## 1. The claims of multiculturalism



Multiculturalism is closely associated with "identity
politics," "the politics of difference," and
"the politics of recognition," all of which share a
commitment to revaluing disrespected identities and changing dominant
patterns of representation and communication that marginalize certain
groups (Gutmann 2003, Taylor 1992, Young 1990). Multiculturalism
involves not only claims of identity and culture as some critics of
multiculturalism suggest. It is also a matter of economic interests
and political power: it includes demands for remedying economic and
political disadvantages that people suffer as a result of their
marginalized group identities.



Multiculturalists take for granted that it is "culture"
and "cultural groups" that are to be recognized and
accommodated. Yet multicultural claims include a wide range of claims
involving religion, language, ethnicity, nationality, and race.
Culture is a contested, open-ended concept, and all of these
categories have been subsumed by or equated with the concept of
culture. Disaggregating and distinguishing among different types of
claims can clarify what is at stake (Song 2008). Language and religion
are at the heart of many claims for cultural accommodation by
immigrants. The key claim made by minority nations is for
self-government rights. Race has a more limited role in multicultural
discourse. Antiracism and multiculturalism are distinct but related
ideas: the former highlights "victimization and
resistance" whereas the latter highlights "cultural life,
cultural expression, achievements, and the like" (Blum 1992,
14). Claims for recognition in the context of multicultural education
are demands not just for recognition of aspects of a group's actual
culture (e.g. African American art and literature) but also for
acknowledgment of the history of group subordination and its
concomitant experience (Gooding-Williams 1998).



Examples of cultural accommodations or "group-differentiated
rights" include exemptions from generally applicable law (e.g.
religious exemptions), assistance to do things that members of the majority culture are already enabled to do (e.g. multilingual ballots, funding for minority
language schools and ethnic associations, affirmative action),
representation of minorities in government bodies (e.g. ethnic quotas
for party lists or legislative seats, minority-majority Congressional
districts), recognition of traditional legal codes by the dominant
legal system (e.g. granting jurisdiction over family law to religious
courts), or limited self-government rights (e.g. qualified recognition
of tribal sovereignty, federal arrangements recognizing the political
autonomy of Quebec) (for a helpful classification of cultural
rights, see Levy 1997).



Typically, a group-differentiated right is a right of a minority group
(or a member of such a group) to act or not act in a certain way in
accordance with their religious obligations and/or cultural
commitments. In some cases, it is a right that directly restricts the
freedom of non-members in order to protect the minority group's
culture, as in the case of restrictions on the use of the English
language in Quebec. When the right-holder is the group, the
right may protect group rules that restrict the freedom of individual
members, as in the case of the Pueblo membership rule that excludes
the children of women who marry outside the group. Now that you have a
sense of the kinds of claims that have been made in the name of
multiculturalism, we can now turn to consider different normative
justifications for these claims.


## 2. Justifications for multiculturalism


### 2.1 Recognition



One justification for multiculturalism arises out of the communitarian
critique of liberalism. Liberals tend to be ethical individualists;
they insist that individuals should be free to choose and pursue their
own conceptions of the good life. They give primacy to individual
rights and liberties over community life and collective goods. Some
liberals are also individualists when it comes to social ontology
(what some call methodological individualism or atomism).
Methodological individualists believe that you can and should account
for social actions and social goods in terms of the properties of the
constituent individuals and individual goods. The target of the
communitarian critique of liberalism is not so much liberal ethics as
liberal social ontology. Communitarians reject the idea that the
individual is prior to the community and that the value of social
goods can be reduced to their contribution to individual well-being.
They instead embrace ontological holism, which acknowledges collective
goods as, in Charles Taylor's words, "irreducibly
social"and intrinsically valuable (Taylor 1995).



An ontologically holist view of collective identities and cultures
underlies Taylor's argument for a "politics of
recognition." Drawing on Rousseau, Herder, and Hegel, among
others, Taylor argues that we do not become full human agents and
define our identity in isolation from others; rather, "we define
our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against,
the things our significant others want to see in us" (1994, 33).
Because our identities are formed dialogically, we are dependent on
the recognition of others. The absence of recognition or
mis-recognition can cause serious injury: "A person or a group
of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or
society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or
contemptible picture of themselves" (25). The struggle for
recognition can only be satisfactorily resolved through "a
regime of reciprocal recognition among equals" (50). Taylor
distinguishes the politics of recognition from the traditional liberal
"politics of equal respect" that is "inhospitable to
difference, because (a) it insists on uniform application of the rules
defining these rights, without exception, and (b) it is suspicious of
collective goals" (60). By contrast, the politics of recognition
is grounded on "judgments about what makes a good
life--judgments in which the integrity of cultures has an
important place" (61). He discusses the example of the survival
of French culture in Quebec. The French language is not merely a
collective resource that individuals might want to make use of and
thereby seek to preserve, as suggested by a politics of equal respect.
Instead, the French language is an irreducibly collective good that
itself deserves to be preserved: language policies aimed at preserving
the French language in Quebec "actively seek to create
members of the community" by assuring that future generations
continue to identify as French-speakers (58). Because of the
indispensable role of cultures in the development human agency and
identity, Taylor argues, we should adopt the presumption of the equal
worth of all cultures (66). 


### 2.2 Equality



A second justification for multiculturalism comes from within
liberalism but a liberalism that has been revised through critical
engagement with the communitarian critique of liberalism. Will
Kymlicka has developed the most influential liberal theory of
multiculturalism by marrying the liberal values of autonomy and
equality with an argument about the value of cultural membership
(1989, 1995, 2001). Rather than beginning with intrinsically valuable
collective goals and goods as Taylor does, Kymlicka views cultures as
instrumentally valuable to individuals, for two main reasons. First,
cultural membership is an important condition of personal autonomy. In
his first book, *Liberalism, Community, and Culture* (1989),
Kymlicka develops his case for multiculturalism within a Rawlsian
framework of justice, viewing cultural membership as a "primary
good," things that every rational person is presumed to want and
which are necessary for the pursuit of one's goals (Rawls 1971, 62).
In his later book, *Multicultural Citizenship* (1995), Kymlicka
drops the Rawlsian scaffolding, relying instead on the work of Avishai
Margalit and Joseph Raz on national self-determination (1990). One
important condition of autonomy is having an adequate range of options
from which to choose (Raz 1986). Cultures serve as "contexts of
choice," which provide meaningful options and scripts with which
people can frame, revise, and pursue their goals (Kymlicka 1995, 89).
Second, cultural membership plays an important role in people's
self-identity. Citing Margalit and Raz as well as Taylor, Kymlicka
views cultural identity as providing people with an "anchor for
their self-identification and the safety of effortless secure
belonging" (1995, 89, quoting Margalit and Raz 1990, 448 and
also citing Taylor 1992). This means there is a deep and general
connection between a person's self-respect and the respect accorded to
the cultural group of which she is a part. It is not simply membership
in any culture but one's *own culture* that must be secured in
order for cultural membership to serve as a meaningful context of
choice and a basis of self-respect.



Kymlicka moves from these premises about the instrumental value of
cultural membership to the egalitarian claim that because members of
minority groups are disadvantaged in terms of access to their own
cultures (in contrast to members of the majority culture), they are
entitled to special protections. It is important to note that
Kymlicka's egalitarian argument for multiculturalism rests on a theory
of equality that critics have dubbed "luck egalitarianism"
(Anderson 1999, Scheffler 2003). According to luck egalitarians,
individuals should be held responsible for inequalities resulting from
their own choices, but not for inequalities deriving from unchosen
circumstances (Dworkin 1981; Rakowski 1993). The latter inequalities
are the collective responsibility of citizens to address. For example,
inequalities stemming from one's social starting position in life are
unchosen yet so strongly determine our prospects in life. Luck
egalitarians argue that those born into poor families are entitled to
collective support and assistance via a redistributive tax scheme.
Kymlicka adds cultural membership to this list of unchosen
inequalities. If one is born into the dominant culture of society, one
enjoys good brute luck, whereas those who belong to minority cultures
suffer disadvantages in virtue of the bad brute luck of their minority
status. Insofar as inequality in access to cultural membership stems
from luck (as opposed to individual choices) and one suffers
disadvantages as a result of it, members of minority groups can
reasonably demand that members of the majority culture must share in
bearing the costs of accommodation. Minority group rights are
justified, as Kymlicka argues, "within a liberal egalitarian
theory...which emphasizes the importance of rectifying unchosen
inequalities" (Kymlicka 1995, 109).



One might question whether cultural minority groups really are
"disadvantaged" and thereby, owed positive accommodations.
Why not just enforce antidiscrimination laws, stopping short of any
positive accommodations for minority groups? Kymlicka and other
liberal theorists of multiculturalism contend that antidiscrimination
laws fall short of treating members of minority groups as equals; this
is because states cannot be neutral with respect to culture. In
culturally diverse societies, we can easily find patterns of state
*support* for some cultural groups over others. While states
may prohibit racial discrimination and avoid official establishment of
any religion, they cannot avoid establishing one language for public
schooling and other state services (language being a paradigmatic
marker of culture) (Kymlicka 1995, 111; Carens 2000, 77-78;
Patten 2001, 693). Linguistic advantage translates into economic and
political advantage since members of the dominant cultural community
have a leg up in schools, the workplace, and politics. Linguistic
advantage also takes a symbolic form. When state action extends
symbolic affirmation to some groups and not others by adopting a
particular language or by organizing the work week and public holidays
around the calendar of particular religions, it has a normalizing
effect, suggesting that one group's language and customs are more
valued than those of other groups.



In addition to state support of certain cultures over others, state
laws may place *constraints* on some cultural groups over
others. Consider the case of dress code regulations in public schools
or the workplace. A ban on religious dress burdens religious
individuals, as in the case of Simcha Goldman, a U.S. Air Force
officer, who was also an ordained rabbi and wished to wear a yarmulke
out of respect to an omnipresent God (*Goldman v. Weinberger,*
475 US 503 (1986)). The case of the French state's ban on religious
dress in public schools, which burdens Muslim girls who wish to wear
headscarves to school, is another example (Bowen 2007, Laborde 2008).
Religion may command that believers dress in a certain way (what Peter
Jones calls an "intrinsic burden"), not that believers
refrain from attending school or going to work (Jones 1994). Yet,
burdens on believers do not stem from the dictates of religion alone;
they also arise from the intersection of the demands of religion and
the demands of the state ("extrinsic burden"). Individuals
must bear intrinsic burdens themselves; bearing the burdens of the
dictates of one's faith, such as prayer, worship, and fasting, just is
part of meeting one's religious obligations. When it comes to
extrinsic burdens, however, liberal multiculturalists argue that
justice requires assisting cultural minorities bear the burdens of
these unchosen disadvantages.



It is important to note that liberal multiculturalists distinguish
among different types of groups. For instance, Kymlicka's theory
develops a typology of different groups and different types of rights
for each. It offers the strongest form of group-differentiated
rights--self-government rights--to indigenous peoples and
national minorities for the luck egalitarian reason that their
minority status is unchosen: they were coercively incorporated into
the larger state. By contrast, immigrants are viewed as
*voluntary* migrants: by choosing to migrate, they relinquished
access to their native culture. Immigrant multiculturalism, what
Kymlicka calls "polyethnic rights", is understood as a
demand for fairer terms of integration into the broader society
through the granting of exemptions and accommodations, not a rejection
of integration or a demand for collective self-determination (1995,
113-115).


### 2.3 Freedom from domination



Another set of arguments for multiculturalism rests on the value of freedom. Some theorists such as Phillip Pettit (1997) and Quentin Skinner (1998) have developed the idea of freedom from domination by drawing on the civic republican tradition. Building on this line of argument to argue for recognition, Frank Lovett (2009) maintains that domination presents a serious obstacle to human flourishing. In contrast to the conception of freedom as non-interference dominant in liberal theory, freedom as non-domination, drawn from the civic republic tradition, focuses on a person's "capacity to interfere, on an arbitrary basis, in certain choices that the other is in a position to make" (Pettit 1997, 52). On this view of freedom, we can be unfree even when we are not experiencing any interference as in the case of a slave of a
benevolent master. We are subject to domination to the extent that we are dependent on another person or group who can arbitrarily exercise power over us (Pettit 1997, ch. 2).



Frank Lovett has explored the implications of the value of freedom
from domination for questions of multicultural accommodation (2010).
He begins from the premise that freedom from domination is an
important human good and that we have a prima facie obligation to
reduce domination. He argues that the state should not accommodate
social practices that directly involve domination. Indeed, if freedom
from domination is a priority, then one should "aim to bring
such practices to an end as quickly as possible, despite any
subjective value they happen to have for their participants"
(2010, 256). As for practices that do not involve subjecting
individuals to domination, accommodation is permissible but not
necessarily required. Accommodation is only required if accommodation
would advance the goal of reducing domination. He discusses one
stylized example based on a familiar real-world case: the practice
among Muslim women and girls of wearing headscarves. Suppose, Lovett
suggests, a detailed study of a particular Muslim community in a
liberal democratic society is undertaken and it reveals that women's
educational and employment opportunities are discouraged, generating
"severe patriarchal domination," but the study also shows
that the practice of wearing headscarves does not (2010, 258). Lovett
argues that the practice of wearing headscarves should be accommodated
because failure to do so might strengthen the community's commitment
to other shared practices that reinforce patriarchal domination.




A key empirical assumption here is that combating patriarchal
practices within minority communities would be easier if the burdens
on more benign practices, such as wearing headscarves, are
lessened. Cecile Laborde's analysis of the headscarf controversy in
France provides support for this assumption: the effect of preventing
Muslim girls from wearing headscarves is to encourage their parents to
withdraw their daughters from civic education and send them to
religious schools where they would not be exposed to the diversity of
world views found in public schools. Formal restrictions on Muslim
religious expression in the public sphere may make, in Laborde's
words, "members of dominated groups close ranks around the
denigrated practice, precipitating a defensive retreat into
conservative cultural forms and identities" (2008, 164).



Another situation in which accommodation is warranted on Lovett's
account is when individuals' subjective attachment to particular
practices makes them vulnerable to exploitation. He discusses the case
of Mexican immigrant laborers with limited English language skills and
limited knowledge of American laws and policies. Lovett argues that
extending "special public measures," such as exceptions to
general rules and regulations and public legal assistance, is required
insofar as such measures would reduce the domination of these workers
(2010, 260). In contrast to the communitarian or liberal egalitarian
arguments considered above, the basis for the special accommodations
is not a desire to protect intrinsically valuable cultures or
considerations of fairness or equality but the desire to reduce
domination.



Mira Bachvarova has also argued for the merits of a
non-domination-based multiculturalism as compared to liberal
egalitarian approaches. Because of its focus on the arbitrary use of
power and the broader structural inequalities within which groups
interact, a non-domination approach may be more sensitive to power
dynamics in both inter-group and intra-group relations. Also, in
contrast to approaches developed out of egalitarian theories of
distributive justice that focus on distributing different types of
rights, a non-domination approach focuses on the "moral quality
of the relationship between the central actors" and insists on
continuity of treatment between and within groups (2014, 671).


### 2.4 Addressing historical injustice



Other theorists sympathetic to multiculturalism look beyond liberalism
and republicanism, emphasizing instead the importance of grappling
with historical injustice and listening to minority groups themselves.
This is especially true of theorists writing from a postcolonial
perspective. For example, in contemporary discussions of aboriginal
sovereignty, rather than making claims based on premises about the
value of Native cultures and their connection to individual members'
sense of self-worth as liberal multiculturalists have, the focus is on
reckoning with history. Such proponents of indigenous sovereignty
emphasize the importance of understanding indigenous claims against
the historical background of the denial of equal sovereign status of
indigenous groups, the dispossession of their lands, and the
destruction of their cultural practices (Ivison 2006, Ivison et al.
2000, Moore 2005, Simpson 2000). This background calls into question
the legitimacy of the state's authority over aboriginal peoples and
provides a prima facie case for special rights and protections for
indigenous groups, including the right of self-government. Jeff
Spinner-Halev has argued that the history of state oppression of a
group should be a key factor in determining not only whether group
rights should be extended but also whether the state should intervene
in the internal affairs of the group when it discriminates against
particular members of the group. For example, "when an oppressed
group uses its autonomy in a discriminatory way against women it
cannot simply be forced to stop this discrimination" (2001, 97).
Oppressed groups that lack autonomy should be "provisionally
privileged" over non-oppressed groups; this means that
"barring cases of serious physical harm in the name of a group's
culture, it is important to consider some form of autonomy for the
group" (2001, 97; see also Spinner-Halev 2012).



Theorists adopting a postcolonial perspective go beyond liberal
multiculturalism toward the goal of developing models of
constitutional and political dialogue that recognize culturally
distinct ways of speaking and acting. Multicultural societies consist
of diverse religious and moral outlooks, and if liberal societies are
to take such diversity seriously, they must recognize that liberalism
is just one of many substantive outlooks based on a specific view of
man and society. Liberalism is not free of culture but expresses a
distinctive culture of its own. This observation applies not only
across territorial boundaries between liberal and nonliberal states,
but also within liberal states and its relations with nonliteral
minorities. James Tully has surveyed the language of historical and
contemporary constitutionalism with a focus on Western state's
relations with Native peoples to uncover more inclusive bases for
intercultural dialogue (1995). Bhikhu Parekh contends that liberal
theory cannot provide an impartial framework governing relations
between different cultural communities (2000). He argues instead for a
more open model of intercultural dialogue in which a liberal society's
constitutional and legal values serve as the initial starting point
for cross-cultural dialogue while also being open to contestation.




More recent work has emphasized the importance of developing more contextual approaches that engage with actual political struggles for recognition and give greater voice to minority groups. Through detailed examination of how national museums in Canada and the U.S. have sought to represent and recognize indigenous groups, Caitlin Tom identifies three principles for the practice of recognition: self-definition, responsiveness, and internal contestation. Whether it be museum officials seeking to exhibit the history and culture of minority groups or government officials deciding whether official apologies for historical injustices are in order, they should respect individual and collective self-definition, respond to demands for recognition on terms that align with the terms of those being recognized, and accommodate internal contestation of group meanings. As Tom argues, practices of recognition guided by these principles come closer to fostering freedom and equality of minority groups than existing approaches (2018).


## 3. Critique of multiculturalism


### 3.1 Cosmopolitan view of culture



Some critics contend that theories of multiculturalism are premised on
an essentialist view of culture. Cultures are not distinct,
self-contained wholes; they have long interacted and influenced one
another through war, imperialism, trade, and migration. People in many
parts of the world live within cultures that are already cosmopolitan,
characterized by cultural hybridity. As Jeremy Waldron argues,
"We live in a world formed by technology and trade; by economic,
religious, and political imperialism and their offspring; by mass
migration and the dispersion of cultural influences. In this context,
to immerse oneself in the traditional practices of, say, an aboriginal
culture might be a fascinating anthropological experiment, but it
involves an artificial dislocation from what actually is going on in
the world" (1995, 100). To aim at preserving or protecting a
culture runs the risk of privileging one allegedly pure version of
that culture, thereby crippling its ability to adapt to changes in
circumstances (Waldron 1995, 110; see also Appiah 2005, Benhabib 2002,
Scheffler 2007). Waldron also rejects the premise that the options
available to an individual must come from a particular culture;
meaningful options may come from a variety of cultural sources. What
people need are cultural materials, not access to a particular
cultural structure. For example, the Bible, Roman mythology, and the
Grimms' fairy tales have all influenced American culture, but these
cultural sources cannot be seen as part of a single cultural structure
that multiculturalists like Kymlicka aim to protect.



In response, multicultural theorists agree that cultures are
overlapping and interactive, but they nonetheless maintain that
individuals belong to separate societal cultures. In particular,
Kymlicka has argued that while options available to people in any
modern society come from a variety of ethnic and historical sources,
these options become meaningful to us only if "they become part
of the shared vocabulary of social life--i.e. embodied in the
social practices, based on a shared language, that we are exposed
to... That we learn...from other cultures, or that we borrow words
from other languages, does not mean that we do not still belong to
separate societal cultures, or speak different languages" (1995,
103). Liberal egalitarian defenders of multiculturalism like Kymlicka
maintain that special protections for minority cultural groups still
hold, even after we adopt a more cosmopolitan view of cultures,
because the aim of group-differentiated rights is not to freeze
cultures in place but to empower members of minority groups to
continue their distinctive cultural practices so long as they wish
to.


### 3.2 Toleration requires indifference, not accommodation



A second major criticism is aimed at liberal multicultural theories of
accommodation in particular and stems from the value of freedom of
association and conscience. If we take these ideas seriously and
accept both ontological and ethical individualism as discussed above,
then we are led to defend not special protections for groups but the
*individual's* right to form and leave associations. As
Chandran Kukathas (1995, 2003) argues, there are no group rights, only
individual rights. By granting cultural groups special protections and
rights, the state oversteps its role, which is to secure civility, and
risks undermining individual rights of association. States should not
pursue "cultural integration" or "cultural
engineering" but rather a "politics of indifference"
toward minority groups (2003, 15).



One limitation of such a *laissez-faire* approach is that
groups that do not themselves value toleration and freedom of
association, including the right to dissociate or exit a group, may
practice internal discrimination against group members, and the state
would have little authority to interfere in such associations. A
politics of indifference would permit the abuse of vulnerable members
of groups (discussed below in 3.6), tolerating, in Kukathas's words,
"communities which bring up children unschooled and illiterate;
which enforce arranged marriages; which deny conventional medical care
to their members (including children); and which inflict cruel and
'unusual' punishment" (Kukathas 2003, 134). To
embrace such a state of affairs would be to abandon the values of
autonomy and equality, values that many liberals take to be
fundamental to any liberalism worth its name.


### 3.3 Diversion from a "politics of redistribution"



A third challenge to multiculturalism views it as a form of a
"politics of recognition" that diverts attention from a
"politics of redistribution." We can distinguish
analytically between these modes of politics: a politics of
recognition challenges status inequality and the remedy it seeks is
cultural and symbolic change, whereas a politics of redistribution
challenges economic inequality and exploitation and the remedy it
seeks is economic restructuring (Fraser 1997, Fraser and Honneth
2003). Working class mobilization tilts toward the redistribution end
of the spectrum, and claims for exemption from generally applicable
laws and the movement for same-sex marriage are on the recognition
end. In the U.S. critics who view themselves as part of the
"progressive left" worry that the rise of the
"cultural left" with its emphasis on multiculturalism and
difference turns the focus away from struggles for economic justice
(Gitlin 1995, Rorty 1999). Critics in the United Kingdom and Europe
have also expressed concern about the effects of multiculturalism on
social trust and public support for economic redistribution (Barry
2001, Miller 2006, van Parijs 2004). Phillipe van Parijs
invited scholars to consider the proposition, "Other things
being equal, the more cultural... homogeneity within the population of
a defined territory, the better the prospects in terms of economic
solidarity" (2004, 8).



There are two distinct concerns here. The first is that the existence
of racial and ethnic diversity reduces social trust and solidarity,
which in turn undermines public support for policies that involve
economic redistribution. For example, Robert Putnam argues that the
decline in social trust and civic participation in the U.S. is
strongly correlated with racial and ethnic diversity (2007). Rodney
Hero has shown that the greater the racial and ethnic heterogeneity in
a state, the more restrictive state-level welfare programs are (Hero
1998, Hero and Preuhs 2007). Cross-national analyses suggest that
differences in racial diversity explain a significant part of the
reason why the U.S. has not developed a European-style welfare state
(Alesina and Glaeser 2004). The second concern is that multiculturalism
policies themselves undermine the welfare-state by heightening the
salience of racial and ethnic differences among groups and undermining
a sense of common national identity that is viewed as necessary for a
robust welfare state (Barry 2001, Gitlin 1995, Rorty 1999).



In response, theorists of multiculturalism have called for and
collaborated on more empirical research of these purported trade-offs.
With respect to the first concern about the tension between diversity
and redistribution, Kymlicka and Banting question the generalizability
of the empirical evidence that is largely drawn from research either
on Africa, where the weakness of state institutions has meant no
usable traditions or institutional capacity for dealing with
diversity, or on the U.S., where racial inequality has been shaped by
centuries of slavery and segregation. Where many minority groups are
newcomers and where state institutions are strong, the impact of
increasing diversity may be quite different (Kymlicka and Banting
2006, 287). Barbara Arneil has also challenged Putnam's social capital
thesis, arguing that participation in civil society has changed, not
declined, largely as a result of mobilization among cultural
minorities and women seeking greater inclusion and equality (Arneil
2006a). She argues that it is not diversity itself that leads to
changes in trust and civic engagement but the politics of diversity,
i.e. how different groups respond to and challenge the norms governing
their society. The central issue, then, is not to reduce diversity but
to determine principles and procedures by which differences are
renegotiated in the name of justice (Arneil and MacDonald 2010).



As for the second concern about the tradeoff between recognition and
redistribution, the evidence upon which early redistributionist
critics such as Barry and Rorty relied was speculative and
conjectural. Recent cross-national research suggests that there is no
evidence of a systematic tendency for multiculturalism policies to
weaken the welfare state (Banting et al. 2006). Irene Bloemraad's
comparative study of immigrant integration in Canada and the U.S.
offers support for the view that not only is there no trade-off
between multiculturalism and the welfare-state but multiculturalism
policies can actually increase attention and resources devoted to
redistributive policies. She finds that Canada's multiculturalism
policies, which provide immigrants with a variety of services in their
native languages and encourage them to preserve their cultural
traditions even as they become Canadian citizens, are the main reason
why the naturalization rate among permanent residents in Canada is
twice that of permanent residents in the U.S. Multiculturalists agree
more empirical research is needed, but they nonetheless maintain that
redistribution and recognition are not either/or propositions. Both
are important dimensions in the pursuit of equality for minority
groups. In practice, both redistribution and
recognition--responding to material disadvantages and
marginalized identities and statuses--are required to achieve
greater equality across lines of race, ethnicity, nationality,
religion, sexuality, and class, not least because many individuals
stand at the intersection of these different categories and suffer
multiple forms of marginalization. A politics of recognition is
important not only on account of its effects on socioeconomic status
and political participation but also for the sake of full inclusion of
members of marginalized groups as equal citizens.


### 3.4 Universalist ideal of equality



A fourth objection takes issue with liberal multiculturalist's
understanding of what equality requires. Brian Barry defends a
universalist ideal of equality, in contrast to the
group-differentiated ideal of equality defended by Kymlicka. Barry
argues that religious and cultural minorities should be held
responsible for bearing the consequences of their own beliefs and
practices, just as members of the dominant culture are held
responsible for bearing the consequences of their beliefs. He does
think that special accommodations are owed to people with
disabilities, but he believes religious and cultural affiliations are
different from physical disabilities: the former do not constrain
people in the way that physical disabilities do. A physical disability
supports a strong prima facie claim to compensation because it limits
a person's opportunities to engage in activities that others are able
to engage in. In contrast, religion and culture may shape one's
willingness to seize an opportunity, but they do not affect whether
one has an opportunity. Barry argues that egalitarian justice is only
concerned with ensuring a reasonable range of equal opportunities, not
with ensuring equal access to any particular choices or outcomes
(2001, 37). When it comes to cultural and religious affiliations, they
do not limit the range of opportunities one enjoys but rather the
choices one can make within the set of opportunities available to
all.



In reply, one might agree that opportunities are not objective in the
strong physicalist sense suggested by Barry. But the opportunity to do
X is not just having the possibility to do X without facing physical
encumbrances; it is also the possibility of doing X without incurring
excessive costs or the risk of such costs (Miller 2002, 51). State law
and cultural commitments can conflict in ways such that the costs for
cultural minorities of taking advantage of the opportunity are
prohibitively high. In contrast to Barry, liberal multiculturalists
argue that many cases where a law or policy disparately impacts a
religious or cultural practice constitute injustice. For instance,
Kymlicka points to the Goldman case (discussed above) and other
religion cases, as well as to claims for language rights, as examples
in which group-differentiated rights are required in light of the
differential impact of state action (1995, 108-115). His
argument is that since the state cannot achieve complete
disestablishment of culture or be neutral with respect to culture, it
must somehow make it up to citizens who are bearers of minority
religious beliefs and native speakers of other languages. Because
complete state disestablishment of culture is not possible, one way to
ensure fair background conditions is to provide roughly comparable
forms of assistance or recognition to each of the various languages
and religions of citizens. To do nothing would be to permit
injustice.


### 3.5 Postcolonial critique



Some postcolonial theorists are critical of multiculturalism and the
contemporary politics of recognition for reinforcing, rather than
transforming, structures of colonial domination in relations between
settler states and indigenous communities. Focusing on Taylor's theory
of the politics of recognition, Glen Coulthard has argued that
"instead of ushering in an era of peaceful coexistence grounded
on the Hegelian idea of *reciprocity,* the politics of
recognition in its contemporary form promises to reproduce the very
configurations of colonial power that indigenous peoples' demands for
recognition have historically sought to transcend" (2007, 438-9;
see also Coulthard 2014). There are several elements to Coulthard's
critique. First, he argues that the politics of recognition, through
its focus on reformist state redistributionist schemes like granting
cultural rights and concessions to aboriginal communities, affirms
rather than challenges the political economy of colonialism. In this
regard, the politics of recognition reveals itself to be a variant of
liberalism, which "fails to confront the structural/economic
aspects of colonialism at its generative roots" (2007, 446).
Second, the contemporary politics of recognition toward indigenous
communities rests on a flawed sociological assumption: that both
parties engaged in the struggle for recognition are mutually dependent
on one another's acknowledgement for their freedom and self-worth.
Yet, no such mutual dependency exists in actual relations between
nation-states and indigenous communities: "the master--that
is, the colonial state and state society--does not require
recognition from the previously self-determining communities upon
which its territorial, economic, and social infrastructure is
constituted" (451). Third, Coulthard argues that true
emancipation for the colonized cannot occur without struggle and
conflict that "serves as the mediating force through which the
colonized come to shed their colonial identities" (449). He
employs Frantz Fanon to argue that the road to true self-determination
for the oppressed lies in self-affirmation: rather than depending on
their oppressors for their freedom and self-worth, "the
colonized must initiate the process of decolonization by recognizing
themselves as free, dignified and distinct contributors to
humanity" (454). This means that indigenous peoples should
"collectively redirect our struggles away from a politics that
seeks to attain a conciliatory form of settler-state recognition for
Indigenous nations toward a resurgent politics of recognition premised
on self-actualization, direct action, and the resurgence of cultural
practices that are attentive to the subjective and structural
composition of settler-colonial power" (2014, 24).



Taylor, Kymlicka, and other proponents of the contemporary politics of
recognition might agree with Coulthard that self-affirmation by
oppressed groups is critical for true self-determination and freedom
of indigenous communities, but such self-affirmation need not be
viewed as mutually exclusive from state efforts to extend
institutional accommodations. State recognition of self-government
rights and other forms of accommodation are important steps toward
rectifying historical injustices and transforming structural
inequalities between the state and indigenous communities. Coulthard's
analysis redirects attention to the importance of evaluating and
challenging the structural and psycho-affective dimensions of colonial
domination, but by arguing that indigenous peoples should "turn
away" (2007, 456) from settler-states and settler societies may
play into the neoliberal turn toward the privatization of dependency
and to risk reinforcing the marginalization of indigenous communities
at a time when economic and other forms of state support may be
critical to the survival of indigenous communities.


### 3.6 Feminist critique of multiculturalism



The set of critiques that has ignited perhaps the most intense debate
about multiculturalism argues that extending protections to minority
groups may come at the price of reinforcing oppression of vulnerable
members of those groups--what some have called the problem of
"internal minorities" or "minorities within
minorities" (Green 1994, Eisenberg and Spinner-Halev 2005).
Multicultural theorists have tended to focus on inequalities
*between* groups in arguing for special protections for
minority groups, but group-based protections can exacerbate
inequalities *within* minority groups. This is because some
ways of protecting minority groups from oppression by the majority may
make it more likely that more powerful members of those groups are
able to undermine the basic liberties and opportunities of vulnerable
members. Vulnerable subgroups within minority groups include religious
dissenters, sexual minorities, women, and children. A group's leaders
may exaggerate the degree of consensus and solidarity within their
group to present a united front to the wider society and strengthen
their case for accommodation.



Some of the most oppressive group norms and practices revolve around
issues of gender and sexuality, and it is feminist critics who first
called attention to potential tensions between multiculturalism and
feminism (Coleman 1996, Okin 1999, Shachar 2000). These tensions
constitute a genuine dilemma if one accepts both that
group-differentiated rights for minority cultural groups are
justifiable, as multicultural theorists do, and that gender equality
is an important value, as feminists have emphasized. Extending special
protections and accommodations to minority groups engaged in
patriarchal practices may help reinforce gender inequality within
these communities. Examples that have been analyzed in the scholarly
literature include conflicts over arranged marriage, the ban on
headscarves, the use of "cultural defenses" in criminal
law, accommodating religious law or customary law within dominant
legal systems, and self-government rights for indigenous communities
that reinforce the inequality of women.



These feminist objections are especially troublesome for liberal
egalitarian defenders of multiculturalism who wish to promote not only
inter-group equality but also intra-group equality, including gender
equality. In response, Kymlicka (1999) has emphasized the similarities
between multiculturalism and feminism: both aim at a more inclusive
conception of justice, and both challenge the traditional liberal
assumption that equality requires identical treatment. To address the
concern about multicultural accommodations exacerbating intra-group
inequality, Kymlicka distinguishes between two kinds of group rights:
"external protections" are rights that a minority group
claims against non-members in order to reduce its vulnerability to the
economic and political power of the larger society, whereas
"internal restrictions" are rights that a minority group
claims against its own members. He argues that a liberal theory of
minority group rights defends external protections while rejecting
internal restrictions (1995, 35-44;1999, 31).



But many feminist critics have emphasized, granting external
protections to minority groups may sometimes come at the price of
internal restrictions. They may be different sides of the same coin:
for example, respecting the self-government rights of Native
communities may entail permitting sexually discriminatory membership
rules enacted by the leaders of those communities. Whether
multiculturalism and feminism can be reconciled within liberal theory
depends in part on the empirical premise that groups that seek
group-differentiated rights do not support patriarchal norms and
practices. If they do, liberal multiculturalists would in principle
have to argue against extending the group right or extending it with
certain qualifications, such as conditioning the extension of
self-government rights to Native peoples on the acceptance of a
constitutional bill of rights.



There has been a wave of feminist responses to the problem of
vulnerable internal minorities that is sympathetic to both
multiculturalism and feminism (see, e.g., Arneil 2006b, Deveaux 2006,
Eisenberg 2003, Lepinard 2011, Phillips 2007, Shachar 2001, Song 2007, Volpp 2000).
Some feminists have emphasized the importance of moving away from essentialist
notions of culture and reductive views of members of minority groups
as incapable of meaningful agency (Phillips 2007, Volpp 2000). Other feminists
have sought to shift the emphasis from liberal rights towards more democratic approaches. Liberal theorists
have tended to start from the question of whether and how minority
cultural practices should be tolerated or accommodated in accordance
with liberal principles, whereas democratic theorists foreground the
role of democratic deliberation and ask how affected parties
understand the contested practice. By drawing on the voices of
affected parties and giving special weight to the voice of women at
the center of gendered cultural conflicts, deliberation can clarify
the interests at stake and enhance the legitimacy of responses to
cultural conflicts (Benhabib 2002, Deveaux 2006, Song 2007).
Deliberation also provides opportunities for minority group members to
expose instances of cross-cultural hypocrisy and to consider whether
and how the norms and institutions of the larger society, whose own
struggles for gender equality are incomplete and ongoing, may
reinforce rather than challenge sexist practices within minority
groups (Song 2005). There is contestation over what constitutes
subordination and how best to address it, and intervention into
minority cultural groups without the participation of minority women
themselves fails to respect their freedom and is not likely to serve
their interests.


## 4. Political retreat from multiculturalism?



The biggest challenge to multiculturalism today may not be philosophical but
political: a political retreat or backlash against immigrant
multiculturalism in particular. Some scholars have diagnosed a
"retreat" from multiculturalism in Europe and Australia,
which they attribute to a lack of public support based partly on the
limited success of such policies to foster the integration of
minorities (Joppke 2004, McGhee 2008). But other scholars argue there
is lack of evidence of any such retreat. Based on their analysis of
British policies, Varun Uberoi and Tariq Modood find that legal
exemptions for minority religious practices, anti-discrimination
measures, and multicultural education policies remain in place, and
there is no country-wide evidence suggesting that public services are
no longer delivered in different languages (2013, 134). Further
research is needed on whether and why there has been a retreat from
multiculturalism policies.



Perhaps the claim about a "retreat" from multiculturalism
has less to do with any actual changes in state policies and more with
concerns about lack of social unity and increasing tensions among
diverse groups in liberal democratic societies and the sense that
multiculturalism is somehow to blame. Consider then-Prime Minister
David Cameron's 2011 speech: "Under the doctrine of state
multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live
separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream.
We've failed to provide a vision of society to which they [young
Muslims] feel they want to belong" (Cameron 2011). According to
Cameron, multiculturalism stands for separation and division, not
integration and unity. But the survey of different theories of
multiculturalism above demonstrates that most theories of immigrant
multiculturalism do not aim at separation but rather devising fairer
terms of inclusion for religious and cultural minorities into
mainstream society (Kymlicka 1995).



Going forward, public debate about immigrant multiculturalism should be pursued in a
broader context that considers the politics of immigration, race,
religion, and national security. Multiculturalism may become an easy
rhetorical scapegoat for public fear and anxiety whenever national
security is seen to be threatened and when economic conditions are bad. In
Europe, concerns about the radicalization of Muslim minorities have
become central to public debates about immigration and
multiculturalism. This was especially true in the face of the European
migration crisis as over a million people fleeing war and violence in
Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere made perilous journeys by sea and land
into Europe. This crisis tapped into fears about terrorism and security, especially after the November 2015 Paris and July 2016 Nice attacks; it also renewed concerns about the limits
of past efforts to integrate newcomers and their descendants. Evidence
from across Europe suggests that Muslims are struggling to succeed in
education and the labor market in comparison to other religious and
cultural minorities (Givens 2007).



Socioeconomic and political marginalization interacts with immigrants' own sense of belonging: it is hard to imagine newcomers feeling integrated before they make
significant steps toward socioeconomic integration. Integration is a two-way street: not only must immigrants work to integrate themselves, but the state itself must make accommodations to facilitate integration, as many multicultural theorists have emphasized. As
Cecile Laborde observes, North African youth in France are
"routinely blamed for not being integrated," but this
blame "confuses French society's institutional responsibility to
integrate immigrants with immigrants' personal failure to integrate
into society" (Laborde 2008, 208). The challenge of integrating
immigrants has been heightened by increasing public acceptability of
expressions of anti-Muslim sentiment. The rise of far-right political
parties and their anti-Muslim publicity campaigns, coupled with the
media's willingness to report, often uncritically, their positions
damage the prospects for integrating Muslims in Europe (Lenard 2010,
311). Muslim political leaders report that it is "part of
mainstream public dialogue" to refer to the "menace of
foreign cultures and the threat posed by immigrants in general, and
Muslims in particular, to social solidarity and cultural
homogeneity" (Klausen 2005, 123). Muslims have been, in
Laborde's words, "reduced to their presumed identity, culture,
or religion, and consequently stigmatized as immigrant, Arab, or
Muslim" (2008, 17). The challenges posed by integrating Muslims
are thought to be more complex than the challenges of integrating
earlier waves of immigrants, but as Patti Lenard argues, this alleged
complexity derives from the simplistic and unfair elision between
Islamic fundamentalism and the vast majority of Muslim minorities in
Europe who desire integration on fairer terms of the sort that
multiculturalists defend (Lenard 2010, 318).



In light of these concerns with immigrant multiculturalism,
multicultural theorists need to continue to make the case that the
ideal of multicultural citizenship stands for fairer terms of
integration, not separation and division, and offer answers to
questions such as: Why is multicultural citizenship more desirable
than the traditional liberal ideal of common citizenship based on a
uniform set of rights and opportunities for everyone? Are
multiculturalism policies actually fostering greater integration of
immigrants and their descendants? How should we think about the
relationship between multiculturalism and struggles to address
inequalities based on race, indigeneity, class, gender, sexuality, and
disability? It is also important to study the development of
multiculturalism beyond the West, including whether and how Western
theories and practices of multiculturalism have traveled and been
incorporated. For example, what lessons have states that only recently
opened up to significant immigration, such as South Korea, drawn from
the experiences of other states, and what sorts of multiculturalism
policies have they adopted and why? (Lie 2014)