Multicultural Odysseys
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We are currently witnessing the global diffusion of multiculturalism, both as a political discourse and as a set of international legal norms. States today are under increasing international scrutiny regarding their treatment of ethnocultural groups, and are expected to meet evolving international standards regarding the rights of indigenous peoples, national minorities, and immigrants. This phenomenon represents a veritable revolution in international relations, yet has received little public or scholarly attention.In this book, Kymlicka examines the factors underlying this change, and the challenges it raises. Against those critics who argue that multiculturalism is a threat to universal human rights, Kymlicka shows that the sort of multiculturalism that is being globalized is inspired and constrained by the human rights revolution, and embedded in a framework of liberal-democratic values.
However, the formulation and implementation of these international norms has generated a number of dilemmas. The policies adopted by international organizations to deal with ethnic diversity are driven by conflicting impulses. Pessimism about the destabilizing consequences of ethnic politics alternates with optimism about the prospects for a peaceful and democratic form of multicultural politics. The result is often an unstable mix of paralyzing fear and naive hope, rooted in conflicting imperatives of security and justice. Moreover, given the enormous differences in the characteristics of minorities (eg., their size, territorial concentration, cultural markers, historic relationship to the state), it is difficult to formulate standards that apply to all groups. Yet attempts to formulate more targeted norms that apply only to specific categories of minorities (eg., indigenous peoples or national minorities) have proven controversial and unstable.
Kymlicka examines these dilemmas as they have played out in both the theory and practice of international minority rights protection, including recent developments regarding the rights of national minorities in Europe, the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas, as well as emerging debates on multiculturalism in Asia and Africa.
Winner of the North American Society of Social Philosophy Book Prize.
Features
- Written by the world's leading liberal multiculturalist whose work has defined debates in the area
- Offers a lucid and thought-provoking account of the likely future of the international politics of diversity
- An inter-disciplinary account, drawing on the fields of normative political theory, social studies, law, and philosophy, accessible to academics and practitioners alike
Reviews
"For an author with a background in political philosophy, this book is a courageous move into the world of social science...the book is a welcome addition to the scholarship on why and how new state policies emerge and spread around the world...Kymlicka's seamless integration of ethical, causal, and policy-directed questions is no small feat, resulting in a project of intense interest to a wide range of scholars and policy-makers in multiple fields."--Ethics & International Affairs
"A compelling brief on behalf of multiculturalism's global odyssey"--International History Review
About the Author(s)
Will Kymlicka is the author of five books published by Oxford University Press: Liberalism, Community, and Culture (1989), Contemporary Political Philosophy (1990; second edition 2002), Multicultural Citizenship (1995), which was awarded the Macpherson Prize by the Canadian Political Science Association, and the Bunche Award by the American Political Science Association, Finding Our Way: Rethinking Ethnocultural Relations in Canada (1998); and Politics in the Vernacular (2001). He is also the editor of Justice in Political Philosophy (Elgar, 1992), The Rights of Minority Cultures (OUP, 1995), and co-editor of Ethnicity and Group Rights (NYU Press, 1997), Citizenship in Diverse Societies (OUP, 2000), Can Liberal Pluralism Be Exported ? (OUP, 2001), Language Rights and Political Theory (OUP, 2003), and Multiculturalism and the Welfare State (OUP, 2006). He is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Queen's University.
