Suchergebnisse

India is a multicultural liberal democratic state. It is also a poor, overpopulated Third World country. Many modernization theorists have assumed that these two descriptors were at odds, or at least sequentially determined with economic development a necessary pre-condition for democracy, and hence predicted the failure of the Indian experiment because of its "fissiparous tendencies." More contemporary comparative political scientists have attempted more sophisticated and nuanced explanations of the Indian experiment than what modernization theorists offered. Also recently political theorists have increasingly turned their attention to multiculturalism. In this paper, I use a particular type of accommodation made by the Indian state to cultural diversity, constitutionally prescribed in the Sixth Schedule for parts of Assam but increasingly applied elsewhere in the northern stretches of Indian territory, to investigate contributions of recent liberal theory to understanding India's multiculturalism. One of the most prominent political theorists in recent times in the West is Will Kymlicka, who weds multiculturalism to liberalism in his liberal theory of minority rights. The mainstay of his theory is his distinction between national minorities and immigrant ethnic groups. Through this distinction he describes and prescribes accommodations made by the liberal state to cultural diversity. Although he admits that there are gray areas or "hard cases" that challenge his categorization, his "approach" has been "to draw clear lines in muddy waters." Can Kymlickian lines be drawn in the sediment-filled streams flowing down from the Himalayas? Do Kymlicka's categories, and, more generally, his theory help us understand India�s liberal multiculturalism as practiced in the Himalayan foothills of north India?

Preliminary Material -- Group Rights: Laws, Concepts, Contestations -- Liberal Ideals, the Nature of Identity, Minority Rights: Towards a Fusion of Group Rights and Individual Rights -- A Dialogical Translation of the Concept of Minority Rights -- Minority Rights against the State -- Rights against the Minority Group -- Group Agency and the Capacity to Self-govern: From Dependency, through Assisted Capacity-Building, to Meaningful Autonomy -- The Rights Culture vs. A Dialogical Rights Culture: The Conclusion -- Diagram -- Bibliography -- Index.

In response to the atrocities committed during and after the First World War and the need to create a stable east European settlement, the diplomats in Paris constructed the world's first system of international protection for minorities. The League of Nations, charged with the enforcement of the Minority Treaties, set up a cautious 'political' system, which failed either to shield minorities or pacify their governments. No international system was revived after the Second World War, but since the fall of communism, Europe – looking forward to the future as well as back to the past – has organised new supranational institutions to protect endangered religious and national groups.

Is it "un-American" to grant self-government rights1 to national minorities living within the United States? Can such rights destabilize the shared comprehension of American citizenship or create a 'ripple effect' and thus weaken the social union? According to some political theorists such as Michael Walzer, the ideal of American citizenship is inconsistent with the granting of self-government rights to American national minorities. Far from being chauvinists, these theorists fear that the acceptance of such rights would lead to political instability. Even though they acknowledge that some groups' demands for self-government rights have "a good deal of weight," they think that we should refuse to grant such privileges so as to preserve political unity (Glazer 1983: 119). According to them, only such unity can sustain political stability. I will argue that this position is based on an ambiguous distinction between the diverse minority groups living in the United States and on a narrow comprehension of what they call the national consensus about American citizenship. Refusing to admit the possibility of a shared comprehension of citizenship consistent with self-government rights, these theorists simply reject the latter option. This paper aims to expose some arguments supporting a theoretical approach which does not refuse, before consideration, American national minorities' access to self-government rights.

Is it "un-American" to grant self-government rights1 to national minorities living within the United States? Can such rights destabilize the shared comprehension of American citizenship or create a 'ripple effect' and thus weaken the social union? According to some political theorists such as Michael Walzer, the ideal of American citizenship is inconsistent with the granting of self-government rights to American national minorities. Far from being chauvinists, these theorists fear that the acceptance of such rights would lead to political instability. Even though they acknowledge that some groups' demands for self-government rights have "a good deal of weight," they think that we should refuse to grant such privileges so as to preserve political unity (Glazer 1983: 119). According to them, only such unity can sustain political stability. I will argue that this position is based on an ambiguous distinction between the diverse minority groups living in the United States and on a narrow comprehension of what they call the national consensus about American citizenship. Refusing to admit the possibility of a shared comprehension of citizenship consistent with self-government rights, these theorists simply reject the latter option. This paper aims to expose some arguments supporting a theoretical approach which does not refuse, before consideration, American national minorities' access to self-government rights.