Addis Ababa University Joint PhD Programme in Peace, Federalism and Human Rights

Federalism and Democracy: The Challenges of Multiculturalism

6th Class

Prof. Thomas Fleiner (ideas Prof. Lidija Basta Fleiner)

OUTLINE OF THE CLASS

I What do Federalism and Multiculturalism have in common?

II – Nationalism and DemocracyIII – The Challenges of Multiculturalism IV - Conclusion

I - A Culturally Homogeneous Nation-State Is a Basis for Modern/Liberal Democracy

J.St.Mill, 19th ct.: „Free institutions are next to impossible in societies with different nationalities“ (John St. Mill – 19th ct.)

F.Fukuyama, 2006: “The more serious challenge (then terrorism –LB) facing liberal democracies today concerns the integration of immigrant minorities –particularly those from Muslim countries – as citizens of pluralistic democracies.(…) Europe has become and will continue to be a critical breeding ground and battlefront in the struggle between liberal democracy and radical Islamism, which is a manifestation of modern identity politics, a by-product of the modernisation process itself.”

Example 1: Canada

• THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA IN RE: SECESSION OF QUEBEC (August 20, 1998)

• The four foundational constitutional principles:

• federalism, • democracy, • constitutionalism and the rule of law, and • respect for minority rights. • These defining principles function in

symbiosis.

I Multicultural / Multinational Citizenship

Principles of democratic values

• Democracy is not simply concerned with the process of government. On the contrary, as suggested in Switzman v. Elbling, supra, at p. 306, democracy is fundamentally connected to substantive goals, most importantly, the promotion of self-government.

• Democracy accommodates cultural and group identities:

• The Court must be guided by the values and principles essential to a free and democratic society which embody, ...respect for cultural and group identity, and faith in social and political institutions which enhance the participation of individuals and groups in society.

People of Quebec a Nation and Democracy?

• BBC News,28 November 2006: Canada‘s parliament has approved a government motion recognising the people of mostly francophone Quebec as a nation within a united Canada.

• The motion passed by 266 votes to 16!• A Cabinet minister resigned in a protest,

saying he could not support recognition of what he called “ethnic nationalism” .

I.2. – Liberalism and Multiethnic Society

Major questions:• Is multiethnic/multicultural democracy

possible?• Is a liberal multiethnic/multicultural

democracy possible?• Is multicultural democratic federalism still

liberal?• How and under what (other?) terms can a

multicultural state be democratic? The way to the answers: nation->democracy-

>legitimacy

I. 2.1. Reminder: The “Liberty-and-Equality Paradox”

• Both federalism and multiculturalism put in question and aim at redefining the absolute political equality of individuals as political liberty, which is the major element of liberal majoritarian democracy.

• They oppose liberal principle of equality, which reduces justice to equal distribution of rights – “not equal rights, but rights to be equal” (communitarian argument).

I. 2. 2. The „Sovereignty Paradox“

• Federalism and multiculturalism have always challenged (democratic) sovereignty and procedural legitimacy as two pillars of the modern liberal state by:

a/ questioning suprema potestas (sovereign powers)

b/ questioning majority as a democratic sovereign –trust!

c/ asking for a group accommodation as an expected result of a democratic decision –tolerance

I.3. Consequences:

a/ Majority decision cannot of itself be democratic since trust and tolerance as key civic values are not necessarily at hand in multicultural societies.

b/ It is the non-liberal foundations of federalism that make it attractive for accommodating multiculturalism.

a/+b/ -> Revisiting constitutive foundations of political unity (towards multicultural democracy/ multicultural citizenship

I.3. Council of Europe on Multicultural/Multinational Citizenship

• Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1735 (2006): “The general trend of the nation state’s evolution is towards its transformation, depending on the case, from, a purely ethnic or ethnocentric state into a civic state and from, a purely civic state into multicultural state.”

• NB: It is for the first time that multicultural citizenship/nationhood has been addressed within the international setting outside of academic debates!

II - Nationalism and Democracy

II.1. To start with: nation, nation-state and democracy emerged as modern/liberal – What does it mean?

• Sovereign People = Nation/Demos• Demos = Nation -> Universality• Demos/”Demos” vs. Nation(s) - > Particularity • Citizenship is a membership in a national

community, or: Why is every “universality” in fact “particular”? -

II. DIFFERENT CONCEPTS OF NATION AND CITIZENSHIP

• (democratic) civism without/against ethnicity (USA, France)

• (democratic) civism out of (one!) ethnicity (Germany)

• 1+2: (democratic) civism through democratically integrated ethnicities

• Major disputed question: Is multicultural citizenship still liberal?

III. Challenges of Multiculturalism

• To remind again: modern citizenship is universal in a very particular meaning

• Two major challenges:- Majority as such is not necessarily

democratic- Ethnic, religious and linguistic identities

do publicly matter -> politics cannot remain neutral against cultural identities

As a result, the major question begging an answer:

• Whose is the State?

III – continues: Two types of multicultural arguments

• Liberal multiculturalism liberalism I and liberalism II (with protection of individuals of minorities

• Communitarian, non-liberal multiculturalism – recognition of different cultural identities is immanent to the principle of human dignity (Kant)

III. How to understand Multiculturalism?

• a/ a positive valuation of cultural diversity;

• b/ multicultural citizenship goes beyond - cultural diversity politically matters

• Almost all forms of multiculturalism assume common citizenship and therefore a commitment to individual rights while ignoring non-citizens – minimalist understanding of multiculturalism

Limits of multiculturalism for liberal understanding

• In this general sense they are all liberal multiculturalisms: liberalism + recognition of cultural differences!

• Major question: what are inherent constitutive contradictions and, accordingly, limits of a liberal multiculturalism?

Group Rights

• Identity politics transcends liberal principle of tolerance:

• In order to that minority groups of different cultural identity become equal, they must enjoy additional rights: group differentiated rights (positive measures). (Kymlicka)

• Minorities thus become equal in rights which is more than to enjoy equal rights

Is the right to be equal contradictory to the principle of equal rights?

• Liberal multiculturalism is the expression of liberal democracy which understands liberty as equal rights for all individuals.

• The key dilemma: : Is liberal multiculturalism immanently contradictory, and where are the limits of this concept with a view of democratic integration of collective identities?

• „…not as a tolerance, but as the demand for legal recognition of the rights of ethnic, racial, religious, or cultural groups in virtually all modern liberal democracies”.

• „…justice in a multicultural state will include both universal rights, assigned to individuals regardless of group membership, and certain group differentiated rights”.

• A liberal theory of minority rights, therefore, must explain how minority rights coexist with human rights, and how minority rights are limited by principles of individual liberty, democracy, and social justice”. (W. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, p. 4-9)

Fragmentation of Citizenship

Fragmentation of citizenship is the main challenge for a multicultural citizenship,

meaning: • The erosion of trust and tolerance as main civic

values• Territorial autonomy can lead to erosion of social

cohesion

• NB: Kymlicka is not prepared to recognize migrants the rights protecting their cultural identity ( („poly-ethnic rights“)!!! – Remember Fukuyama here!

Liberal critique of liberal multiculturalism

Liberalism cannot be based upon group rights, since all groups do not share liberal values! (F. Fukuyama, “Identity, Immigration and Democracy”, 2006)

II.3.1. Communitarian multiculturalism against liberalism

• There is no liberal ontology of society, since social good cannot be reduced to individual welfare

• Taylor‘s “ontological holism“ understands social good instead as of itself “irreducibly social” - normative argumentation of multicultural politics of recognition, based upon Kant‘s concept of human dignity (1992)

• Since all cultures as equal in terms of their values, minorities with different cultural identities as groups must have additional rights (positive measures).

• The ambiguity of international legal standards as regards minority rights!

IV – Conclusion: Questions still waiting for answers!

• A major challenge for liberal scholars: How to identify the sources of unity in a democratic multinational state! (Kymlicka)

• Liberal theory of multiculturalism has not yet succeeded to democratically consequent in liberal terms provides immanent arguments for what Dicey called „union without unity“, which is a precondition for unity in diversity accommodated by federalism. Example: The status of English speaking community in Quebec