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Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship

Will Kymlicka

3.58 · Rating details · 26 ratings · 2 reviews

Will Kymlicka is widely regarded as the most influential and original theorist of the rights and status of ethnocultural groups in liberal democracies.This volume brings together fifteen of Will Kymlicka's recent essays on nationalism, multiculturalism and citizenship. These essays expand on the well-known theory of minority rights first developed in his Multicultural Citi ...more

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Paperback, 392 pages

Published March 29th 2001 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published January 18th 2001)

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Jan 04, 2018 Danielle rated it it was amazing

Thank goodness for essays like these! Peace!

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Jun 26, 2008 sdw rated it really liked it

The number of stars I granted this book is not a political endorsement of its message, which lacks a critique of capitalism, to say the least. Rather, it reflects that the book is well-written, articulate, and engaging. It superbly does what it sets out to do.

This book puts forth a liberal theory of minority rights to mitigate the effects of state-sponsored nation-building. Interestingly, the author contends that while the state’s nation-building projects often requires/justifies the need for m The number of stars I granted this book is not a political endorsement of its message, which lacks a critique of capitalism, to say the least. Rather, it reflects that the book is well-written, articulate, and engaging. It superbly does what it sets out to do.

This book puts forth a liberal theory of minority rights to mitigate the effects of state-sponsored nation-building. Interestingly, the author contends that while the state’s nation-building projects often requires/justifies the need for minority rights, these same minority rights serve as justifications for state nation building projects. Kymlicka believes that “immigrant multiculturalism” and “multination federalism” provide forms of minority rights that are working well in Western democracies both to promote justice for minorities and the larger state-building project. I was surprised when he asserted that “Partly as a result of adopting these minority rights, Western democracies have learned how to deal with ethnic diversity in a peaceful and democratic way, with an almost complete absence of militancy, terrorism, violence, or state repression” (3). He does however cite exceptions: “African-Americans in the United States, guest-workers in northern Europe, illegal immigrants in southern Europe, indigenous peoples in the Americas, Australasia, and Scandinavia” (3).

Definitions: Kymlicka defines nation-building as “a process of promoting a common language, and a sense of common membership in, and equal access to, the social institutions based on that language” (27). His justification for minority rights within liberal nationalism (his term): “To oversimplify, we can say that minority rights are consistent with liberal culturalism if (a) they protect the freedom of individuals within the group; and (b) they promote relations of equality (non-dominance) between groups” (23).

Surprisingly, the larger book isn’t totally irrelevant as its definition of liberalism is “the doctrine that each person has an intrinsic moral worth; that each person’s interest must be taken into consideration by the state; and that each person should receive certain inviolable protections against mistreatment, abuse, and oppression” (69). Consequently, parts of the book can be applied to demonstrate some of the flaws in a purely individualist model of anarchism and I think libertarians (who might expect to find little in common with liberals) might discover it makes a convincing case for why minority rights are necessary.

I found the two chapters theorizing indigenous rights provocative. For example, “As a rule, stateless nations were contenders but losers in the process of European state-formation, where indigenous peoples were entirely isolated from that process until recently. Stateless nations would have liked to form their own states, but lost in the struggle for political power, whereas indigenous people existed outside the system of European states” (123). I gained a much clearer understanding of international law regarding both “stateless nations” and indigenous peoples.

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About Will Kymlicka

Will Kymlicka

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Will Kymlicka received his B.A. in philosophy and politics from Queen's University in 1984, and his D.Phil. in philosophy from Oxford University in 1987. He is the author of seven 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 Priz Will Kymlicka received his B.A. in philosophy and politics from Queen's University in 1984, and his D.Phil. in philosophy from Oxford University in 1987. He is the author of seven 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 Assocation, and the Bunche Award by the American Political Science Association, Finding Our Way: Rethinking Ethnocultural Relations in Canada (1998), Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship (2001), Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity (2007), which was awarded the North American Society for Social Philosophy’s 2007 Book Award, and Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (2011), co-authored with Sue Donaldson, which was awarded the 2013 Biennial Book Prize from the Canadian Philosophical Association

He is also the editor of Justice in Political Philosophy (Elgar, 1992), and The Rights of Minority Cultures (OUP, 1995), co-editor with Ian Shapiro of Ethnicity and Group Rights (NYU, 1997), co-editor with Wayne Norman of Citizenship in Diverse Societies (OUP, 2000), co-editor with Simone Chambers of Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society (PUP, 2001), co-editor with Magda Opalski of Can Liberal Pluralism Be Exported? (OUP, 2001), co-editor with Alan Patten of Language Rights and Political Theory (OUP, 2003), co-editor with Baogang He of Multiculturalism in Asia (OUP, 2005), co-editor with Keith Banting of Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies (OUP, 2006), co-edior with William M. Sullivan of The Globalization of Ethics: Religious and Secular Perspectives (Cambridge UP, 2007), and co-editor (with Bashir Bashir) of The Politics of Reconciliation in Multicultural Societies (OUP, 2008), co-editor with Avigail Eisenberg of Identity Politics in the Public Realm: Bringing Institutions Back In (UBC Press, 2011), co-editor with Kathryn Walker of Rooted Cosmopolitanism: Canada and the World (UBC Press, 2012), and co-editor with Eva Pfostl of Multiculturalism and Minority Rights in the Arab World (OUP, 2014).

He is currently the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen's University, and a visiting professor in the Nationalism Studies program at the Central European University in Budapest. His works have been translated into 32 languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, of the Canadian Institute For Advanced Research, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. From 2004-6, he was the President of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy. ...more