Cultural rights are one response to the mistreatment of minorities by dominant groups. Their protection has become a litmus test for the liberal nature of democratic states. At the same time, criticisms of cultural rights abound in scholarship and popular discourse. These include concerns that cultural rights distort and essentialize culture, that cultural protections shield gender discrimination, and that cultural rights legitimize a false narrative about the capacity of Western states to act justly towards subjugated minorities and, in particular, indigenous peoples.The question addressed here is whether the protection of cultural rights, as defended by Kymlicka in his 1989 book Liberalism, Community and Culture, is still an important project today in light of these criticisms and against the background of recent political circumstances which find some political leaders distancing themselves from multiculturalism and where, once again, cultural difference is used to exclude minorities from the full rights of citizenship.

KEY WORDS:  Kymlicka, liberalism, multiculturalism, cultural minorities, colonialism

Cultural rights are one response to the mistreatment of minorities by dominant groups. Their protection has become a litmus test for the liberal nature of democratic states. At the same time, criticisms of cultural rights abound in scholarship and popular discourse. These include concerns that cultural rights distort and essentialize culture, that cultural protections shield gender discrimination, and that cultural rights legitimize a false narrative about the capacity of Western states to act justly towards subjugated minorities and, in particular, indigenous peoples.The question addressed here is whether the protection of cultural rights, as defended by Kymlicka in his 1989 book Liberalism, Community and Culture, is still an important project today in light of these criticisms and against the background of recent political circumstances which find some political leaders distancing themselves from multiculturalism and where, once again, cultural difference is used to exclude minorities from the full rights of citizenship.

KEY WORDS:  Kymlicka, liberalism, multiculturalism, cultural minorities, colonialism

Will Kymlicka’s Liberalism, Community and Culture attempted to explain why cultural identity was important to people, and how liberal theory could accommodate cultural identity. Kymlicka’s book argued that minority cultures deserve to have certain kinds of rights to help them survive. Cultural membership, he argued, was such an important good that liberal political theory was amiss in overlooking it; it needed to be amended in order to recognize that the self-respect of most people was tied to cultural membership, and that people needed a secure cultural context in which to make choices. Yet the importance of the self-respect argument fades in Kymlicka’s later book Multicultural Citizenship, which gives more emphasis to larger cultural groups that are marked off by language.  In this article, I focus on the shift that Kymlicka makes between the two books, arguing that the revisions that Kymlicka made to the argument in Liberalism, Community and Culture were necessary, while making the argument less theoretically satisfying.

KEYWORDS:  Kymlicka, cultural rights, multiculturalism, liberalism, minorities, nationalism, community, pluralism, culture

Will Kymlicka’s Liberalism, Community and Culture attempted to explain why cultural identity was important to people, and how liberal theory could accommodate cultural identity. Kymlicka’s book argued that minority cultures deserve to have certain kinds of rights to help them survive. Cultural membership, he argued, was such an important good that liberal political theory was amiss in overlooking it; it needed to be amended in order to recognize that the self-respect of most people was tied to cultural membership, and that people needed a secure cultural context in which to make choices. Yet the importance of the self-respect argument fades in Kymlicka’s later book Multicultural Citizenship, which gives more emphasis to larger cultural groups that are marked off by language.  In this article, I focus on the shift that Kymlicka makes between the two books, arguing that the revisions that Kymlicka made to the argument in Liberalism, Community and Culture were necessary, while making the argument less theoretically satisfying.

KEYWORDS:  Kymlicka, cultural rights, multiculturalism, liberalism, minorities, nationalism, community, pluralism, culture

This article introduces the thematic section of Two Homelands celebrating the 25^th anniversary of the publication of Will Kymlicka’s Liberalism, Community and Culture, one of the seminal books on multiculturalism and contemporary political theory in general. It contextualizes this symposium [thematic section] by identifying some of the assumptions that the then-existing liberal conceptions of justice were based upon when addressing issues related to cultural diversity. At the same time, it summarizes the argument for cultural rights advanced by Kymlicka in Liberalism, Community and Culture. It then presents the papers that are part of this symposium [thematic section] and their contribution to the understanding the liberal conception of multiculturalism has had on all subsequent theorizing over cultural diversity and civic equality.

KEYWORDS: liberalism, multiculturalism, civic equality, cultural rights, Will Kymlicka

This article introduces the thematic section of Two Homelands celebrating the 25^th anniversary of the publication of Will Kymlicka’s Liberalism, Community and Culture, one of the seminal books on multiculturalism and contemporary political theory in general. It contextualizes this symposium [thematic section] by identifying some of the assumptions that the then-existing liberal conceptions of justice were based upon when addressing issues related to cultural diversity. At the same time, it summarizes the argument for cultural rights advanced by Kymlicka in Liberalism, Community and Culture. It then presents the papers that are part of this symposium [thematic section] and their contribution to the understanding the liberal conception of multiculturalism has had on all subsequent theorizing over cultural diversity and civic equality.

KEYWORDS: liberalism, multiculturalism, civic equality, cultural rights, Will Kymlicka