, through historical development, connection to geographical space and common public culture.5

On this view, nationality can garner support from a broad base of the population including religious or cultural minorities, since it is grounded in something larger and more inclusive than the characteristics of a particular ethnic group, and can create a meaningful sense of unity across the population because it consists of something substantive by way of a shared public culture.

Within this theory, the unity of shared national identity is conceived as existing prior to political institutions and practice. Wayne Norman characterizes national identity as “the best form of social cement in modern societies” that would otherwise “fragment along regional, ethnocultural or even class lines.”6 As such, shared national identity is seen as providing the necessary basis of commonality upon which culturally, ethnically, or religiously diverse individuals can come together and engage in shared political projects despite their particularities and differences. Miller characterizes the unity created by shared identity as “the precondition for achieving political aims such as social justice and deliberative democracy.”7 In a critique of the nationalist case for the importance of shared identity, Daniel Weinstock highlights the nationalist assumption that

5 David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 1825. 6 Wayne Norman, "From NationBuilding to National Engineering: On the Ethics of Shaping Identities," in The Politics of Belonging: Nationalism, Liberalism and Pluralism, ed. Alain Dieckhoff (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2004), 87. 7 Miller, On Nationality, 162.

unless citizens view themselves as sharing a political identity which, when conflicts arise, trumps other aspects of identity, they will lack any disposition to support common institutions, and to accept the kinds of sacrifices that are sometimes required of shared citizenship.8

Unity in the form of a constructed national identity, therefore, is understood to be valuable insofar as it is capable of establishing a common ground upon which individuals from diverse backgrounds can identify with and relate to one another in order to be able to come together and cooperate in the political realm. Evident in this prioritization of national identity is the sense that the unity it ensures makes possible the functioning of political society and ensures a sense of belonging through the establishment of sameness through shared identity.

In order for shared national identity to be politically effective as a unifying tool, however, citizens must subordinate “certain aspects of ethnic identity in the interests of creating and maintaining a common public culture.”9 In other words, elements of an individual’s particularity and difference cannot be expressed within or give content to the national identity one shares with other members of the nation. This insistence on the primacy of one’s national identity over all other aspects of identity is problematic first in its practical implausibility and second in its underlying tendency toward assimilation and homogenization. Intuitively, it is difficult to imagine that individuals would be capable of sectioning off and ignoring entire swathes of their selfunderstanding in order to adopt the constructed national identity. Unity in this sense, then, requires the dissolution of difference and particularity in order to function. The liberal nationalist response to

8 Daniel Weinstock, "The Problem of Civic Education in Multicultural Societies," in The Politics of Belonging: Nationalism, Liberalism, and Pluralism, ed. Alain Dieckhoff (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2004), 109. 9 David Miller, "The Ethical Significance of Nationality," Ethics 98 (July 1988): 657.

diversity relies upon an assimilative and potentially homogenizing ideal of community, whereby in order to maintain unity and cohesion through shared national identity, other elements of one’s identity and sense of self must be compromised. Therefore, while a shared national identity grounded in history and public culture does indeed provide a substantive social unity through which political engagement can be ensured, it seems to do so at the expense of the expression of particularity and thus raises concerns about the suppression of difference.

This nationalist view is rooted in the thought of Rousseau insofar it shares with

Rousseau a belief in the importance of shared public culture and identity, which is understood to be necessary to the possibility of a functional democratic political community. Examining Rousseau’s early articulation of the nationalist ideal allows us to get at the core of what it is that this position values at a basic, foundational level.

In keeping with the logic of the broader argument presented in the Social

Contract, responding specifically to the challenge of religious disagreement among individuals within a political community, Rousseau argues that social and political unity can and must be maintained in the face of plurality. For Rousseau, freedom is made possible through the prevalence of the general will, which can be ensured only if there exists a strong social bond or sense of civic unity among citizens. Civic unity is possible,

Rousseau suggests, as long as citizens in their capacity as public actors prioritize their civic duties above all else and do not allow their private beliefs to detract from their civic role. Rousseau presents this republican ideal in a troubling extreme manifestation by suggesting that this prioritization of civic duty can be ensured through the establishment of “a purely civil profession of faith, the articles of which it belongs to the sovereign to

establish, not exactly as dogmas of religion, but as sentiments of sociability, without which it is impossible to be a good citizen or a faithful subject.”10 Through shared belief in the civil religion, the bonds of civic unity are maintained and citizens are thus able to be autonomous and free through their participation in civic life.

Built into this civil religion is the insistence that tolerance “be shown to all those that tolerate others;” however, this tolerance is contingent upon the condition that the object of tolerance not profess dogmas or beliefs that are “contrary to the duties of a citizen.”11 Therefore, while it is indeed possible and permissible for individuals to hold whatever beliefs and opinions they like, this freedom of conscience is limited by one’s civic duties – as Rousseau puts it, individuals “do not have to account to the sovereign for their opinions, except to the extent that these opinions are of importance to the community.”12 This assertion that if an individual’s private beliefs prevent her from carrying out her public duties, then such belief is not permissible is indicative of the extent to which Rousseau’s position prioritizes the importance of shared public life over private belief.

Rousseau’s articulation of the importance of a background of social unity is grounded in an understanding of the democratically engaged civic life as necessary to the possibility of freedom, but is a particular view of democracy that requires a fundamental and primary commitment to one’s civic duties and role as citizen. This view is echoed by the nationalist view, which, at bottom, shares a similar (if perhaps not identical) belief in the primacy of democratic political life and the importance of one’s participation therein

10 JeanJacques Rousseau, “On the Social Contract,” in The Basic Political Writings, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987), 226. 11 Rousseau, 227. 12 Rousseau, 226.

for the possibility of individual freedom and autonomy. Each of these views demonstrates that there is something unquestionably valuable about the background condition of social unity, conceived in prepolitical, cultural terms since it is only within this context of unity that a sense of community, solidarity and participation that is necessary to political activity can be achieved. These civic sentiments are fundamentally important to the possibility not only of a successful and wellfunctioning political community but also to the flourishing of the individual as a free and autonomous being within that community.

John Rawls argues for a version of unity grounded in liberal principles that does not rely upon the same substantive public commitment as the authors above. His model of political liberalism seeks to accommodate a plurality of reasonable comprehensive doctrines within a neutral political framework through which unity on the basis of political consensus can be achieved. Thus, by focusing on the importance of a politically grounded social unity, this model seeks to avoid the potential problems of cultural homogenization faced by the more robust unity arguments presented above by grounding unity in the neutral space of the political. According to Rawls, unity can be maintained within a politically liberal wellordered society through the establishment of

an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. In such a consensus, the reasonable doctrines endorse the political conception [of justice], each from its own point of view. Social unity is based on a consensus on the political conception.13

This view, therefore, creates the space for a plurality of reasonable beliefs and understandings of the good in the private sphere without prioritizing one over the other politically.

13 John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 134.

This argument provides a compelling response to the tension between unity and diversity since it protects particularity while ensuring political unity by allowing for political agreement among a plurality of views according to their own reasons and justifications. However, it falls short insofar as it fails to provide a convincing substantive ground upon which unity can be ensured, and, perhaps more importantly, insists upon the relegation of difference to the private sphere. This is in large part a result of the narrow terms according to which the political is conceived. Within this understanding of unity, the political realm exists solely for the purpose of protecting the framework within which each individual can pursue his or her own particular conception of the good without promoting a particular conception of the good itself. The political conception of justice seeks to ensure “equal political and civil liberty; fair equality of opportunity; the values of economic reciprocity; the social bases of mutual respect between citizens.”14 While it is indeed important that this protection exist in order that diversity and particularity not be oppressed, a unity that insists solely on adherence to a set of political principles without considering the way in which those principles might obtain popular support lacks the requisite substantive content needed to create a sufficiently meaningful or realistic bond of unity among diverse citizens.

By creating the space within which culturally and religiously grounded beliefs and conceptions of the good can be protected from state regulation and influence, unity is maintained against a background of diversity since there is an assurance that diverse private views will not be politically constrained or coerced. The extent to which one can express these private beliefs and opinions in the political realm, however, is limited.

14 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 139.

While privately, it may be the case that one assents to the purely political conception of justice on the basis of one’s comprehensive beliefs, the comprehensive grounding of these reasons cannot be articulated or referred to in public discussion. Within this theory there is “a need to restrict the contents and kinds of ‘reasons’ [that are given] in public deliberation by excluding ‘religious’ and other sorts of reasons that refer to comprehensive doctrines.”15 There is thus no space within this view for the public expression of particularity and the private beliefs of the individual cannot be voiced in public reason giving. In this way, the prohibition against the public expression of difference entails that “Groups who wish to influence the parameters of politics, but attempt to do so by appeal to conceptions of the good that are not already tailored to liberal requirements, are personae non gratae in this perspective.”16 By refusing to allow citizens to make reference to their particular comprehensive beliefs, which are often grounded in cultural or religious particularity, this model prevents the possibility of full and meaningful participation in public life.

This limitation and the protection of the private sphere from the influence of the political is premised on a belief in the fundamental importance of individual freedom of choice and of conscience. However, it relies upon the problematic separation of the self into distinct private and public entities for the sake of being able to maintain the prioritization of private life, and to ensure uniformity in the public realm. What is problematic about the separation of public and private life here is not simply that the

15 Veit Bader, “Secularism, public reason or moderately agonistic democracy?” in Secularism, Religion and Multicultural Citizenship, ed. Geoffrey Brahm Levey and Tariq Modood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 115. 16 David Miller, “Citizenship and Pluralism,” in Citizenship and National Identity (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2000), 59.

separation exists – indeed, I accept that to a certain extent such a separation is necessary in order to create a space within which the individual’s life and choices are beyond the reach of state regulation. Rather, what is problematic is the refusal within the politically liberal position to allow for the public expression of particularity by limiting the reasons that can be given in public discussion. In doing this, the unity that is possible within this view is made static despite its grounding in political practice and the overlapping agreement of diverse individuals in political dialogue.

While unity in each of these accounts is promoted to varying degrees and for different reasons, what both the liberal and nationalist accounts share is the fundamental belief in the importance of unity for the successful functioning of the state. In the nationalist account, this unity must exist prior to political practice and institutions in the form of a shared national identity among citizens, which allows them to engage with one another in political life. This view, however, relies upon the dissolution of difference in order for unity to be possible. In Rawls’s politically liberal account, unity exists as the result of an overlapping consensus about what political principles ought to guide the political community, while ensuring the protection of difference in the private realm.

Public agreement on these principles, however, relies upon the problematic separation within the individual between the public and the private self.

Difference and Recognition

Arguments for the recognition of difference tend to see recognition as important both for the wellbeing of the individual and for the successful functioning of the political community. These arguments understand approaches to diversity that insist upon the

relegation of difference to the private sphere to have ignored the importance of the public expression of particularity. I will focus here on arguments that present the need for the public expression of difference as a requirement of recognition.

Charles Taylor’s influential theory of the politics of recognition provides an important articulation of the political relevance of the recognition of difference.

Recognition, Taylor argues, “is not just a courtesy we owe people. It is a vital human need.”17 This is because, according to Taylor, the development of the individual’s identity and sense of self, which necessarily occurs “in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us,”18 is crucial to her wellbeing and sense of self esteem. Taylor argues that this understanding of the development of identity and the need for recognition has important consequences in the public sphere: “equal recognition is not just the appropriate mode for a healthy democratic society. Its refusal can inflict damage on those who are denied it […] The projection of an inferior or demeaning image on another can actually distort and oppress.”19 It follows from this that if the cultural, religious or ethnic group with which an individual identifies and within which her identity is developed is not publicly recognized as having equal status with the majority, then that individual lacks equality of dignity. Recognition of difference, therefore, is seen as a necessary precondition for the successful functioning of a political community and must be ensured either in the form of cultural preservation and survival through the promotion of collective goals and values or through political acknowledgement of the worth of minority cultures.

17 Charles Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition," in Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994), 26. 18 Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” 33. 19 Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” 36.

Axel Honneth’s critical reinterpretation of the Hegelian notion of “a comprehensive ‘struggle for recognition’”20 provides a helpful articulation of the value of recognition and preservation of cultural or religious identities that the difference arguments seek to ensure. Recognition, is seen to be crucial to the viability of society, since mutual recognition among individuals as “social addressees” is necessary to “the reproduction of social life.”21 Honneth suggests that it is only “by way of the morally motivated struggles of social groups – their collective attempt to establish, institutionally and culturally, expanded forms of recognition – that the normatively directional change of societies proceeds.”22 The need for recognition is thus understood as the primary driving force behind social development. Honneth identifies “three forms of recognition, each of which contains a potential motivation for social conflict.”23 These three forms of recognition occur on three distinct social levels and influence the moral development of the individual in different ways. The different forms of recognition are experienced through love relationships, through legal recognition by way of rights and through relationships of solidarity or a “shared orientation to values.”24

The absence of any of these forms of recognition is identified as disrespect, and each engenders a reciprocal form of social conflict: “What the term ‘disrespect’ [...] refers to is the specific vulnerability of humans resulting from the internal interdependence of individualization and recognition.”25 Of particular relevance to the discussion here are the forms of disrespect that correspond with relationships of solidarity

20 Honneth, Axel. The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts, trans. Joel Anderson (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1995), 1. 21 Honneth, 94. 22 Honneth, 93. 23 Honneth, 1. 24 Honneth, 9495. 25 Honneth, 131.

and legal relationships and the recognition (or lack thereof) that occurs on these two levels.

Within this approach, the public expression of particularity and the recognition of difference are understood as being valuable as a fundamental social psychological human need. The fulfilment of the need for recognition is also important insofar as it is necessary to the successful functioning of a political community, given that the absence of recognition can lead to social conflict.

Will Kymlicka presents an argument for the legal recognition of minorities through differentiated group rights within the framework of liberal principles, which undermines the insistence of the unity arguments that public identity must be uniform and that cultural particularity must be relegated to the private sphere. His argument, which seeks to protect cultural particularity, however, is justified according to a different logic than Taylor’s defence of recognition. Instead of presenting recognition as a vital human need unto itself, Kymlicka sees it as necessary to the possibility of liberal freedom. 26

According to Kymlicka, cultural recognition is crucially important because “freedom of choice is dependent on social practices, cultural meanings, and a shared language […]

Deciding how to lead our lives is, in the first instance, a matter of exploring the

26 Alan Patten has criticized Kymlicka’s ‘context of choice’ argument, suggesting that it ultimately fails at grounding the argument for the protection of minority rights on liberal egalitarian principles (see Patten 1999). He argues that Kymlicka fails to demonstrate the need for the protection of the distinctiveness of minority cultures; to the extent that he does defend this, it is incompatible with liberal egalitarianism. This critique, while challenging, need not be taken to undermine the relevance of Kymlicka’s position. Moreover, it is not my aim here to defend or critique Kymlicka’s specific position as a realization of liberal principles, but rather to consider it insofar as it conceives of culture as valuable and deserving of protection through state intervention. Patten seems to arrive at a similar conclusion (i.e. that minority cultures warrant protection through intervention), but does so on the basis of an argument about the linguistic (in)capability of minorities to integrate into the majority culture.

possibilities made available by our culture.”27 Given this understanding of culture, then, culture must be legally protected by way of differentiated minority group rights in order to ensure the context of choice necessary to the possibility of freedom for all individuals.

Kymlicka defends these legal protections, for the most part in the form of additional external protection of the minority group, insofar as these protections are compatible with respect for individual freedom and autonomy.28 Thus while an individual’s particular culture is seen as valuable and warranting recognition through legal protection, there are nonetheless limits on what cultural particularities can be said to meet these criteria.

Kymlicka distinguishes between national minorities, which make claims to self government rights and ethnic groups, which make claims to polyethnic rights. Polyethnic rights are of greater relevance to my study here than selfgovernment rights since they pertain to the particular case of religious diversity. These kinds of rights exist in order to

“root out discrimination and prejudice,” support cultural practices and secure

“exemptions from laws and regulations that disadvantage [ethnic groups] given their religious practices.”29 Kymlicka contends that the differentiated rights accorded to ethnic minority groups do not pose a threat to the sense of community or fraternity within a state in the same way that national minority selfdetermination rights might, since they exist in order to facilitate inclusion rather than separateness. 30

While the nature and implications of the rights claims of national, as opposed to ethnic or religious minorities are indeed substantively different, my sense is that

27 Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 126. 28 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, 75. 29 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, 31. 30 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, 176.

Kymlicka is too hasty in his dismissal of the potential tension between unity and minority rights in the context of polyethnicity. He insists that polyethnic rights are primarily integrative rather than differentiating or ghettoizing. He attributes popular anxiety over polyethnic rights and the accommodation of nonwhite and nonChristian minorities in the form of withdrawal from the larger society to xenophobia and racism.31 While his concern about racism is very well taken, concern about the political consequences of polyethnic rights need not be derived from such a smallminded and hateful point of departure. By conceiving of cultural particularity as requiring differential rights, this requirement necessarily conceives of diverse groups as separate in a fundamental pre political capacity and thus has the potential to bring about social fragmentation and isolation even as it seeks to be inclusive.

Taylor and Kymlicka’s arguments make clear the importance of the recognition and inclusion of diverse individuals on the basis of particular group identity. Recognition of particularity is seen as valuable both at the level of the individual, insofar as it allows for authentic selfrealization and at the level of enabling the smooth functioning of political society. There is a sense in which, without the space for the possibility of realizing the ideal of authenticity made possible by recognition and the public expression of particularity, people are somehow unfree. Moreover, the denial of recognition has the capacity to engender resentment among those to whom it is denied and create social conflict.

Despite the clear political and individual importance of and need for the public expression and recognition of particularity, there are nonetheless important political

31 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, 179.

challenges created by this recognition and the conception of identity and difference upon which the arguments for recognition seem to rely. Taylor and Kymlicka’s arguments for recognition and the need to acknowledge in political life the relevance of minority group affiliations, while differently grounded, both tend problematically to freeze or stagnate the content and boundaries of the group identities they seek to protect. In Taylor’s account, by conceiving of recognition as a fixed end point achieved through the promotion of collective goals rather than as an ongoing struggle or process, group identities become entrenched and are treated as internally homogeneous and closed off from other identities. Similarly, by conceiving of recognition as something that can be achieved through the establishment of group rights as Kymlicka contends, the group to which rights are accorded must – either as a precondition or as an eventual result – exist as a fixed and internally uniform group in order for the rights to be meaningful or effective. It follows then that in according a group political recognition or specific rights, the boundaries and content of the group become fixed and unchanging. As Jocelyn

Maclure notes, many have argued that “the politicization of identity has the negative effect of freezing the identity which is being brought to the fore.”32 Within these views, once recognition is achieved, dialogue among and within groups is stagnated and comes to an end.

Even insofar as recognition aims toward inclusiveness and integration, the potential for social fragmentation, divisiveness and conflict when it is understood this way is greatly increased. The accounts of recognition articulated above seem to require

“an essentialized, internally homogenous, clearly bound and selfcontained notion of

32 Jocelyn Maclure, “The Politics of Recognition at an Impasse? Identity Politics and Democratic Citizenship,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, 36 (March 2003): 13.

culture in order to ground their claims for the rights of minority cultures.”33 When individuals participate in political processes as members of a fixed particular group, it becomes necessary to protect and maintain the boundaries of the group identity such that it can be granted recognition. To do this, it is necessary to identify with those who are like you and emphasize the ways in which you are not like others; as a result groups become isolated from and inscrutable to one another. This opaque account of culture, however, does not “adequately describe the processes of mediation and negotiation that goes on between groups who claim to belong to different cultures.”34 By conceiving of recognition of cultural differences and particularities in this way, we are forced to direct our attention to the things that divide us. Thus, while disrespect and the lack of recognition can lead to social conflict, so too can the focus on differences and distinctiveness that this conception of the recognition of difference requires, albeit in very different ways and for very different reasons.

Iris Young expresses the need for the recognition of difference as part of a larger and ongoing struggle for political and social inclusion and equality of economic opportunities.35 Unlike Taylor, Young does not conceive of recognition or the absence thereof as a political concern in itself that can be resolved by the simple public recognition of equal status. Instead, she understands recognition to be a demand for the inclusion of “historically excluded or dominated groups” in political processes and activities.36 In this way, the demand for recognition through inclusion on the basis of

33 Maclure, 9. 34 Maclure, 9. 35 Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1057. 36 Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 103.

groupbased identity is conceived as a resolution to “experiences of structural inequality” rather than the fact of cultural difference itself.37

Like Kymlicka, Young understands the demand for recognition to be a demand for inclusion, but the recognition and respect for difference through inclusion that she insists upon can be understood as more of an ongoing process rather than as a fixed end in itself since it is framed within the broader context of “a more ‘agonistic’ model of democratic process.”38 Within this approach, democratic debate is conceived of as “a process of struggle” that occurs through the “communicative engagement of citizens with one another.”39 This approach avoids the tendency towards stagnation of identity and social isolation, since it conceives of social difference not as fixed, unchangeable, and in need of preservation, but rather as a fluid social resource through which “communication of the experience of knowledge derived from different social positions” can contribute to political decision making.40 Nonetheless, by privileging difference in a fundamental capacity, this view is only incidentally capable of responding meaningfully to the question of whether and how unity might also be maintained.

Challenge of Compatibility

The challenge of making unity and diversity compatible is often dismissed since demands for recognition are ultimately characterized as demands for inclusion, which presumably would not pose a threat to social or political unity. This dismissal of the

37 Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 105. 38 Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 49. 39 Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 50. 40 Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 83.

challenge of reconciling diversity with unity, however, ignores the impact of the underlying logic of both social unity and group identities and difference. Just as unity in the nationalist view is conceived of as being dependent upon a shared identity that exists prior to political practices and institutions, the understanding of the recognition of diversity thus far articulated conceives of particularity as static in a prepolitical capacity.

Given the nature of these conceptions, both of which require uniformity or sameness at the level of their particular unit of concern, both cannot be simultaneously maintained.

Even in the harder case of multinational diversity, coming up with a theoretical approach to the way in which unity and diversity can both be successfully maintained has proven challenging and has, for the most part, resulted in vague and inconclusive propositions by theorists. While these attempts at making unity possible in the context of multinational diversity are indeed qualitatively different from cases of religious and cultural diversity, they can nonetheless be instructive to our consideration of the latter.

In Multicultural Citizenship, Kymlicka suggests that in order to maintain unity in a multination state, shared political values are insufficient and something more robust such as shared identity is needed.41 He suggests that “if there is a viable way to promote a sense of solidarity and common purpose within a multination state, it will involve accommodating, rather than subordinating [constituent] national identities.”42 However,

Kymlicka does not provide a clear articulation of how such an arrangement might be structured. He suggests that a social sentiment that aims towards something like union without unity or that can unify without fusing distinct nations will be necessary, but

41 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, 188. 42 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, 189.

neither of these notions is clearly elaborated.43 Wayne Norman echoes the idea that shared values are insufficient for maintaining unity in multination states. “The ideology of shared values,” he suggests, “gets the connection between shared identity […] and shared values backward. It is not typically common values that lead to common identity, but vice versa.”44 On this view, identity must be forged and created and sustained through “not a little mythology and revisionist history” in order that diverse individuals can experience a sense of belonging in a single political community.45 This argument for a robust but fabricated shared identity, however, raises the same concerns about oppressive assimilation as those articulated in response to the nationalist unity arguments above.

Contrastingly, Taylor proposes a theory of ‘deep diversity’, through which “a plurality of ways of belonging” to the same political entity might ground political unity.46

On this view, the sense of belonging of immigrant minorities within a cultural mosaic model would be different from the sense of belonging of the member of a national minority, whose sense of belonging to the larger whole “pass[es] through some other community.”47 Despite the different ways of belonging, belonging could be ensured across identities and groups. Kymlicka rejects Taylor’s notion of deep diversity, suggesting that while it points in the right direction, it leaves open the question of “what

43 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, 192. 44 Wayne Norman, “The Ideology of Shared Values: A Myopic Vision of Unity in the Multination State,” in Is Quebec Nationalism Just: Perspectives from Anglophone Canada, ed. Joseph H. Carens (Montreal/Kingston: McGill Queen’s University Press, 1995), 147. 45 Norman, “The Ideology of Shared Values,” 154. 46 Charles Taylor, “Shared and Divergent Values,” in Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on Canadian Federalism and Nationalism (Montreal/Kingston: McGill Queen’s University Press, 1994), 183. 47 Taylor, “Shared and Divergent Values,” 183.

would hold such a multination state together.”48 Regardless, the details of how deep diversity might maintain unity remain unarticulated.

The failure of these approaches to provide a convincing resolution to the tension between unity and diversity in the multinational context is indicative of the challenge in making the two concepts compatible. The fact of this clear tension between the two ideals, however, and the apparent inability of existing theory to provide a compelling response need not indicate that social unity and the recognition of difference are at bottom logically incompatible concepts; nonetheless, the possibility of their compatibility is certainly not straightforward or intuitive.

There is something fundamentally troubling about the tension between the unity arguments and the difference arguments. These two approaches draw attention to the value and importance of both the expression and recognition of difference and the maintenance of political unity. However, they also make apparent the fundamental challenge in protecting both simultaneously, since the achievement of one goal precludes the possibility of the other, given the nature of what each attempts to protect. The unity side sees the prioritization of difference as a reversion to a divisive and selfish factionalism or identity politics, destructive of unity and stability. Conversely, those who advocate recognition of difference see the promotion of unity as an affront against the diverse identities and cultural attachments of minority groups, which is both destructive to the individual and in fact undermines the goal of unity by inciting angry backlash from those minority groups whose identities are not recognized.

48 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, 190.

Much of the challenge of making unity and diversity compatible lies in the way in which each of these concepts is understood and approached. Insofar as unity is approached in abstraction and as something that is prior to political practices and institutions, it relies upon the need for a certain degree of sameness or uniformity, either through shared identity or political values. The logic of these unity arguments seems to suggest that people can only successfully cooperate and engage in political life if they are in some way the same as those with whom they must engage, either in terms of identity or political values.

In the case of the difference arguments, in order for particularity to be publicly expressed and recognition achieved, group identity must be conceived of as something static and opaque and thus requires that diverse groups be held in distinction and separation from one another. The difference arguments operate on the premise that recognition of group particularity through the maintenance of sameness at the level of the minority group is necessary to the capacity for participation at the larger scale.

Both sides, therefore, seem to operate on the assumption that in order to ensure a peaceful and harmonious political order in the face of plurality, we must, at some level establish sameness, uniformity or homogeneity – either through a shared identity or conception of the common good at the level of the political community as a whole or through the preservation of cultural or religious identity at the level of the minority group. Clearly, however, it would be impossible to maintain sameness or homogeneity at both scales while still protecting the aims of both sides. Unity and difference on this understanding, therefore, emerge as mutually exclusive concepts and incompatible goals.

It is in the drive toward sameness, however, that both sides misconceive both the reality of plural societies and the way in which we might plausibly think of unity and difference as compatible. By setting up the question of how to respond to the fact of plurality as something that can only be resolved through the establishment of a constructed and imposed uniformity at a cultural, prepolitical level, both the unity and difference arguments misconstrue the challenge faced by plural societies. The need for sameness, however, only holds if we conceive of both unity and difference as abstracted static concepts, independent of their actualization in political practices and institutions, which necessarily require relationality and interaction. If we can move beyond this impulse toward and insistence upon resolution through sameness then we can begin to move toward an alternative way of thinking about religious diversity in political community. Rawls and Young both seem to be moving us in this direction, at least insofar as Rawls understands unity as the result of political agreement and Young conceives of difference in terms of its relation to others. This relational political approach to unity and diversity will be considered more fully in the next chapter.

Conclusion

This chapter has sought to demonstrate that the incompatibility of unity and difference within contemporary theory is grounded in a misconception by both sides of how we should understand each of the concepts. The unity arguments prioritize unity and social cohesion and seek to ensure public sameness through either a shared identity or acceptance of shared political values. The difference arguments seek to ensure recognition through group rights or cultural preservation and rely upon internal

homogeneity. By conceiving of both unity and difference as abstract concepts in isolation from their political implementation, the fact of plurality is approached as something that can only be responded to through the establishment of sameness, resulting in their mutual incompatibility.

This incompatibility, however, is not logically necessary. By moving away from the drive toward homogeneity and by moving toward a more relational understanding of unity and difference within the practice of political life, it will be possible in the next chapter to overcome the incompatibility of these concepts. This alternate theoretical understanding will then provide the framework in which more practical questions of how accommodation practices and policies of integration ought to be considered.

II. Breaking the Impasse

The tension between unity and difference within contemporary theory outlined in the previous chapter points to the insufficiency of many of the existing approaches to diversity in the contemporary western democratic political reality. The alternative understanding of unity and difference that I want to defend in this chapter makes the two concepts compatible through the establishment of a diverse and inclusive communicative public sphere. This model will seek to ensure the maintenance of a social bond that can support shared reason giving in the context of a plural and heterogeneous space of democratic discussion.

In order to be able to ensure and protect the expression and recognition of particularity in the public space of democratic discussion while at the same time being able to ensure the sense of belonging and solidarity among individuals that is necessary to the possibility of democratic communication and dialogue, we must rethink the conceptions of unity and the recognition of difference themselves. In this chapter, therefore, I will argue for an alternate conception of both unity and difference in order to move beyond the either/or dichotomy that can exist between the two concepts. I will present a model of unity that is compatible with difference whereby unity, conceived of as a sense of shared purpose and engagement in a common political project is grounded in a relational understanding of difference that allows for dialogue and engagement without negating the importance of situated perspectives and group attachments. By grounding the compatibility of unity and difference in the fact of political engagement from diverse perspectives in a way that allows for meaningful engagement with the other, it will be possible to begin to rethink the way in which political institutions can best be

structured in order to respond to and accommodate diverse religious beliefs and identities in a just capacity.

Rethinking unity

The difficulty in ensuring both unity and difference within the existing framework of contemporary theories of diversity can in large part be attributed to the way in which unity and difference are both conceived and understood. In order to move beyond the incompatibility of unity and difference, therefore, we must rethink what each of these concepts means, how they can be philosophically defended and what they require of people in political communities.

The conception of unity through inclusive democratic cooperation and communication that I want to defend must create a sense of togetherness and solidarity without relying or insisting upon homogeneity and sameness. Unity is therefore valuable and defensible only insofar as it is the product of participation, established and maintained through the active involvement of citizens. In this way, the value of unity is grounded in the importance of engagement in the political community in which people live in order that they can be autonomously in control of the political decisions that affect their lives.

In order for this to be possible, decisions must be made together, which ultimately requires a certain degree of solidarity with those with whom these deliberations and decisions are made. While the Rousseauian articulation of this requirement is troublingly extreme in its requirement of absolute public homogeneity and the negation of the

possibility of private difference, the broad framework according to which this requirement is established remains compelling – that is, there is no way that we can achieve autonomous control over our own lives in community if we cannot actually participate in the deliberations and decisions because of a belief that those with whom we must negotiate are enemies. Thus, there is something valuable in being involved in a common deliberative project with others insofar as this involvement makes possible the autonomous control over our own lives. In order for this to be possible we must cultivate the sense of belonging and togetherness through the shared project of directing our lives in community. This sense of belonging, however, must be compatible with the expression of diverse and sometimes conflicting beliefs, identities and views in the public sphere.

The concept of social trust provides a helpful background against which we can think about how unity as a sense of togetherness and shared engagement in a common political project might be ensured without the more troubling consequences of other conceptions of unity. Daniel Weinstock presents the concept of social trust as an asymmetrical moral relation that is the prerequisite for more substantive things like cooperation but that does not itself require a shared identity, set of values or conception of the good. It is asymmetrical insofar as “an individual is making herself vulnerable to another by entrusting some aspect of her good to another person” and moral insofar as “it is related to one’s beliefs or attitudes concerning another person’s motivations toward one.”49 On this view, as a relation among citizens, trust requires that individuals not be ill disposed to one another either as individuals or as bearers of a particular group identity or role. Nonetheless, social trust is the foundation or minimal condition upon which “more

49 Daniel Weinstock, “Building Trust in Divided Societies,” The Journal of Political Philosophy, 7 (1999): 293.

morally exigent and rewarding relation[s] can be built.”50 Moreover, “it is in the relations held together only by trust […] that we bear witness to the respect that is due to the radically other.”51 On this view, the tendency toward distrust can be offset by effective institutional arrangements that seek to maintain and promote trust among citizens.

While social trust is itself valuable, cooperation, grounded in trust, is necessary in order to secure unity meaningfully and in a way that is compatible with the public expression of difference and participation from situated perspectives. Thus while trust is invariably an important step toward ensuring political unity, it alone is not sufficient since it fails to ensure the active involvement of citizens with one another in political community. It forms the background against which this involvement and participation can occur, but alone does not ensure that the participation that creates a more meaningful unity can be established.

The logic of communicative and deliberative democratic theory demonstrates the importance of cooperation and inclusive participation as something that can be made compatible with diversity. On this view, unity can be understood as being created by the act of political engagement and deliberation itself. It is the product of the creative exercise of political life. Following from the political theory of Jürgen Habermas, the deliberative democratic ideal seeks to establish political agreement through dialogue and reason giving against a background of established ethical norms. Within this model, interests are balanced and compromises are reached according to a framework that can be recognized as acceptable by all participants. Habermas notes that “negotiations of this sort certainly presuppose a readiness to cooperate, that is, a willingness to abide by the

50 Weinstock, “Building Trust in Divided Societies,” 294. 51 Weinstock, “Building Trust in Divided Societies,” 307.

rules and to arrive at results that are acceptable to all parties, though for different reasons.”52 Thus, while the deliberative model can establish a sense of political togetherness through engagement and participation, it nonetheless requires that individuals be disposed to engage with one another, at the very least on a political level.

This requirement that individuals be willing to engage with one another could be understood to mean that some form or sameness or homogeneity is required as a prerequisite for the unity created by deliberative democratic cooperation. I want to resist this drive toward homogeneity as the foundation of unity through cooperation and suggest instead that a sense of solidarity among diverse citizens can be maintained on the basis of a shared acknowledgement of the value of inclusive political participation itself.

Iris Young suggests that political cooperation does not require shared identity or a commitment to a shared understanding of the common good. Rather, she argues, all that political cooperation requires is

first that people whose lives and actions affect one another in a web of institutions, interactions, and unintended consequences acknowledge that they are together in such space of mutual effect. […] The unity required by political cooperation also entails that the people who are together in this way are committed to trying to work out their conflicts and to solve the problems generated by their collective action through means of peaceful and rulebound decisionmaking. Political cooperation requires, finally, that those who are together in this way understand themselves as members of a single polity.53

I contend that this disposition, however, must invariably rely on some form of horizontal affective relationship among citizens. Young, however, suggests that the mere fact of

52 Jürgen Habermas, “Three Normative Models of Democracy,” in The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory, ed. Ciaran Cronin and Pablo de Greiff (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1998), 245. 53 Young, “Inclusion and Democracy, 110.

“differentiated forms of inclusion” can ensure that people will engage with each other in this way.54 Jocelyn Maclure similarly suggests that “admitting a wider variety of perspectives, claims and forms of speech into the realm of public reason” might in itself stave off instability and disunity.55 I accept this position insofar as it insists that the absence of such a form of inclusion would indeed prevent the possibility of cooperation.

However, inclusiveness alone it is not sufficient to ensure political cooperation itself.

David Miller attempts to present a more robust background against which the willingness to engage in a deliberative politics can be ensured. He claims that a deliberative kind of politics can only occur within the context of shared national identity.56 He is right that some form of background unity or sense of shared purpose is necessary for such a model to work – indeed, there must be some form of horizontal social affinity among citizens in order for them to feel compelled to participate in such a process. However, Miller’s insistence that this unity be grounded in a shared national identity – at least national identity as it tends generally to be conceived, grounded in shared history and culture and reliant upon popular mythology about the existence of the nation itself – makes his argument subject to the same concerns about homogenization and assimilation within a nationalist conception of unity articulated in the first chapter.

If, however, the social bond that makes deliberation possible can be conceived of in a different capacity, as the product of the shared creative process of political life itself, as I want to suggest, developed by citizens rather than being forged or created and imposed from without, a modified version of Miller’s prerequisite might not be quite so

54 Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 111. 55 Maclure, 8. 56 David Miller, “Group Identities, National Identities and Democratic Politics,” in Citizenship and National Identity (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2000), 78.

problematic. On this view, the shared identity we might seek to promote is the identity of a participant in a shared political project, wholly compatible with the other elements of an individual’s sense of self. As Miller argues, the good of political engagement need not conflict with the individual’s private or particular good; instead, “it should be part of each person’s good to be engaged at some level in political debate, so that the laws and policies of the state do not appear to him or her simply as alien impositions but as the outcome of a reasonable agreement to which he or she has been a party.”57 It is here that we might consider the notion of social trust as providing the backdrop against which this inclusive communicative political structure might be ensured. In this way, we must conceive of our participation in democratic life with diverse individuals under a particular shared set of political institutions as having some kind of moral relevance that compels solidarity among citizens insofar as these institutions enable us not only to participate in making the political choices and decisions that govern our lives, but also make possible the creation of a social unity through the fact of participation itself. On this point, I follow

Anna Stilz in her suggestion that solidarity can be formed on the basis of identification with particular political institutions and the value of democratic discussion within a particular context.58

Taking this modification into consideration then, Miller’s defence of the capacity of a unified deliberative republican model of citizenship to respond to the demands of plurality and difference can provide important insight into how diverse viewpoints might be included in a unified political space. He rightly denies the criticism that alleges that

57 Miller, “Citizenship and Pluralism,” 58. 58 See Anna Stilz, Liberal Loyalty: Freedom, Obligation and the State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), Chapters 6 and 7.

such a conception of citizenship requires public impartiality and the denial of particularity in one’s role as citizen, arguing that “all that is necessary in order to embark on political dialogue is a willingness to find reasons that can persuade those who initially disagree with us.”59 There is thus no a priori interdiction against presenting in public dialogue interests, views, and beliefs that are grounded in one’s particular religious or cultural beliefs or identity. However, he does acknowledge that for the sake of convincing others it may sometimes be necessary that individuals arguing from their particular situated perspectives to be “willing to moderate its demands in search of agreement, and to appeal to reasons which are generally accepted in the political community.”60 Thus despite this requirement of a weak impartiality that “emerges spontaneously from the search for agreement itself,”61 this model is able to create unity and inclusion by drawing into political debate individuals and groups with diverse views and beliefs. Moreover, it achieves this without insisting that “participants […] subscribe to any fixed principles other than those implicit in political dialogue itself – a willingness to argue and to listen to reasons given by others, abstention from violence and coercion and so forth.”62 In this way, by bringing diverse individuals into dialogue and debate with one another from their own perspectives and on their own terms over the decisions made about their lives together, the deliberative understanding of politics can ensure unity from diverse viewpoints on the basis of political cooperation.

This understanding of a deliberative form of political life is convincing in its capacity to create an inclusive and thus unified participatory public sphere in the face of

59 Miller, “Citizenship and Pluralism,” 55. 60 Miller, “Citizenship and Pluralism,” 5556. 61 Miller, “Citizenship and Pluralism,” 56. 62 Miller, “Citizenship and Pluralism,” 60.

plurality, but is nonetheless problematic in some respects. Miller’s conception of a deliberative republican public sphere assumes that the aim of dialogue and deliberation is consensus and agreement about political decisions, grounded in a shared conception of the common good of the political community.63 This point, however, needs to be moderated since it assumes that people can in some way be understood as having shared ends. In diverse societies, however, it is very much possible that, contrary to the

Rousseauian ideal of the general will, citizens may not have a shared conception of what it is that the society as a whole ought to be aiming towards. Despite this, it is still possible for diverse individuals to recognize the value and importance of political participation itself. The fact of expressing one’s views and having them taken into consideration, participating in the deliberative process and being heard, negotiated and compromised with, can be understood as valuable in itself. In this way, it is not necessary for citizens in a plural society to share a conception of the common good in order to be able to participate in the shared activity of political life and to deliberate about political decisions that can be accepted as legitimate.

Related to this is the implicit assumption in Miller’s view that agreement or consensus is a possible outcome of political decisionmaking. Again, given the depth of the diversity of views and beliefs and conceptions of the good in plural societies, consensus may simply not be a realistic outcome of deliberation in some cases. While agreement may well be held up as the guiding aim or regulative principle of political deliberation, it must nonetheless be acknowledged that what will often result from this process of negotiation is moral compromise, arrived at through give and take from all

63 Miller, “Citizenship and Pluralism,” 53, 5556.

sides and the transformation of beliefs and interests in the process of deliberation. James

Bohman suggests that in cases of deep disagreement, “a compromise is formed through each party modifying their interpretation of the common framework, and in doing so, often modify that framework itself.”64 By approaching public deliberation in this way, it becomes possible for conflicting individuals through compromise to “recognize the other’s moral values and standards as part of [the modified framework].”65 In this way, we might consider the impossibility of consensus and the need for compromise through tradeoffs and concessions as valuable insofar as this contributes to maintaining the dynamism of a deliberative system that is indicative of an ongoing democratic process. It is in the open space of contestation, rather than through the establishment of conclusive consensus, that the identity of the people in a democratic politics can continually reconstitute itself.66

At this point it would be relevant to consider the compatibility of the public expression of diverse perspectives according to the understanding of difference articulated above within an inclusive democratic space of communication as I have argued for, relative to Rawls’s concept of public reason. The idea of public reason seeks to make compatible the plurality of comprehensive religious, moral and philosophical doctrines within a political community structured according to a politically liberal conception of justice by setting the terms according to which public democratic discussion can occur. Understood as “the reason of equal citizens who, as a collective body, exercise final political and coercive power over one another in enacting laws and in

64 Bohman, 269. 65 Bohman, 269. 66 Chantal Mouffe, “Carl Schmitt and the Paradox of Liberal Democracy,” in The Challenge of Carl Schmitt, ed. Chantal Mouffe (London: Verso, 1999), 5051.

amending the constitution,”67 public reason insists that citizens engage in public discourse only according to reasons that can be accepted and understood by other reasonable citizens, who may subscribe to different comprehensive doctrines. The limitations of public reason, therefore, set the terms of democratic discussion about constitutional essentials, since public reason requires that citizens

conduct their fundamental discussions within the framework of what each regards as a political conception of justice based on values that the others can reasonably be expected to endorse and each is, in good faith, prepared to defend that conception so understood.68

In this way, citizens who would otherwise not be able to “reach agreement or even approach mutual understanding on the basis of irreconcilable comprehensive doctrines”69 can come to political agreement by leaving their comprehensive doctrines out of political discussion.

I certainly accept key elements of Rawls’s position, such as the importance of the background of basic rights and liberties against which democratic discussion must occur and a constitution that places limits on permissible action as well as the insistence upon the importance of a wholehearted commitment to the value of democratic life itself. It also has clear advantages when it comes to attempting to maintain the neutrality and impartiality of official state institutions toward individuals holding diverse comprehensive doctrines or conceptions of the good within a framework that posits the

67 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 214. 68 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 226. 69 John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” in The Law of Peoples (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), 132.

value of cooperation, civility, tolerance an reasonableness.70 Nonetheless, the position I want to defend diverges from that of Rawls in several important ways.

First, Rawls understands the public political sphere and the limits of public reason to extend only as far as those in positions of official state power, such as judges, candidates for public office and government officials.71 While he suggests that the

“background culture” of civil society is wholly compatible with “full and open discussion” not limited by the restrictions of public reason, the connection between the more open discourse of this background culture and the official public sphere is not clearly articulated. While it certainly would be problematic if the limits of public reason applied to the background culture, these limits in the public political realm help to contribute to the possibility of state neutrality relative to different conceptions of the good. We need nonetheless to allow the open discourse that occurs within the background culture to be reflected in the public political sphere. In this way, Rawls’s understanding of the public is too narrow. Following Seyla Benhabib, I want to suggest that the public sphere be understood to encompass two interdependent elements: the official public sphere of “representative institutions, which includes the legislature, executive, and public bureaucracies, the judiciary, and political parties” and the unofficial public sphere, which includes social movements, “civil, cultural, religious, artistic and political associations.”72

By understanding the so called background culture not solely as background but as an important part of public existence, the need to link the two spheres becomes more

70 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 191195. 71 Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” 133. 72 Seyla Benhabib, The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 21.

readily apparent, such that the small scale, facetoface interactions of the unofficial public sphere of civic life in which people work out their disagreements and conflicts together can apply its values and lessons to the larger legal and institutional scale.73

According to this understanding, the “political activities and struggles of social movements, associations, and groups in civil society” are given greater weight and it is within this unofficial public sphere that multicultural struggles can be negotiated.74

Second, following James Bohman, I want to defend a more inclusive, dynamic and plural understanding of public reason. Bohman’s articulation of the need for a more dynamic understanding of public reason points to the problem with Rawls’s attempt to define what the legitimate terms of deliberation ought to be prior to the act of democratic deliberation itself. According to the ideal of democratic deliberation, however, “there is no way in advance of deliberation to tell which reasons are nonpublic.”75 A more dynamic understanding of public reason will allow for the ongoing revision of “a common framework of political justification”76 that can determine the legitimacy of reasons given in public through the act of deliberation itself. In this way, political institutions can “become more dynamic and open to the challenges and complaints of minority groups as they reflexively learn and change their own normative foundations.”77

In this way, the constitution or framework of justification that limits action need not be conceived as static, but can exist more as a responsive, ongoing process.

73 Benhabib, 121. 74 Benhabib, 106. 75 Bohman, 265. 76 Bohman, 256. 77 Bohman, 266.

The notion of a more plural public reason responds to Rawls’s insistence that there is “but one public reason,”78 which problematically requires that “agents come to agree upon some decision for the same publicly accessible reasons” and presents itself as

“a single norm of public deliberation.”79 A more plural understanding of public reason would allow for the ability of individuals to arrive at agreement for different reasons and from different points of view through moral compromise and continued cooperation in public deliberation. On this dynamic and plural understanding of public reason, “what is reasonable is not the shared content of political values but the mutual recognition of the deliberative liberties of others, the requirements of dialogue and the openness of one’s own beliefs to revision.”80 In this way, it becomes possible for individuals with conflicting views to reach agreement or at least moral compromise, since convergence of reasons is not required since “the range of acceptable reasons and interpretations” is expanded.81 These modifications to Rawls’s position do not diminish the ability of the officials and institutions of the public political realm to remain neutral toward diverse beliefs or to ensure the unity of the democratic space, but provide an improvement insofar as they give greater acknowledgement of the depth of the potential conflict among diverse moral, religious and philosophical views.

Thus, we can conceive of unity not as something that must come at the expense of the public expression of diverse cultural and religious beliefs and identity, but rather as something wholly compatible and on equal footing therewith. I want to emphasize that the deliberative politics that I want to defend must not be conceived of as requiring a

78 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 220. 79 Bohman, 262. 80 Bohman, 264. 81 Bohman, 266.

transcendence of difference and particularity in the public realm, but rather makes space for the participation of diverse individuals from their particular situated perspectives. All that this understanding of unity requires of diverse individuals is a willingness to participate and engage with others, grounded in an appreciation of the value of participation itself. In this way, it avoids the tendency toward an externally imposed homogeneity, and is instead grounded in a sense of differentiated togetherness. While it may not create a social unity that is as insistent as that of a more thoroughgoing republican or nationalist sense of shared identity or purpose, it nonetheless perpetuates and maintains the sense of togetherness and belonging in political community.

Rethinking difference

We must now consider the nature of cultural and religious difference and the role thereof in determining the compatibility of unity and the expression of difference in a democratic context. Within the theories examined in the first chapter that seek to recognize difference, there is a tendency to conceive of group identities as fixed, unmoving and in need of preservation. This tendency is unhelpful and counterproductive because it does not allow for the development and evolution of identity in relation and through interaction with others. Instead, it sets up the preservation of group identities as an ideal in itself. In doing so, it stagnates identity while isolating different groups from one another, since the recognition of particularity is premised on differentiation and distinction from the other. I will therefore defend an alternate conception of difference according to which it will be possible to acknowledge difference in a meaningful way without bringing about the stagnation of identity. Moreover, this understanding of

difference will make possible the public expression of diverse perspectives and beliefs by way of inclusion in democratic discussion without leading to the division or fragmentation of the political community.

To do this, it will be necessary to adopt a more fluid, relational understanding of identity and difference. In addition to understanding identity and difference as more fluid, it is also necessary – and perhaps more accurate – to conceive of it as an ongoing process, developed in relation with others. To a certain extent, the importance of dialogue and relationality in the development of identity is already made evident in Taylor’s articulation of the concept of recognition. He lays the groundwork for the conception of recognition as a struggle occurring in dialogue with significant others.82 However, by positing recognition as a static endpoint and emphasizing the importance of achieving recognition rather than the process of working toward it, the scope of the actual process of struggle within Taylor’s account is limited and finite since the struggle presumably ceases once recognition has been secured rather than occurring on an ongoing basis. In this way, “the language of recognition does not seem to grasp the elusiveness and internal heterogeneity of contemporary identities.”83

I follow Iris Young in her defence of a relational understanding of difference “that treats difference as variation and specificity rather than as exclusive opposition.”84 This relational conception of difference recognizes that “a social group exists and is defined as a specific group only in social and interactive relation to others. Social group identities

82 Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” 32. 83 Maclure, 3. 84 Iris Marion Young, “Together in Difference,” in The Rights of Minority Cultures, ed. Will Kymlicka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 165.

emerge from the encounter and interaction among people.”85 As such, the identity of social groups is not fixed and determinate, but rather is open to change, modification and development through experience and interaction with others. In this way, difference is not wholly separate from or held in distinction against all other groups, but rather exists in complex relations of both similarity and dissimilarity. As a result, the fact of internal group solidarity need not entail isolation from others since the boundaries of group identity are continually shifting. In this way, diverse individuals can participate in political interaction from their particular situated perspective without that identification determining all their choices and political opinions.

Seyla Benhabib also articulates the importance of a nonessentialized understanding of group difference, particularly cultural difference. While it is important that people be able to participate in political life from situated perspectives and be permitted to express publicly their particular views, beliefs, and opinions, this perspective must not be approached or understood as fixed or conclusively determined. “The categories of self and otheridentification in public life,” she suggests, “should be as complex and as richly textured as social reality itself.”86 In the essentialist conception of cultural group identity, Benhabib suggests, “the constitution of collective identities is

[…] subject to bureaucratic and administrative control, direction, and manipulation” in such a way that that which is publicly recognized is not necessarily coextensive with one’s own experienced identity or sense of self.87 The alternative understanding of cultural difference that she proposes conceives of “a public life in which narratives of

85 Young, “Together in Difference,” 161. 86 Benhabib, 75. 87 Benhabib, 80.

selfidentification would be more determinant of one’s status in public life than would designators and indices imposed upon one by others.”88

As Young puts it, an essentialist understanding of identity “freezes the experienced fluidity of social relations by setting up rigid insideoutside distinctions among groups” causing conflict and fragmentation.89 Instead, we must acknowledge that social groups are complex and crosscutting insofar as “the group ‘men’ is differentiated by class, race, religion, age and so on; the group ‘Muslim’ differentiated by gender, nationality, and so on.”90 It must not be taken from this, however, that by virtue of the absence of acrosstheboard similarity among individuals of a particular cultural or religious group that an individual’s religious or cultural identity is not meaningful or relevant. Benhabib argues that “we should view human cultures as constant creations, recreations and negotiations of imaginary boundaries between ‘we’ and the ‘other(s).’”91

Just because cultures are fluid and the boundaries within and among them are not fixed does not mean that culture doesn’t exist in a meaningful way; on the contrary, “cultural differences run deep and are very real”92 and must be given public expression.

By conceiving of group difference in a more fluid, relational and non essentialized way, it becomes possible to move beyond the tendency toward internal group homogeneity, and subsequent isolation and social fragmentation from which the conceptions of group difference articulated in the first chapter suffer. By conceiving of the boundaries around and among social or cultural groups as fluid and in an ongoing

88 Benhabib, 80. 89 Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 88. 90 Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 88. 91 Benhabib, 8. 92 Benhabib, 7.

process of being remade, the internal differences within groups and the relations among groups can occur in a less exclusive and oppositional capacity since those with whom we share an affinity is continually changing. As a result, difference can still be recognized, but this recognition need not result in social fragmentation and conflict, since there are no fixed boundaries around or distinctions between groups that can become entrenched and divisive.

Putting the Ideas Together

Thus far it has been established that unity can be achieved without requiring homogeneity and that difference need not require separateness. Unity is conceived as the product of inclusive participation in democratic discussion and difference is understood as fluid and relational rather than fixed and oppositional. Moving forward from this, it follows that given the nature of the unity that ought to be promoted and the way in which difference ought to be understood, the two concepts need not conflict with one another.

This understanding of difference and unity ought to be accepted not simply because it allows for the compatibility of these two ideals, but rather because these conceptions are more realistic and point to something inherently valuable. By conceiving of them in this way, they are not only made fundamentally compatible, but in fact thrive off of and reinforce one another.

In the case of unity, conceiving of it as the product of political engagement under a shared set of institutions allows for it to exist in a way that is morally defensible, that is to say, compatible with principles of autonomy, equality and respect. Unity that is based on the inclusive participation of individuals without requiring, or worse imposing

sameness or uniformity, exists such that it need not be in conflict with an individual’s particular moral capacities and beliefs. Moreover, it avoids the internal psychological conflict created by the requirement that the individual abandon or at least put aside temporarily her comprehensive beliefs in her role as citizen, because it enables citizens to participate from their situated perspectives and thus include in their identity as citizens their particular views and beliefs. This conception is nonetheless capable of ensuring a meaningful unity among diverse individuals since it is built upon engagement and inclusion.

In the case of difference, conceiving of it as fluid and relational rather than as fixed and oppositional reflects more accurately the way in which identities are socially constituted through relation and interaction with others. Not only is this conception more reflective of the character of identity, it also neutralizes potential conflicts and tensions among diverse individuals by requiring them to understand themselves in terms of their relation to others. In doing this it becomes clear that the recognition of difference need not require the isolation and stagnation of diverse groups through attempts at cultural preservation, since preservation for its own sake does not allow for the relationality and interaction of identities and perspectives. In this way, this understanding of difference is such that social fragmentation and conflict can be avoided while still acknowledging particularity.

In both cases, the value of unity or difference lies in the means through which it is maintained and the political results made possible thereby. Unity is not valuable in and of itself, but rather is valuable insofar as it enables citizens to be part of a decisionmaking body that allows them to direct their own lives and to interact with diverse others through

engagement in political institutions. Similarly, difference does not warrant preservation for its own sake, but must be acknowledged and protected for the sake of ensuring the possibility of participation from a situated perspective and according to one’s own self understanding.

Having shown the advantages of these understandings of unity and difference, it will now be possible to demonstrate how the two can be made compatible. On this understanding of the compatibility of unity and difference, participation in political life is centrally important – it is both the source of unity and the precondition for it. It is the precondition for unity insofar as the social bond that is necessary to democratic discussion and cooperation is maintained on the basis of the shared identity and self understanding of citizens as participants in a particular political project – an identity that is wholly compatible with other elements of one’s identity and difference. The fact of cooperation and dialogue in an inclusive democratic public space, however, is precisely that which creates the unity within political institutions itself, which in turn strengthens the possibility of thinking of oneself as a participant. In this way, these two elements of unity are mutually dependent and mutually reinforcing.

It follows from the centrality of participation within this understanding, that the articulation of the two concepts is such that rather than conflicting, they in fact feed off of and strengthen each other. That which is required by unity within this view (that is, an understanding of self as an engaged and participating member in a political community) exists on an equal footing with the other aspects of an individual’s identity. Given that difference and identity are understood as complex, fluid and overlapping, a person’s political identity constitutes one part of the complex totality of her selfunderstanding,

without having to take priority over other elements thereof. Moreover, the diverse and dynamic public sphere that provides the background against which the compatibility of unity and difference is made possible ensures unity through the inclusion of diverse individuals but also changes in response to the contributions, inputs and perspectives of differently situated individuals. The relational character of difference is thus expressed both within the individual and at the level of the political community. In this way, the possibility of ensuring unity is ultimately grounded in the inclusion, participation and engagement with difference. Moreover, their compatibility is fundamentally grounded in democratic dialogue, interaction and exchange.

By making unity and diversity compatible within a diverse and inclusive public sphere, not only does this model overcome the incompatibility of the two concepts, but it also makes the possibility of ensuring unity dependent upon the expression and inclusion of difference. In this way, unity and difference are not only compatible, but are in fact combined at their core.

When considering the compatibility of the unified cooperative public space with the inclusion of diverse groups whose difference is understood as fluid and relational, the former must be considered more closely. While Miller contends that the deliberative model can succeed at including different perspectives without the need for any form of active protection of particularity, this is not the case. He suggests instead that simply by virtue of there not existing any formal barriers to the participation and public expression of diverse beliefs and interests, these views will be heard and considered in the deliberative process. He rejects the view of difference theorists, which argues that that a mere politics of inclusion without the added protection of disadvantaged social groups

could never succeed on its own. A public sphere that insists on impartiality “by asking that […] group characteristics should be treated as irrelevant for political purposes” discriminates against minority cultural, ethnic, religious or gender groups by virtue of the fact that “the public realm was biased against them because it embodied norms with which it was harder for these groups to comply.”93 Miller’s argument for a republican citizenship does not require that anything actively be done to ensure that individuals can participate as citizens from the perspective of their particular religious or cultural identity. Rather, he takes for granted that this will happen on its own and that diverse perspectives will be included and accommodated within a republican deliberative public space without having to make any kind of special provision.

This assessment, however, is inaccurate. While I agree with Miller that an inclusive communicative public space that does not present barriers against participation and the expression of diverse views and beliefs is important, there is a need to protect the opportunity for people to participate from their situated perspectives and to make sure that particularity is acknowledged and protected if this unity is to be conceived as being genuinely compatible with the recognition of difference. I therefore follow Young in her insistence that the heterogeneity of the public space must be ensured. In such a space

social groups of the society have a differentiated place in that public, with mutual recognition of the specificity of the groups in the public. Political processes of discussion and decisionmaking provide for the specific representation of those groups in the society who are oppressed or disadvantaged, because a more universal system of representation is unlikely to include them in a manner or numbers sufficient to grant their perspective political influence.94

93 Miller, “Group Identities, National Identities and Democratic Politics,” 68. 94 Young, “Together in Difference,” 165.

In this way, policies and institutions must be made attentive to the needs of diverse groups rather than being blind to these differences in a way that would disadvantage those with less political power. Without specific attention to the needs of diverse groups, their claims of justice will be overwhelmed and ignored in political dialogue.

Similarly, Young argues that we need “a process of public discussion and decisionmaking which includes and affirms the particular social group positions relevant to issues.”95 By constructing a public space that protects and affirms particular perspectives, public dialogue can “draw on the situated knowledge of the people located in different group positions as resources for enlarging the understanding of everyone and moving them beyond their own parochial interests.”96 In this way, the use of difference and situated perspectives in the public sphere need not be understood as the expression of aggressive or antagonistic selfinterest, but rather must be seen as articulating claims of justice and demonstrating a commitment to political engagement, which in fact enriches the polity as a whole.

The way in which a heterogeneous public space can be maintained in conjunction with and on the basis of a more fluid conception of difference, however, presents a serious challenge. The fluid, nonessentialized, and relational understanding of group difference is necessary to the possibility of preventing the stagnation of identity and imposition of internal homogeneity that leads to social fragmentation. If we accept such an understanding of difference, however, it becomes difficult to secure the protection of group difference that is necessary to ensure the political presence and representation of these group identities themselves, since it is unclear what precisely it is that will be the

95 Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 109. 96 Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 109.

object of protection. As Miller points out, there is an “incoherence involved in defending identity politics in tandem with the claim that group identities are not pregiven and fixed but continually remade according to the affinities felt by different individuals.”97 This is because in order to secure political recognition, we “must designate certain groups for political recognition, fix their membership and determine what rights they are going to enjoy.”98 Thus it would seem that the very thing that saves us from a socially fragmenting view of diversity (that is, a more fluid conception of difference), is in fact incompatible with the political recognition of particularity itself.

Within the relational understanding of difference, however, the aim of the political recognition of difference is not so much the recognition of cultural, religious or other group identities as such and for their own sake as it is the protection of minority voices that would otherwise not be heard in the public sphere. To the extent that this relies upon the designation and singling out of particular groups warranting special protections, my sense is that this can occur on the basis of solidarities formed in response to particular issues or social practices. In this way, attentiveness to group particularities is made possible but avoids the problem of the impossibility of nailing down the boundaries of a group, since these solidarities can be understood as determinate but wholly contingent and temporary. In response to the incoherence pointed to by Miller, therefore, the notion of continually reforming solidarities is particularly useful and relevant. Rather than conceiving of preestablished and fixed groups, divided on the basis of religious, cultural or ethnic identity to which political recognition can be given in a final and conclusive capacity, we can and must consider that in public life, individuals will form

97 Miller, “Group Identities, National Identities and Democratic Politics,” 73. 98 Miller, “Group Identities, National Identities and Democratic Politics,” 73.

relations of solidarity on certain issues and will dissolve these relations in other contexts.

These relations will inevitably be grounded in the cultural, moral or religious beliefs of individuals but are not reducible to those affiliations and identifications. In order to ensure that this kind of continuous dissolution and reconstruction of solidarities does not to degenerate into a state of total chaos, it must occur against a background context of social trust and the disposition toward cooperation described above.

The conception of difference articulated here thus neutralizes the capacity for divisiveness while maintaining the ability of diverse individuals to publicly express their particularity and to participate in political life from a situated, but continually changing perspective. Thus, such a view enables the public expression of difference but requires – or perhaps enables – individuals to see their identity as more fluid and developed in relation with those around them in a way that is more reflective of the nature of identity and difference itself. By adopting a more inclusive, communicative democratic understanding of unity in conjunction with a fluid, relational understanding of difference, not only will members of diverse cultural and religious groups be enabled to participate from the perspective of their particular beliefs and thus in a sense achieve recognition of their particularity, the expression of their particularity itself contributes to the unity of the participatory whole. In this way, as Chantal Mouffe seems to suggest, unity is constituted by the “plurality of competing forces which attempt to define the common good, and aim at fixing the identity of the community.”99 It is through the process of contestation itself that “the political articulation of the demos” is possible.100

99 Mouffe, 51. 100 Mouffe, 51.

Conclusion

Unity is thus grounded in the acknowledgement and inclusion of difference against a backdrop of mutual trust and respect and is perpetuated by the shared participation in public life. By establishing a heterogeneous and inclusive public space as the condition upon which deliberation and communication about our shared political life can occur, unity through shared participation and engagement in a common project depends upon the inclusion and acknowledgement of difference. Within this view, therefore, it is possible to avoid both the tendency toward homogeneity and sameness and to insist upon the engagement of diverse individuals, thus ensuring that the contributions and perspectives of both the majority and of minority groups are heard and given weight.

By insisting on an inclusive public space and discourse that can ensure the participation of minority groups, their perspectives, interests, views and beliefs can heard and engaged with in a just and meaningful capacity.

In the next chapter, I will explore more fully the way in which the different theoretical approaches can be seen as manifesting themselves in policies of assimilation and accommodation as well as some of the potential shortcomings of this alternative. I will then attempt to envision what a policy based on the fusion of unity and difference proposed here might look like.

III. Testing and Applying the Solution

We can begin now to think what the implications of the foregoing discussion would be when considering religious plurality in political community, specifically on our understanding of the requirement of a secular public sphere as well as on our understanding of whether policies of integration ought to be structured according principles of assimilation or accommodation.

The way in which the response to religious diversity is approached theoretically influences the kinds of policies adopted in practical political life. In this chapter I want to show how the alternate conception of the relationship between unity and diversity proposed in the second chapter can open up new institutional and policy opportunities when it comes to thinking about the integration and accommodation of religious minorities. I will begin by seeking to demonstrate with reference to actual political cases, that policies that are focused on either unity or recognition of difference are on their own unable to successfully or sufficiently ensure a harmonious political structure in the face of religious diversity. After considering the implications and potential shortcomings of the alternative proposed in the second chapter for the way in which we consider religious diversity in political life, I will then go on to suggest that something like the model of interculturalism in Quebec might be seen as providing a starting point for thinking about an alternative, but nonetheless faces serious challenges and limitations and would require significant modification and further elaboration in order to provide a reasonable approximation of the alternative proposed in the second chapter.

Insufficiency of existing policies

In this section I will ground the discussion of the tension between unity and recognition from the first chapter in the particular case of the treatment of religious diversity in western democratic states. The policies adopted in France and in the

Netherlands provide examples of assimilative and accommodating responses to religious and cultural diversity that correspond to the theoretical positions of unity and difference outlined in the first chapter. Both of these country’s policies is of course complex and grounded in its own set of historical circumstances and peculiarities that influence and shape the nature of the policies adopted beyond the theoretical distinctions and philosophical explanations I have established above. My aim, therefore, in presenting these examples here is to point to affinities between policy and theory, and to give traction to my theoretical claims. Through this examination, I hope that it will become clear that in their practical implementation, both the unity and the difference approaches are on their own fraught with problems and an alternative third way is needed.

French laïcité and assimilation

In France, the response to cultural diversity is very much grounded in

Rousseauian republican thought and is primarily concerned with the unity of the French state. The French model of citizenship defends a principle of undifferentiated equality among citizens who are all treated equally under the law. As Genevieve Koubi notes,

“France does not admit the existence of cultural minorities.” 101 Despite the presence of individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds within the French state, all individuals are

101 Genevieve Koubi, “The Management of Cultural Diversity in France,” in The Politics of Belonging: Nationalism, Liberalism, and Pluralism, ed. Alain Dieckhoff (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2004), 196.

accorded the same equal legal rights since the French nation is “characterized by a non differentiation model, rooted in the principle that French society is unified, and expressed in the Constitution as the oneness […] of the French people.”102 In this way, the French state is unified entity in which citizens with equal rights interact with one another as citizens, despite their cultural, religious or ethnic differences, which must remain in the private sphere and cannot be given public or political expression.

Central to maintaining the unity of the French state – and of particular relevance to the focus of this project – is the notion of secularism, or laïcité as it is termed in the

French context. French secularism insists upon “the separation of church and state through the state’s protection of individuals from the claims of religion.”103 This strong model of secularism insists upon “the strict privatization of religion, eliminating religion from any public forum.”104 French republicanism and secular universalism trace their roots to the French Revolution and to the long struggle between the French state and the

Catholic Church.105 Not only must the individual be protected from the influence of religious authority, but the public sphere, the realm of politics and public institutions must exist wholly independent of any signs or expression of religious belief or affiliation.

Given the fact of cultural and religious plurality in the French state, laïcité becomes “the main factor of social cohesion, the pillar of republican France.”106 In this way, social

102 Koubi, 196. 103 Joan Wallach Scott, The Politics of the Veil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 15. 104 José Casanova, “Immigration and the new religious pluralism: a European Union – United States comparison,” in Secularism, Religion and Multicultural Citizenship ed. Geoffrey Brahm Levey and Tariq Modood (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 141. 105John R. Bowen, Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 1120. 106 Riva Kastoryano, “French secularism and Islam: France’s headscarf affair,” in Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship ed. Tariq Modood, Anna Triandafyllidou, and Ricard ZapataBarrero (London: Routledge, 2006), 62.

unity is maintained by ensuring that citizens engage with one another in their capacity as citizens, universally equal before the law. Thus the model is informed by a well intentioned desire to prevent inequality, discrimination, and segregation, but faces serious challenges in practice.

The strong model of secularism, in which religious belief and identity are wholly divorced from the public realm, has over the past two decades created conflict at the sociological level over the relationship between the republican French state and its cultural and religious minorities, particularly Muslims. The importance of laïcité informs and underpins the numerous and impassioned debates in France over the wearing of the hijab in public institutions, particularly public schools. In 1989, and again in 1994 there was widespread public outcry in response to girls who wore headscarves to their public schools that led to public concern over the compatibility of Islam with “the secular principles of French society.”107 The issue was raised again in 2003 and President Chirac appointed a commission to reflect upon the way in which the principle of laïcité ought to be applied.108 The Stasi Commission recommended that pupils in public schools should be forbidden from wearing conspicuous signs of religious affiliation (including

“headscarves for Muslim girls, yarmulkes for Jewish boys, turbans for Sikh boys and large Christian crosses, whereas discreet symbols of faith […] would be permitted”).109

These recommendations were adopted into law in March 2004. While the law is directed

107 Kastoryano, 57. 108 Kastoryano, 5759. 109 Pascale Fournier and Gokce Yurdakul, “Unveiling Distribution: Muslim Women with Headscarves in France and Germany,” in Migration, Citizenship, Ethnos, ed. Y. Michal Bodemann and Gokce Yurdakul (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 168.

at all symbols of religious affiliation, the effects thereof have been felt most heavily by

Muslim girls.

Joan Wallach Scott contends that the headscarf law of 2004 is essentially a manifestation of the inability of France’s policy of secularism to accommodate cultural difference in a meaningful way. She argues that it is impossible to be considered fully

French without completely abandoning one’s cultural particularity in favour of the

French republican values of abstract liberty, secularity and equality. “French universalism insists that sameness is the basis for equality. To be sure,” Scott argues, “sameness is an abstraction, a philosophical notion meant to achieve the formal equality of individuals before the law.”110 She suggests that while universalism is intended to be of a more abstract nature, “historically [in France] it has been applied literally: assimilation means the eradication of difference.”111 Thus in order to receive the benefits of universal individual equality through the secular French state, it becomes unquestionably necessary not simply to “[swear] allegiance to the nation,” but to “[assimilate] to the norms of its culture.”112 In this way, Scott contends that the French model of secularism as manifested in the headscarf law, relies fundamentally on the assimilation of minorities into the

French republican identity in a way that is incompatible with the expression of cultural or religious identity and belief.

In this assimilative model, which prioritizes the overarching secular and universal authority of the state, the minorities must integrate into the majority culture in order to make possible the peaceful coexistence of different religious beliefs, identities, cultures

110 Scott, 12. 111 Scott, 12. 112 Scott, 13.

and ways of life within the political community. While French society is indeed redefining the meaning of laïcité in response to the headscarf, the concept nonetheless remains ambiguous and controversial.113

Accommodation and recognition in the Netherlands

The approach to diversity in the Netherlands is structured quite differently, since the particularity of diverse groups is granted institutional recognition. This model of accommodation and recognition is grounded in the Netherlands’ longstanding historical practice of toleration. Following the traditional model of pillarization, Dutch policy on cultural minorities seeks to accommodate its more recently arrived ethnic and religious groups according to the same model employed in response to its religious minorities (and eventually nonconfessional groups) since the Reformation. According to this model,

“each community or ‘pillar’ (e.g. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, but also socialists, liberals, humanists) may set up its own institutions, largely paid for by the state.”114 The principle underpinning the model of pillarization is that “within their own institutions communities are reasonably free to make their own arrangements, which enables them to preserve their specific identity and ‘emancipate’ their own members.”115 Within this model, however, the only contact among the different communities occurs at the elite level, whereby leaders of each of the “pillars meet regularly to discuss issues of common concern and to build coalitions that are needed for majority decision making.”116 While this may ensure

113 Kastoryano, 61. 114 Han Entzinger, “Changing the Rules While the Game is On: From Multiculturalism to Assimilation in the Netherlands,” in Migration, Citizenship, Ethnos, ed. Y. Michal Bodemann and Gokce Yurdakul (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 124. 115 Entzinger, 124. 116 Entzinger, 124.

the recognition and protection of minority cultural groups, its insistence upon institutional separateness lends itself to social fragmentation and conflict.

Dutch policies of multiculturalism, informed by the model of pillarization, are among the most accommodating in Europe: “in the Netherlands, as much as can be done on behalf of multiculturalism has been done.”117 Paul Sniderman and Louk Hagendoorn note that

minority groups [in the Netherlands] are provided instruction in their own language and culture; separate radio and television programs; government funding to import religious leaders; and subsidies for a wide range of social and religious organizations; ‘consultation prerogatives’ for community leaders; and publicly financed housing set aside for and specifically designed to meet Muslim requirements for strict separation of ‘public’ and ‘private’ spaces.118

In this way, religious and ethnic diversity is accommodated through the political recognition of “official minorities,” ensured through state protection of and support for minority cultural and religious practices.119 As Benhabib notes, this model of “cultural enclavism and cultural preservationism,” demonstrates striking similarities with the kind of recognition demanded by theorists such as Kymlicka.120 On this model, and in keeping with the broader logic of recognition theories, accommodations and recognition are granted in order to assist with the inclusion of diverse minority groups within society, but this is presumed to occur through the acknowledgement of particularity and the recognition of difference. Thus, inclusion on this model of multiculturalism requires and insists upon the separateness of cultures and identities.

117 Paul Sniderman and Louk Hagendoorn, When Ways of Life Collide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 15. 118 Sniderman and Hagendoorn, 15. 119 Benhabib, 77. 120 Benhabib, 77.

Popular reaction in the Netherlands to this strong recognitionbased model of multiculturalism, particularly as it has been applied to the case of Dutch Muslims, has been overwhelmingly negative. The policies of multiculturalism have bred resentment among the majority native Dutch population as well as within the minority groups themselves. Through their empirical study of Dutch attitudes toward minorities and of immigrant attitudes toward native Dutch, Sniderman and Hagendoorn conclude that in practice, by “insist[ing] on fundamental differences between majority and minority” rather than on “committing oneself to one’s new country and its institutions,” multicultural policies in the Netherlands have exacerbated tensions among groups, rather than encouraging a diverse and inclusive public sphere.121 Entzinger points to the same negative popular sentiment and the widespread belief that “a new ethnic underclass of people was emerging who did not feel attached to Dutch culture and society, and who were unwilling and unable to integrate.”122

This popular response managed to bring about “a dramatic turnaround” in Dutch policymaking.123 Immigrating and obtaining citizenship was made more difficult through the imposition of tighter restrictions, and stronger requirements were placed on newcomers through the establishment of mandatory integration courses and Dutch language and culture tests.124 Ultimately, most of the new measures implemented in reaction against the multicultural policy left “little or no room for a public recognition of the migrants’ cultural identity,” thus leading “to the paradox that migrants who initially

121 Sniderman and Hagendoorn, 42. 122 Entzinger, 128. 123 Entzinger, 129. 124 Entzinger, 131.

had been encouraged to preserve their own identity were now blamed for insufficiently identifying with Dutch culture.”125

The model of recognition and accommodation as it was realized in the

Netherlands focused on the preservation and institutionalization of minority cultures. In practice, this model failed to ensure the inclusion of cultural and religious minorities in public and civic life, but rather led to social fragmentation and isolation and the eventual popular backlash against a policy that was unique in the European context.

Insofar as the goal of either of these models is the political inclusion and integration of minorities into a unified larger society in a just capacity that respects particularity and difference, both seem not to have succeeded. In France, the practical response to diversity has been one of assimilation that insists upon public homogeneity.

Although, as Koubi points out, in this model cultural differences can be expressed in social life but not in the law according to the logic of a “dual discourse,” – within which there is a distinction between “the unitary structure of the state” and the “plurality of cultures, the multiplicity of identities […] in society”126 – the legal regulation of the public expression of difference through the headscarf law is in practice a clear violation of this principle. It impedes the inclusion of Muslim minorities by implicitly rejecting their practices, thus preventing the possibility of a sense of belonging both in democratic discussion and in society. The riots in the predominantly Muslim populated banlieues of

Paris and other major French cities in the autumn of 2005 also point to the failed integration of France’s cultural and religious minorities. In these neighbourhoods plagued by violence and unemployment rates above 20 percent, “Islam is becoming an element in

125 Entzinger, 132. 126 Koubi, 197.

people’s identity that affects the way they act and react.”127 In practice, therefore, the unified, secular model in France has not succeeded in ensuring social harmony since the requirement of assimilation required by the ideal of unity is alienating, isolating and fragmenting, despite its grounding in the goal of nondifferentiation and equality.

In the Netherlands, the social unrest and popular discontentment with the multicultural model of integration also seem to indicate a failure on the part of the accommodating response to diversity to ensure social harmony and the peaceful coexistence of difference. The policy of accommodation and multiculturalism ultimately had disastrous social effects, despite its good intentions: “What had been intended as a respectful acknowledgement of cultural difference ended in cultural ‘ghettoization’ in densely populated somewhat neglected, and relatively unsafe urban neighbourhoods.”128

By allowing for the institutional separateness of cultural minorities without making provisions for the democratic engagement and inclusion, Dutch multiculturalism resulted in the exclusion and conflict of cultural minorities.

Of course, the causes of the social conflict and disharmony in both the French and

Dutch cases are complex and grounded in a vast array of social, economic, demographic and political factors beyond the abstraction of the particular approaches to and policies of integration that are in place. Nonetheless, a policy framework and institutional structure informed by a theory that seeks to ensure inclusion and participation from diverse perspectives as the theory outlined in the previous chapter would entail, has the capacity to attend to some of these concerns.

127 Kastoryano, 6667. 128 Entzinger, 136.

Implications of alternative theory for religious diversity

Considered in light of these two extreme examples, the theory outlined in the second chapter can begin to provide the framework according to which the kinds of challenges outlined above might be rethought. Given that our concern is the maintenance of a diverse and inclusive democratic public sphere for the sake of ensuring the peaceful coexistence of diverse individuals in society rather than the maintenance of unity or the recognition of difference as such and for its own sake, then it would seem that “the real danger is not that immigrants retain their original identities unchanged, but that they develop alienated counteridentities, which are very much in the society they have joined

[…] but not of it.”129 The theory of a diverse participatory public sphere proposed in the second chapter can be understood as providing a defence against this kind of counter identity and the social fragmentation that occurs along those lines. It ensures the inclusion and consideration of diverse cultural, religious and moral perspectives in democratic discussion, thus allowing for the expression of difference in a nonetheless unified polity.

This theory allows us to think differently about the nature both of the requirement of secularism and about the nature of practices of accommodation.

While it remains within the framework articulated in the second chapter that the state cannot legitimately privilege one moral, philosophical or religious perspective over another, thus adopting a neutral stance toward competing comprehensive doctrines and conceptions of the good, the participation of individuals from the perspective of their

129 Charles Taylor, “Foreword: What is secularism?” in Secularism, Religion and Multicultural Citizenship, ed. Geoffrey Brahm Levey and Tariq Modood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), xiv.

particular beliefs and values must be protected and ensured. This inclusion of diverse views in fact contributes to the justice and unity of the polity itself. This is distinct from the widespread understanding of the liberal model of secularism, which relies upon the total banishment of the religious from political life. Charles Taylor suggests that whereas the notion of the secular initially referred simply the distinction between the immanent and the transcendent or religious, it eventually came to require the separation of these spheres and finally the rejection of the religious altogether. As Taylor puts it:

One way of stating this is to understand western secularism as the separation of religion and state, the excision of religion into a private zone where it can’t interfere with the common life. Then the earlier western distinction between church and state, which eventually led to a separation of church and state, is seen as the runup to the finally satisfactory solution, where religion is finally hived off.130

In this way, according to the logic of secularism, the religious or transcendent comes to be understood as unreal, superfluous and an impediment to the smooth functioning of “the course of thisworldly life.”131

Taylor insists that an alternate understanding of the goals of secularism is necessary and would be better able to respond to the reality of diversity in western states than the conventional understanding of secularism. This conception also better expresses the theory outlined in the second chapter and supports the notion that neutrality need not rely upon a rejection of the expression of particular moral, philosophical or religious beliefs. The goals of this alternate understanding of secularism include first the basic principle that “no one must be forced in the domain of belief,” and second that “there must be equality between people of different faiths or basic belief; no religious outlook

130 Taylor, “What is secularism,” xx. 131 Taylor, “What is secularism,” xx.

[…] can enjoy a privileged status.”132 Beyond this, however, Taylor suggests that secularism requires that “all spiritual families must be heard, included in the ongoing process of determining what the society is about […] and how it is going to realize these goals,” and finally that “we try as much as possible to maintain relations of harmony and comity between the supporters of different religions.”133 This view of secularism is more attuned to the importance of an inclusive model of democratic participation according to which diverse individuals can participate from their situated perspectives in the construction of social unity grounded in the value of participation in political life. In this way the insistence on the complete privatization of all religious expression and its banishment from the public sphere for the sake of maintaining the absolute neutral secularity of the public need not be understood as an unconditional requirement for the successful functioning of the state.

Moreover, this situated participation and even the accommodation of particular practices need not be understood to entail isolation or separation from the society as a whole, as was the case in the Netherlands. The alternate understanding of difference articulated in the second chapter, and its place within a diverse and inclusive democratic public space, therefore, has important implications for our consideration of the way in which the accommodation of minority religious practices ought to be adjudicated.

Because the alternate model outlined in the second chapter insists upon a dynamic understanding of a diverse and inclusive public space in which negotiation and deliberation can occur, the accommodation of diverse practices would be negotiated through the inclusive communication among citizens. This would ensure that the voices

132 Taylor, “What is secularism,” xii. 133 Taylor, “What is secularism,” xii.

of minorities would be heard, considered and engaged with meaningfully. Through this there could occur a modification of the popular conception of what the public sphere itself ought to look like. In this way, the acceptance and protection of diverse practices, such as the wearing of the headscarf or other religious symbols in public spaces and institutions, or the inclusion of diverse models of mediation within the legal system, would not need to be conceived of as divisive and isolationist or a danger to the unity of the polity, but rather could come to be accepted through negotiation as another expression of a different way of belonging to the whole, against a background understanding of respect and relationality.

Despite this more inclusive way of conceiving of practices of accommodation, the fact remains that “requests for accommodation or adjustment occasionally raise difficult questions,” often putting different rights, for example “freedom of religion and gender equality or public safety,” into conflict with one another and challenge the limits of what can reasonably be accepted within a political community.134 While these kinds of conflicts do indeed present a serious challenge, the framework of inclusive dialogue and negotiation can provide guidelines according to which these kinds of conflicts can be adjudicated in public life, but can also establish boundaries and limits. These limits include the background of legal rights and liberties that cannot be infringed upon for the sake of accommodation. In this way, violent, dogmatic, extremist or, to use the Rawlsian vocabulary, ‘unreasonable’ positions could not be accommodated within this model.

Nonetheless, the dynamic understanding of democratic dialogue provides the benefit of

134 Gerard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation, (Quebec: Gouvernement du Quebec, 2008), 159. http://www.accommodements.qc.ca/documentation/rapports/rapportfinalintegralen.pdf

being able to allow for the modification of the framework according to which diverse perspectives are judged through the process of negotiation and compromise.

Interculturalism and the BouchardTaylor Commission

Given the problems with the two responses to diversity and models of integration articulated above, I would like now to consider the model of interculturalism as it has been articulated in Quebec as providing a starting point for thinking about the practical implementation of the theory articulated in the second chapter. This model manages to capture something important in the need for dialogue, negotiation and interaction among cultural groups that is not immediately present in other policy models. In practice, however, it faces serious limitations and challenges that would require significant modification and further elaboration in order provide a reasonable approximation of the theory outlined in the second chapter and to realize its theoretical aims on the ground.

Interculturalism in Quebec presents itself in opposition to the Canadian model of multiculturalism, on the basis of the notion that while Canadian multiculturalism rejects the idea that there is an official Canadian culture to which minorities must adhere,

Quebec interculturalism is fundamentally premised on the existence of a distinctively

Quebecois public culture. Its primary aim is to reconcile Quebec’s status as a national minority within Canada with the fact of diversity. The policy itself – which has yet to be officially defined by the Quebec government or formalized in law135 – is grounded in three fundamental principles about the nature of Quebec society: It insists upon French as the shared language of public life, sees Quebec as a democratic society in which the

135 Bouchard and Taylor, 19.

participation and contribution of all is expected and encouraged, but is also open to diverse contributions within the limits imposed by the respect for fundamental democratic values and the need for interaction among diverse cultural communities.136

These principles indicate a promise on the part of the government of Quebec “to protect the reality of cultural communities, to sensitize Quebecois to the value of ethnic diversity, to promote the integration of minorities, to remove discriminatory barriers and promote equal opportunity to historically disadvantaged groups.”137 The responsibility of immigrants in response to this is to “accept Quebec’s Charter of rights, to contribute to

Quebecbuilding alongside francophones and to acknowledge the primacy of French in the public domain.”138 Together, these principles are understood to form a moral contract between the host society and its minority groups.

One of the important characteristics of the model of interculturalism according to

Gagnon and Iacovino is that

the treatment of difference in this model does not imply a society built on the juxtaposition of ethnic groupings […]; nor does it reduce citizenship status simply to procedural safeguards from state intrusion through the codification of fundamental individual rights, and the assimilation of particular identities to universal principles.139

Instead, intercultural policy proposes “an ‘arboreal’ model of multiculturalism.

Multicultural branches are grafted onto an unmistakably Quebecois trunk, whose roots

136 Gouvernement du Québec, Au Québec pour bâtir ensemble: Enoncé de politique en matière d’immigration et d’intégration (Québec: Direction des communications du Ministère des communautés culturelles et de l’immigration du Québec, 1990), 15 137Augie Fleras and Jean Leonard Elliot, “Official Multiculturalism: The Politics of Policy,” in Engaging Diversity: Multiculturalism in Canada (Toronto: Nelson Thomson, 2002), 77. 138 Fleras and Elliot, “Official Multiculturalism,” 77. 139AlainG. Gagnon and Raffaele Iacovino, “Interculturalism: Expanding the Boundaries of Citizenship,” in Quebec State and Society, ed. AlainG. Gagnon (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2004), 377.

must be nourished in francophone soil if the entire tree is to survive.”140 In this way, the

Quebec model can be understood as providing a more robust understanding of culture than the federal policy of multiculturalism.

What is notable in the policy of interculturalism is the insistence upon inclusion and dialogue. The principle of democracy requires the participation in public life by members of all cultural groups, while the principle of pluralism provides that through their participation, members of cultural and religious minorities will not be stripped of their cultural particularity, but will have the opportunity to direct and contribute to the evolution of society from their own perspective. In this way, the model of interculturalism “would stress the idea of ‘convergence’,”141 by treating the contributions of diverse individuals as valuable and recognizing the fact of their capacity to influence and shape public discourse. Within this policy, all citizens are encouraged to “interact with the members of other ethnic groups, to share their cultural heritage and to participate in common public institutions.”142 As Gagnon and Iacovino put it, “interculturalism attempts to strike a balance between individual rights and cultural relativism by emphasizing a ‘fusion of horizons,’ through dialogue and consensus.”143 The model, therefore, is able to protect cultural particularity and difference, while encouraging social and political unity through dialogue and exchange.

With its focus on convergence and cultural exchange, the policy of interculturalism puts into practice the need for culture to be approached as complex,

140 Fleras and Elliot, 7778. 141 Gagnon and Iacovino, 375. 142 Will Kymlicka, “Minority Nationalism and Immigrant Integration,” in Politics in the Vernacular (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 281. 143 Gagnon and Iacovino, 378.

dialogic and fluid, rather than static and insular. It also seems to provide a relatively successful middle ground between promoting unity and ensuring the recognition of difference. While it acknowledges that difference exists, it does not see difference as totalizing or essentializing, but rather understands it to be capable of changing and adapting in response to cultural exchange. Moreover, it is rooted in a shared space of public deliberation and conceives of the French language as holding this space together.

As Gagnon and Iacovino put it, “this model values deliberation, mutual understanding, and, generally, dialogue as the fundamental characteristics of democratic life” in which all must participate.144 In this way, the intercultural model is consistent with the way in which culture and identity need theoretically to be understood in order to prevent isolation, fragmentation and conflict, as I suggested in the second chapter.

The insistence on the importance of a shared space of public deliberation as the place of cultural convergence is crucial to the Quebec model of intercultural integration, and yet remains a largely ambiguous, loosely defined concept, understood more in terms of what it is not, rather than what it is. Gagnon and Iacovino articulate this negative definition and seem to recognize its ambiguity, but do not provide any resolution to it.

They suggest that “the common public culture in this view does not consist solely of the juridical sphere – it is not a definition based on formal individual rights” but nonetheless suggest that “the contours of ‘public life’ are somewhat ambiguous – indeed what constitutes a ‘public exchange’ is often not clear.”145 The nature of the public space of social interaction and the public culture that is created through interaction, therefore, need to be more thoroughly and specifically articulated.

144 Gagnon and Iacovino, 377. 145 Gagnon and Iacovino, 376.

The report of the Bouchard Taylor Commission provides some insight into the details of what the common public culture and the public space of social interaction might look like in practical terms. A response to the crisis of reasonable accommodation that peaked in Quebec in 2007, the Commission report emphasizes the distinction between the “legal route” and the “citizen route” in responding to cultural differences and accommodation requests, encouraging recourse to the latter.146 They suggest that “under the legal route, requests must conform to formal codified procedures that the parties bring against each other and that ultimately decree a winner and a loser,” whereas the process is much different under the citizen route, “which is less formal and relies on negotiation and the search for a compromise. Its objective is to find a solution that satisfies both parties.”147 According to this model, therefore, cultural and religious differences and the requests for accommodation that accompany these differences can and must be played out at the citizen level, literally on a case by case basis through the negotiation among individuals over particular issues.

While it is true that within such a model, the responsibility for making requests and thus initiating dialogue will indeed fall to those who are not part of the majority, and thus represents an inequality, protections must be in place to ensure that institutions are arranged to respond to these requests with openness and civility. Institutions, including public schools, medical facilities and workplaces must be set up in such a way that they are not only open to this kind of dialogue and negotiation, but must also have recourse to a framework and guidelines according to which negotiations can be grounded. These guidelines, the report suggests, must be informed by the rights and norms of the society,

146 Bouchard and Taylor, 19. 147 Bouchard and Taylor, 19.

by the goal of integration through equality and reciprocity, and by the principles of an open model of secularism.148 In this way, the public space of social interaction must be understood to exist at a very basic, micro level.

While attention to the interactions among individuals within institutions at a civic level is indeed important, the outcomes of these interactions and negotiations must also be able to find expression within the more formalized sphere of legal and political institutions. This official legal sphere is also important in order to ensure that the ability to engage in negotiation at the citizen level is legally protected. Institutions must be structured in order to ensure both the unity of cooperation through shared participation in a common political project as well as to promote the possibility of open, inclusive and just citizen interaction and exchange.

The approach of interculturalism does indeed implement in a policy model many of the values of the theory articulated in the second chapter insofar as it seems to prioritize the importance of dialogue and inclusive engagement of diverse perspectives in democratic discussion while conceiving of difference as relational and fluid; however, it nonetheless faces serious challenges and limitations when it comes to practical implementation. Ultimately, the model of interculturalism in Quebec seems to face a tension and confusion between insisting upon the idea of convergence as ensuring respect for plurality and difference and the insistence upon a core of Quebecois identity. While the core of Quebecois identity around which the model centres is perhaps a necessary provision for the possibility of ensuring any kind of openness to plurality in the context of Quebec, this is precisely what stands in the way of the model providing a successful

148 Bouchard and Taylor, 26.

realization of the ideal of interculturalism, at least insofar as the model can be understood as an approximation of the theory proposed in the second chapter.

First and perhaps most problematically, is the practical failure of interculturalism to have ensured a genuinely diverse and inclusive space of democratic engagement in

Quebec, as the heightened popular anxiety and political concern and uncertainty leading up to the establishment of the Bouchard Taylor Commission would indicate. Moreover, this practical failure to ensure an inclusive democratic space can be identified in the fact that in large part the burden of adaptation and modification in response to cultural interaction and exchange falls primarily to those who constitute cultural, religious or ethnic minority groups rather than the majority, with little to no emphasis on the need for reciprocal adaptation on the part of the Quebecois identity. In this way, the democratic space of discussion created within the model of interculturalism has the capacity to take on a more assimilative than diverse and inclusive character. Whereas the logic of the moral contract that is central to interculturalism, implies that both the majority or host society and minority groups are required to compromise through “pluralism and intercommunity exchange,”149 and insists that both are equal partners in the construction of the society’s future, in practice this is not necessarily the case.

Related is the problem of the model’s focus on and particular understanding of cultural convergence and hybridity. As the Bouchard Taylor Commission puts it, the ideal of convergence requires that “Quebecers of FrenchCanadian origin, like the members of minorities, accept that their culture (traditions and identity referents) will be transformed sooner or later through the interaction that the system [of interculturalism]

149 Bouchard and Taylor, 117.

implies.”150 Similarly, the “constant interaction between various ethnocultural components gives rise to a new identity and a new culture […] that is nurtured by all the others but gradually sets itself apart.”151 This inevitable cultural change by both majority and minorities is understood to be a necessary step toward the building of a shared set of values grounded in common projects and horizons. Again, however, in practice this ideal would be difficult to realize.

While some measure of cultural convergence can be understood as a valuable and to a certain extent an inevitable byproduct of diverse and inclusive dialogue, in this characterization, it seems to require the eventual complete abandonment of particularity and deeply held beliefs that would be immensely problematic. Moreover, by placing the identity of the Quebecois nation (admittedly a thin conception thereof, characterized by the French language, plurality and democracy) as the centre toward which all identities and cultures must converge according to the logic of the intercultural model, there is a sense in which convergence in fact bears a troubling resemblance to assimilation.

These particular challenges and this tendency toward assimilation can in part be attributed to the particularities of the Quebec context and its status as a national minority within Canada. As a result of these circumstances and the precarious state of the French language in Canada, Bouchard and Taylor point out that there is in Quebec a “constant tension between the concern for openness and anxiety for the future of the French speaking community.”152 The “fragile majority status” enjoyed by francophones in

Quebec is tinged by an understanding of self “as an oppressed minority, not a dominant

150 Bouchard and Taylor, 120. 151 Bouchard and Taylor, 121. 152 Bouchard and Taylor, 116.

majority.”153 The majority Frenchspeaking Quebecers are themselves concerned about their own cultural preservation and are thus unwilling to compromise on language and culture for fear of being overwhelmed by minority languages and practices. While these contextual particularities can indeed help to explain the practical challenges of implementation that the model of interculturalism has faced in Quebec, we must nonetheless think beyond these challenges and consider whether the model, more generally considered, can avoid them.

In order for interculturalism to genuinely ensure the participation of diverse individuals from their situated perspectives in a way that makes possible dialogue and negotiation from all perspectives, and to ensure meaningful engagement with minority groups in a way that takes their perspectives seriously in public discourse, both sides of the interaction must be open to transformation through dialogue and deliberation. It is not inherent to the model that this is not possible, but rather the way in which the model has been realized in Quebec makes it more difficult. Additionally, while the intercultural model as it has been articulated in Quebec emphasizes the need for cultural convergence, synthesis and hybridity, it may be more helpful to think of the process as requiring compromise rather than convergence, which can have potentially assimilative implications for both minorities and the majority. By approaching the outcome of intercultural dialogue as being characterized by compromise in which both sides are expected to give and take, not only does it provide a better practical approximation of the

153 Marie McAndrew, “Quebec’s Interculturalism Policy: An Alternative Vision,” in Belonging?: Diversity, Recognition and Shared Citizenship in Canada, ed. Keith Banting et al. (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2007), 148.

theory outlined in the second chapter but it also has the capacity to alleviate some of the concerns about identity loss and the abandonment of core beliefs.

Nonetheless, even this somewhat modified understanding of interculturalism would need to occur against a background of some form of unity without insisting upon assimilation toward the core thereof. While in Quebec the dialogue upon which the policy insists is indeed rooted in and centres around a nationalist ideal of francophone culture and the shared identity thereof, we need not conceive of the policy as necessarily requiring this nationalist understanding of unity. The social bond that this policy seeks to protect can exist in a variety of forms, including the less demanding understanding of unity under political institutions through shared engagement in a common political project articulated in the second chapter. This understanding acknowledges the importance of maintaining a social bond, but sees it as being created through the interaction of individuals and the fact of participation itself within a political community under its institutions. In order to maintain neutrality and avoid the tendency toward assimilation, something like this alternate understanding of the social bond within a political community would need to be the point around which the intercultural model is organized.

While it is possible to insist upon a version of interculturalism that does not ground itself in a culturally specific core as has been the case in Quebec, it may in fact be challenging to envision how even the more neutral model proposed above could avoid the tendency toward some degree of cultural specificity once implemented in a particular context. In this way, the way in which interculturalism has been implemented in Quebec raises important questions about the limits and boundaries of the way in which

interculturalism can put into practice the theory outlined in the second chapter. While these are indeed potential issues that must be attended to when considering the practical implementation of the theoretical model, they do not undermine the integrity of the theory itself.

Conclusion

By examining the practical manifestation of models of integration that prioritize unity and the recognition of difference respectively, it becomes clear that neither of these is wholly successful at ensuring social harmony and the peaceful coexistence of difference. The French state’s insistence on the unity of the people and their legal equality prevents those with minority religious identities from participating in public life from their situated perspective. By contrast, the Netherlands’ model of multiculturalism, which sought to ensure the accommodation and recognition of minority religious groups, resulted in social fragmentation and the isolation of minorities from the larger society. In both of these models, however, integration fails to occur in a successful or meaningful way since interaction between diverse groups and the larger society is impeded by the policy models themselves.

The alternate theory proposed in the second chapter allows us to think differently about the way in which religious diversity ought to be approached in political community. The Quebec model of interculturalism provides a useful foundation upon which we might think about what the theory articulated in the second chapter could look like in practice since it acknowledges the fluidity of cultural and religious identity and insists upon the participation, interaction and negotiation among citizens. Despite this, the

model faces serious challenges realizing these ideals in practice in the Quebec context.

These challenges can help us to be attuned to some of the potential limitations in putting the theory into practice. Taking the modified understanding of interculturalism seriously then, the alternate conception of the relationship between unity and diversity proposed in the second chapter can open up new institutional and policy opportunities when it comes to thinking about the integration and accommodation of religious minorities.

Conclusion

The tension between the aims of ensuring the maintenance of unity and the protection of difference is made particularly acute when considering how to respond to the presence, demands and particularities of religious and cultural minorities within a political community. This project has sought to resolve this tension by proposing an alternate conception of unity and difference whereby unity, conceived as the product of political cooperation in democratic life is made compatible with the expression of difference, which is understood in its relation with others rather than as a static and fixed concept.

By making these two aims compatible within the institutional and practical context of a diverse and inclusive communicative public space of democratic discussion, the unity of the political community becomes dependent upon the inclusion of and engagement with difference. This theoretical understanding of the relationship between unity and diversity allows a rethinking of the way in which religious plurality in political community ought to be considered.

This project has sought to make the maintenance of unity and the protection of difference compatible in order that the peaceful coexistence of diverse individuals and groups within political society can be ensured without requiring the negation of difference in political community or leading to social fragmentation and isolation. I began by outlining the tension within some of the existing approaches to diversity, suggesting that by focusing on either unity or difference in abstraction and isolation from the experience of political practice, the two come to exist as mutually exclusive and incompatible goals. I argued that by approaching social unity and the recognition of difference both as abstracted static ends that ought to be promoted in isolation and for

their own sake, their apparent incompatibility is grounded in a misconception of how we should approach and understand each of the concepts.

The second chapter sought to move beyond and overcome this incompatibility by conceiving of unity and difference in the context of political practice rather than in static and isolated abstraction. I presented a conception of unity as the product of political cooperation made possible by a sense of shared purpose and engagement in a common political project and a relational understanding of difference that allows for dialogue and engagement without negating the importance of situated perspectives and group attachments. In doing this and conceiving of unity and difference in this way, not only are the two concepts made compatible, they are in fact shown to be dependent upon one another.

The implications of this proposed compatibility of unity and difference were explored in the third chapter. Whereas approaches that seek primarily to protect unity through a model of assimilation or to protect and recognize difference through a model of accommodation fail to ensure the successful integration of minorities, the theory proposed in the second chapter allows us to think differently about the way in which religious diversity ought to be approached in political community. While political practice that would build upon the alternate approach proposed in the second chapter may indeed face some challenges, as has been shown in the examination of the implementation of the policy of interculturalism in Quebec, the policy itself demonstrates an important attention to the value of dialogue, interaction and inclusion within a democratic space of engagement that is not present in other policy models.

The practical challenges created by the fact of cultural and religious plurality are very much relevant in contemporary political life. These challenges are grounded in a philosophical tension between the maintenance of unity and the protection of difference.

By examining the aims of unity and difference in the relational context of democratic interaction and exchange, rather than as abstract, prepolitical aims in themselves, I have argued for the compatibility of social unity and the recognition of difference as well as the capacity of this compatibility to give direction to policies and institutions that can ensure social peace and the successful functioning of diverse political communities.

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