1,721,285 research outputs found
Should Church and State Be Joined at the Altar? Women's Rights and the Multicultural Dilemma
No full textThe first section of this chapter (Women and family law) demonstrates why women living in minority groups are more vulnerable than men to maltreatment in the family‐law context. In the second section, two extant approaches to family‐law accommodation (the ‘secular absolutist’ model, and the ‘religious particularist’ model) are discussed that exemplify the family‐law arrangements adopted in numerous legal democracies. In the last section, a new alternative multicultural approach is developed to family‐law accommodation. This is called the ‘joint‐governance’ model, and while it respects the crucial identity‐preserving function of family law, it also seeks to provide women living in close‐knit religious or cultural groups with the legal protection guaranteed to them as state citizenship
Governance of religious diversity at the European Court of Human Rights
No full textThis chapter explores the role of international courts in the governance of religious diversity. Drawing on recent sociological and socio-legal debates over causes and consequences of ‘judicialization’, the paper explores the impact of the European Court of Human Rights on the accommodation of religious minorities. With institutional autonomy strengthened and litigation rates growing, the Court has since the 1990s moved to greater judicial activism, finding several countries in violation of the right to religious freedom and thus challenging long-established church-state-relations in Eastern as well as in Western Europe. However, there are clear limits to the Court’s support for religious minorities. The Court refrains from full-scale criticism of national religious symbols and its jurisprudence shifts between more or less diversity-friendly versions of ‘secularism’. As a result, not all religious minorities have profited equally from the new legal opportunities provided within the transnational human rights field
Education for Citizenship. IHS Political Science Series No. 40, February 1997
Full text linkAlthough it is widely accepted that a basic task of schooling is to prepare each new generation for their responsibilities as citizens, the appropriate form and content of citizenship education is often controversial. This paper discusses some of these controversies. I begin by arguing that citizenship is more complicated than is often realized, and that even ‘minimal’ conceptions of citizenship impose significant obligations and constraints on individual and group behaviour. I then consider three inter-related areas of debate: whether citizenship education requires common schooling; whether promoting responsible citizenship requires promoting personal autonomy; and whether promoting a shared civic identity requires teaching not only shared political values or principles but also promoting particular national or cultural identities. These three issues help illustrate the centrality of education for citizenship to both political theory and educational philosophy
Kymlicka Will et Mesure Sylvie, <i>Les Identités culturelles</i>
No full textInternational audience[Kymlicka, Will (dir.) et Mesure, Sylvie (dir.), Les Identités culturelles. – Paris : PUF, 2000 – 422 p. ISBN : 2-13-051028-0
Kymlicka (Will) Les théories de la justice. Une introduction
No full textDieckhoff. Kymlicka (Will) Les théories de la justice. Une introduction. In: Critique internationale, vol. 6. 2000. Rationalités de la violence extrême, sous la direction de Jacques Sémelin. pp. 76-77
Discourse ethics, power, and legitimacy: The ideal of democracy and the task of critical theory in Habermas.
No full textMy thesis is concerned with the efficacy of Habermas' critical theory as an articulation of emancipatory interest, by way of critical diagnosis of social reality, which will make the ideal of free society possible. In his earlier theory of communicative action, he introduced a distinction between "the lifeworld" (the sphere of communicative interaction geared toward understanding) and "systems" (the spheres of strategic action steered by media of power and money). On this model, the pathologies of modern society were understood in terms of the colonization of the lifeworld by the systems, and emancipation was understood as preventing this colonization. In his recent works, however, this older model is seen as unable to account for legitimate power: i.e., it is unable to explain how citizens can convert their communicative understanding developed in the lifeworld into government policies. This leads Habermas to redefine the possibility of free society, emancipation, in terms of legitimate lawmaking. The turn to legal theory in Between Facts and Norms is anchored in the concept of modern law, which is situated between the lifeworld and system and as such is said to mediate between the two. Legitimate lawmaking is understood as the result of institutionalized procedures of public deliberation, which convert citizens' practices of self-determination, in the form of communicative and participatory rights, into the binding decision of political power. I will argue that the constructed concept of law, as what brings the insight of moral norms to bear upon the context of practical life, sits uncomfortably between the lifeworld and system. By aligning so closely the concepts of legitimate law, communicative power, and political system, Habermas' new approach fails to ensure emancipation since it legitimizes the political power as exercised in liberal-democratic states. I contend that the critical thrust of Habermas' theory can be regained by borrowing from the insights of postmodern political theory. Specifically, I will draw upon Foucault's analysis of power, which goes beyond the limitations of the consensus/coercion model of Habermas' view, and Derrida's deconstruction of law, which recovers the critical distance between the utopian ideal of justice and the real-existing political system
Multicultural citizenship or citizenship in a multicultural polity .
No full textCitizenship in liberal democracies has, until recently, been theorized as conferring equal legal status on all citizens irrespective of their race, religion, ethnicity, culture or language. While much discrimination and unequal treatment existed in practice, the theory was that all citizens should be treated equally, exactly the same, regardless of their individual characteristics; the state should be neutral in dealing with its citizens. In recent years, political theorists such as Charles Taylor, Will Kymlicka, Yael Tamir, J. Raz, Iris Marion Young, and Anne Phillips have challenged both the practice and theory of the traditional view of citizenship. They argue that state neutrality has not been the case in actual practice; states discriminate in favour of dominant cultures. Furthermore the say such neutrality is, for a variety of reasons, impossible They also argue that it is not desirable even in theory. An individual's culture is essential to their being and deserves to be positively recognized by the state. This thesis argues that, while there are problems with the traditional view of a difference-blind citizenship and the idea of the neutral state, the philosophical arguments put forward by the critics are untenable. These arguments, and the political policies their implementation would entail, pose insurmountable problems for democratic deliberation and fail to take account of possible empirical results. The traditional view of citizenship and state neutrality can be rethought and implemented in what is called "the indifferent state"---a state which, while indifferent to its citizens' culture, religion etc., is not indifferent to the impact that these may have on the instantiation of such traditional liberal political values as equality and autonomy. The thesis concludes with three case studies which illustrate the differences in approach between the traditional view of citizenship, the view of the critics, and that of the indifferent state
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