The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era

by Seyla Benhabib

How can liberal democracy best be realized in a world fraught with conflicting new forms of identity politics and intensifying conflicts over culture? This book brings unparalleled clarity to the contemporary debate over this question. Maintaining that cultures are themselves torn by conflicts about their own boundaries, Seyla Benhabib challenges the assumption shared by many theorists and activists that cultures are clearly defined wholes. She argues that much debate--including that of "strong" multiculturalism, which sees cultures as distinct pieces of a mosaic--is dominated by this faulty belief, one with grave consequences for how we think injustices among groups should be redressed and human diversity achieved. Benhabib masterfully presents an alternative approach, developing an understanding of cultures as continually creating, re-creating, and renegotiating the imagined boundaries between "us" and "them."


Drawing on contemporary cultural politics from Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, Benhabib develops a double-track model of deliberative democracy that permits maximum cultural contestation within the official public sphere as well as in and through social movements and the institutions of civil society. Agreeing with political liberals that constitutional and legal universalism should be preserved at the level of polity, she nonetheless contends that such a model is necessary to resolve multicultural conflicts.


Analyzing in detail the transformation of citizenship practices in European Union countries, Benhabib concludes that flexible citizenship, certain kinds of legal pluralism and models of institutional powersharing are quite compatible with deliberative democracy, as long as they are in accord with egalitarian reciprocity, voluntary self-ascription, and freedom of exit and association. The Claims of Culture offers invaluable insight to all those, whether students or scholars, lawyers or policymakers, who strive to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of cultural politics in the twenty-first century.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Cultural, Sociology, Academic, Nonfiction, Theory

216 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2002

About the author

Seyla Benhabib is a Turkish Jewish professor of political science and philosophy at Yale, and director of the program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, and a well-known contemporary philosopher. She previously taught in the departments of philosophy at Boston University, SUNY Stony Brook, the New School for Social Research, and the Department of Government at Harvard University.

She is the author of several books, most notably about the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas. She has also worked with many important philosophers and scholars, including Herbert Marcuse. Benhabib is well known for combining critical theory with feminist theory.

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tough one to rate. The first two chapters are an excellent intervention into debates about culture and politics; the philosophical case against cultural holism is made successfully and sharply.
The final chapter "What lies beyond the nation-state?" is kind of thinly argued and now seems somewhat dated, she's got much more to say on the subject (and will, in subsequent books), but this chapter doesn't impress.

The middle chapters are of far less general interest to most readers. The arguments there are really "in the trenches" of some rather arcane aspects of some philosophical debates of limited interest to even most political theorists. (I think her arguments here are probably largely correct, but ultimately of little consequence).

Aside from the first two chapters, I'd recommend readers turn to one of her more recent books, The Rights of Others (2004) or Another Cosmopolitanism (2006).

[Ammon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find myself substantially in agreement with her arguments, and I think Benhabib does a good job of her central goal of explaining what's wrong with what she calls "cultural holism" (the idea that cultures have unequivocal meanings and coherent boundaries) --- but apart from the central thesis large parts of the book are rather thinly argued. And the writing is the worst kind of bland academic "long sentence made into subject phrase is another long sentence made into object phrase that is strung together by lots of verbal nouns that could have been their own smaller sentences." Lord knows I've written this way --- it's easy in academia. But that's what editing is for.

[Aeisele · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I'm typically more in the cultural relativist camp on human rights, but I think Benhabib has won me over. She has a very interesting view (based on Habermas) about universal human rights and the interplay between that and discourse ethics, and very convincingly shows that women and children are usually the one's who suffer when cultural relativism is upheld. Very interesting for anyone interested in understanding justice is a pluralistic world.

[Sil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me gusta el enfoque filosófico sobre los problemas actuales de ciudadanía y nacionalidad, una dupla que parece, ademas de estar de moda, la entrada al nuevo milenio. HR (Highly recommendable)Se lee muy bien en conjunto con el libro de Appiah "Cosmopolitanismo". Me faltan 2 capítulos.

[Fed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but keep your dictionary handy!

[Ben Jaques-Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this a long time ago for my Social Theory class. I don't remember it at all. So that's kind of a review, right?

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just read intro, chapters 1, 3, 5, 6.

Political theorist's response to political and national movements based on the basis of common culture. Clearly written but limited applicability now?

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not that far in, but so far she's pretty spot-on.

[Eduardo Guzmán Utreras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.