Will Kymlicka

Immigration, Multiculturalism, and the Welfare State
Will Kymlicka & Keith Banting (2006). Ethics & International Affairs, 20(3), 281-304.

In spite of a increasingly prevailing public assumption of a potential trade-off between inclusive immigration policies and the maintenance of a robust welfare state, Kymlicka and Banting argue that there Besides the issues of security and terrorism that prevail in many circles about massive immigration, Kymlicka and Banting point out that there is little evidence about the impact of increasing ethnic diversity on the welfare state and the claim of an inevitable trade-off between them may be premature.

Kymlicka and Banting defines two concerns in this debate: (1) A growing heterogeneity/ethnic diversity in society will inevitably loosen national solidarity across ethnic lines, thus resulting in making more difficult achieving redistribution of resources or sustaining a robust welfare state (the heterogeneity/redistribution trade-off) (2) Multiculturalism policies that promote recognition of each culture will exacerbate weaken the politics of (economic) redistribution (the recognition/redistribution trade-off).

In the first case, the authors state that a general acceptance of the trade-off is generally drawn from case studies done in the United State, where scholars concluded that there is a universal tendency for people to resist interethnic redistribution. The authors argue that the studies are deeply rooted in the country's peculiar history of slavery and segregation, thus providing little evidence for a potential erosion of Canadian welfare state as a result of a growing ethnic diversity that new immigrants bring into the society.

Secondly, the authors observe the debate even among multiculturalism defendants over the dilemma between the politics of recognition and the politics of redistribution in the process of their commitment to social justice and equality. In this regard, the author state that this concern, unlike the first one, is not based on empirical studies but entirely speculative and conjectural.

Within this context, the authors conclude their research on the trade-offs as follows:

"There is no evidence here that countries with large immigrant populations have greater difficulty in sustaining and enhancing their historic welfare commitments. But large changes do seem to matter. It is the pace of social change rather than the fact of ethnic diversity per se that stands out here as politically unsettling." (p. 293)

Examining change in social spending as a proportion of GDP and change in the redistributive impact of taxes and transfers between 1980 and 2000 in twenty-one countries, the authors conclude that "the countries with the strongest immigrant multiculturalism policies did better than the other groups, providing a hint that perhaps multiculturalism policies may actually ease possible tensions between heterogeneity and redistribution." (p. 295)

They support this conclusion with a similar study conducted with indigenous peoples and national minorities: there is no evidence a politics of recognition that entails a trade-off with a politics of redistribution. Instead, the authors suggest that it is state management and politics that turns ethnic diversity into a source of erosion of the national welfare state and solidarity and trust among peoples.

The authors delineates three ways in which multiculturalism policies promote solidarity: (1) in contrast to claims made by critiques of multiculturalism, multiculturalism policies can help to combat the stereotypes and stigmatizations that currently erode feelings of solidarity across ethnic and racial lines. (2) the policies should be supplemented with nation-building policies, such as language training programs, citizenship education in the schools, the shared celebration of national heroes and holidays, citizenship ceremonies for immigrants, and so on. (3) What's more, these policies should be sustained with the national adoption of multiculturalism as a national identity. In this regards, the authors write, "Multiculturalism arguably plays this role in Canada. Affirming multiculturalism has become part of what it means to ‘‘be Canadian,’’ and, more specifically, part of what it means to be a ‘‘good Canadian" (p. 301). Thus the authors call attention to multiculturalism as an essential Canadian nationhood.

The authors' nation-centered narrative seems to stem from their perspective on nation solidarity:

"On the one hand, our findings cast doubt on pessimistic claims about the conflict between diversity and solidarity, and this should indirectly lend support to the struggles of noncitizens, making greater space for an open-minded consideration of their claims on their own merits. On the other hand, however, our findings do not cast doubt on the importance of national solidarity, and our own best guess is that those countries that have done well in combining diversity and solidarity have done so by linking immigration and multiculturalism to the promotion of national citizenship." (p. 303-304)

Liberal Nationalism and Cosmopolitan Justice. (2006). In Seyla Benhabib, Another Cosmopolitanism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kymlicka states, "at the heart of citizenship rights are individual liberties" (p. 128).

He regards the nation-state as the privileged locus for political participation, self-government, and solidarity. Looking at the model of citizenship developed within the liberal democratic political system in the West in the past two centuries, Kymlicka points out that this political reordering was nearly universal and embarked on "'national-building' policies aimed at the diffusion of a common national identity, culture, and language throughout the territory of the state" (p. 129)

He argues that, while this model of "liberal nationhood" succeeded in ensuring democracy, individual rights and economic prosperity, it involved injustice against immigrants, indigenous or regional minorities and neighboring nation-states.

Refuting the thought that these injustices are not intrinsic to liberal nationhood, Kymlicka contests that they are inherent risks of the pursuit of liberal nationhood and in fact responsible for many harms executed in the twenties century. In this dilemma, Kymlicka argues two options: (1) taming liberal nationhood approach, by adopting a multicultural concept for immigrants, a multination concept for indigenous and substate minorities to condone autonomy, and geopolitical agreements with neighboring nation-states. or (2) transcending liberal nation by building postnational or cosmopolitan citizenship.

In his response to Benhabib's call for cosmopolital norms instead of liberal nationhood, Kymlicka argues that the two concepts are commensurate. He states:

[O]ne concept of the nature and function of cosmopolitan norms is precisely to pomote (a tamed form of) liberal nationhood, and that this conception is conceptually coherent, politically feasible, and morally progressive. (p. 131)

Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship. (2001). New York: Oxford University Press.

For Kymlicka, crucial in the theories and practices of West democracies is to see claims for minority rights as a defensive response to an assault on the basic dignity and respect in the process of state nation-building, instead of 'special status' or 'privilege'. He states that the Western democracies are a complex package of robust forms of nation-building constrained by robust forms of minority rights.

Kymlicka refutes the discourse of minority rights as the old liberalism-vs-communitarianism debate, such that communitarians supported rights of ethnocultural communities whereas liberalism opposed them in the name of individualism. He asserts that debates over minority rights within liberalism are increasingly about fair accommodations of cultural diversity within liberal institutions.

Kymlicka also argues that human rights are insufficient to ensure justice between ethnocultural groups, thus minority rights must supplement human rights.

Chapter 1.
Kymlicka summarizes that the debate over minority rights before 1989 was characterized with theoretical confrontation between liberals and communitarians. Kymlicka explains that liberals prioritize individual freedom to choose the good life, whereas communitarians dispute the concept of autonomous individuals and rather regard individuals as the product of social practices which define the good life. In this stage, minority rights were viewed as the communitarian critique of liberalism, defending communal group rights against liberal individualism.

This dichotomy, however, is an old one, according to Kymlicka. Kymlicka highlights recent debate over minority rights within a liberal perspective. Central to this debate is to distinguish 'good' minority rights to supplement individual rights.
Kymlicka observes the current tendency of nation-building efforts in modern liberal states by creating a societal culture that involves a common language and social institutions, as seen in the United States. Kymlicka questions the impact of nation-building on minority rights and justice.

Observing the recent public recognition that difference-blind rules may cause disadvantages for minority groups, Kymlicka rightly points out that multiculturalism is widely accepted although there remain profound disagreements over specific policies of multiculturalism. Along with this general disposition, he remarks another common argument that recognition of minority rights threatens to erode citizenship. With this respect, Kymlicka argues that recognizing minority rights, on the contrary, would strengthen solidarity by removing barriers that prevent minority from full participation in political institutions.

Chapter 8. The theory and Practice of Immigrant Multiculturalism (152-176)

"The first country to officially adopt such a 'multiculturalism' policy at the national level was Canada in 1971" (p. 154).

For Kymlicka, demands for multiculturalism is a response to the government's nation-building of pressuring immigrants to integrate into common educational, economical and political institutions operating in the national language. In particular about immigrant multiculturalism policy, Kymlicka disputes critiques that multiculturalism continues to ghettoize immigrants and balkanizes society. He emphasizes that the policies are clearly integrationist and promotes institutional integration through education and citizenship practices. He argues:

The idea that multiculturalism is promoting an apartheid-like system of institutional separatism is, I think, wholly misplaced. But is it promoting a kind of mental separatism, encouraging immigrants to dwell on the life they left behind, rather than the opportunities available in their new country? This is a more plausible worry. However institutional integration is likely to generate over time a sense of psychological identification. The fact that common institutions bring together the members of different ethnic groups has important ramifications both personally and politically. At the personal level, it means that people meet (and indeed often fall in love with) members of other ethnic groups, propmoting inter-ethnic friendships and marriages. These relationships are intimately tied up with one's new life here, not with the Old World. (p. 167-168)

[Criticism: his division between new world and old world, new opportunities are not that rosy in the new world, some interpersonal relations do not melt inveterate racism and other hierarchy. In fact, people do not mix as much as he imagines.]

According to Kymlicka, immigrants must engage in common institutions and contribute to democratic citizenship under the institutional multiculturalism policies. He states:

Politically, it[multiculturalism] means that people must learn how to negotiate with the members of other ethnic groups...The inevitable result is that groups must focus on how to contribute to the new life here, rather than simply dwelling on the society left behind. In short, institutional integration makes possible the kind of civic engagement that supports democratic citizenship. (p. 168)

Kymlicka calls his view of multiculturalism 'pluralizing' or 'hybridic', which "does not involve the preservation of distinct cultures (since ethnic identities weaken and incorporate aspects of the larger culture), but nor is it assimilation (since ethnic groups change the larger society as they integrate)" (p. 168-169). He asserts that immigrants common demands for language training assistance, for instance, indicate their intention of integration. Central to his argument appears to be the backlash against immigrant multiculturalism among native-born citizens. He argues:

[T]he logic of multiculturalism involves accepting the principle of state-prescribed integraion, but renegotiation the terms of integration...So immigrants accept the principle of integration into common institutions: they are simply seeking fairer terms of integration. If the state is going to pressure immigrants to integrates into common institutions operating in the national language, then immigrant groups understandably want to ensure that the terns of integration are fair. This demand is not only justified, but long overdue. (p. 169)

The Politics of Recognition

Taylor, Charles. (1994). In Amy Gutmann (Ed.)., Multiculturalism: Examining the politics of recognition (pp. 25-73). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

I. (Genesis of recognition)
In this discussion of the politics of multiculturalism, Taylor calls for urgent demand for recognition because of its link to identity. He defines identity as "a person's understanding of who they are, of their fundamental defining characteristics as a human being" (p. 25). He asserts that identity is partly shaped by recognition, its absence or misrecognition, thus inflicting harm to, or oppressing, someone. Oppressed construction of identity for generations, according to Taylor, has resulted in self-depreciation, which he regards as the most potent instruments of their own oppression. He states:

[M]isrecognition shows not just a lack of due respect. It can inflict a grievous wound, saddling its victims with a crippling self-hatred. Due recognition is not just a courtesy we owe people. It is a vital human need. (p. 26)

Taylor argues that recognition became important with the "the massive subjective turn of modern culture, a new form of inwardness" (p. 29) in the eighteenth century. He regards Rousseau as an important figure who articulated this notion, saying,"Rousseau frequently presents the issue of morality as that of our following a voice of nature within us". Thus, Taylor writes, "Our moral salvation comes from recovering authentic moral contact with ourselves" (p. 29). While looking for the moral ideal, we can come down to ourselves, true to ourselves, from this perspective. This leads to defining ourselves. It is the ideal of authenticity that Taylor calls.

[It appears to me that by authenticity Taylor means inward measurement with respect to morality, that constitutes modern consciousness, instead of seeking outward conformity.]

Taylor thinks that the ideal of authenticity is partly due to an offshoot of the decline of hierarchical society, where identification was primarily socially derived. Refusing socially derived identification, the ideal of authenticity regards one being inwardly generated, Taylor denotes.

However, Taylor contests that there is no inward generation. He asserts that we become full human, understanding ourselves and defining identity, by acquiring rich human languages of expression through exchanges with our significant others. He states:

"We don't just learn the languages in dialogue and then go on to use them for our own purposes. We are of course expected to develop our own opinions, outlook, stances toward things, and to a considerable degree through solitary reflection. But this is not how things work with important issues, like the definition of our identity. We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us." (pp. 32-33)

In this vein, Taylor emphasizes that our identity is defined and continuously redefined through dialogues with our significant others. He says that, although we cannot liberate oneself completely from the early childhood experience, we should strive to define ourselves on our own, getting certain control over our dependency. Warning against the adherence to monological ideals that shun dialogues, he writes:

"It forgets how our understanding of the good things in life can be transformed by our enjoying them in common with people we love; how some goods become accessible to us only through such common enjoyment...If some of the things I value most are accessible to me only in relation to the person I love, then she becomes part of my identity." (33-34)

Thus, identity is negotiated. Taylor stressed that important to this inwardly derived, personal and original identity is that this identity is not always recognized. Taylor states:

"Yet inwardly derives, personal, original identity doesn't enjoy this recognition a priori. It has to win it through exchange, and the attempt can fail. What has come about with the modern age is not the need for recofnition but the conditions in which the attempt to be recognized can fail. That is why the need is now acknowledge for the first time." (34-35)

He states that the topic of recognition is much owed to Hegel. Taylor identifies two spheres of recognition: the intimate sphere and the public sphere. In the intimate sphere, we form our identity through continuous dialogue and struggle with our significant others. In the public sphere, a politics of equal recognition plays a bigger role in society. As suggested at the outset, Taylor put an emphasis on recognition of identity by regarding the withholding of recognition as a possible form of oppression.

II. (About the politics of equal recognition of identity)
Taylor compares two modern Western politics, politics of dignity and politics of difference. According to him, the politics of dignity, grounding in universalism, emphasizes the equal dignity of all citizens, being blind to differences among them, whereas the politics of differences stresses the recognition of unique identity of an individual or group and their distinctiveness from each other. Thus contrasting to the politics of universal dignity that is favor of forms of nondiscrimination that is blind to difference, the politics of differences sees nondiscrimination as a requirement of differential treatment for distinctions in order to preserve and cherish the distinctness 'forever'. Taylor points out that such reverse discrimination is not a temporary apparatus to level the playing field, but rather a mechanism to maintain the difference.

Taylor asserts that the politics of dignity is based on the idea that all humans are equally worthy of respect. Important to this idea, he denotes, is that it is a universal human potential, a capacity that all humans share, not individual persons might have made of, that calls for respect. Taylor underpins the universal potentiality in the politics of difference as the potential for "forming and defining one's own identity, as an individual, and also as a culture" (p. 42). He continues to write, "This potentiality must be respected equally in everyone. But at least in the intercultural context, a stronger demand has recently arisen: that one accord equal respect to actually evolved cultures" (p. 42).

Thus, the two modes of politics, both based on the notion of equal respect, come into conflict, Taylor writes. While the first criticizes that the other violates the principle of nondiscrimination, the second reproaches the politics of dignity for their negation of individual identity. With this respect, Taylor states:

"The claim is that the supposedly neutral set of difference-blind principles of the politics of equal dignity is in fact a reflection of one hegemonic culture. As it turns out, then, only the minority or suppressed cultures are being forced to take alien form. Consequently, the supposedly fair and difference-blind society is not only inhuman (because suppressing identities) but also, in a subtle and unconscious way, itself highly discriminatory." (p. 43)

Liberalism, which assumes universal, difference-blind principles, is on attack. With this respect, Taylor himself casts doubt on the principles of liberalism. He writes:

"The charge leveled by the most radical forms of the politics of difference is that 'blind' liberalisms are themselves the reflection of particular cultures. And the worrying thought is that this bias might not just be a contingent weakness of all hitherto proposed theories, that the very idea of such a liberalism may be a kind of pragmatic contradiction, a particularism masquerading as the universal." (p. 44)

III. (the emergence of the politics of equal dignity)
Taylor finds in Rousseau (and Kant) the emergence of the politics of equal dignity in Western civilization and explains as follows: Rousseau refuted the society of honor, where people are in competition in a hierarchical society. Instead, caring about the esteem in his republican model, he insisted that all citizens are to be equally honored regardless of their differentiation or distinction with one another. Thus he spawned the age of dignity.

Taylor sharply points out that Rousseau's new politics of equal dignity is flawed not only because it failed to recognize any differentiation, but also because it required a very tight common purpose, or general will, by rigorously excluding the differentiation. This perspective, Taylor notes, has been the formula for the most terrible forms of homogenizing tyranny, extending to the totalitarian regimes of our century.

IV. (A confrontation of the two conceptions rights-liberalism in a Canadian context)
Taylor examines the confrontation of the two conceptions--one is a liberalism of equal rights or politics of universal dignity and the other is due acknowledgment to distinctness. He sees this examination as related to diversity and multicultural society, which he regards as inevitable.

Reflected on the Canadian Charter of Rights in 1982, the conflict became a real issue, he writes. According to him, it follows American precedent that ratified "equal protection" for all citizens under the laws in the Fourth Amendment.

Against Quebeckers' demand for collective goals, English Canada argues that (1) the collective goals restrict individual rights and (2) espousing collective goals on behalf of a national group can be inherently discriminatory because all under the same jurisdiction belong to the same national group.

Taylor finds in the thought of Immanuel Kant the profound philosophical assumptions underlying this view of liberalism, which is that individuals can determine a view of the good life in autonomy. Based on the view of Kantian philosophy (grounded in self-determining human agents), a liberal society is drawn that must remain neutral on the good life and only ensure that the state deals equally with all. Taylor explains that Quebec, a society with collective goals, violates this model because its policies, aimed at survival, actively seeks to create members of the community. He writes:

"It is not just a matter of having the French language available for those who might choose it. This might be seen to be the goal of some of the measures of federal bilingualism over the last twenty years. But it also involves making sure that there is a community of people here in the future that will want to avail itself of the opportunity to use the French language. Policies aimed at survival actively seek to create [sic] members of the community, for instance, in their assuring that future generations continue to identify as French-speakers. There is no way that these policies could be seen as just providing a facility to already existing people." (pp. 58-59)

Taylor describes a Quebec version of liberal society, where the nature of the good is to be sought in common through public policy, and yet accommodating minorities who do not share the public definitions of the good. Taylor argues that a society with collective goals as such can be liberal on the two conditions: (1) it is capable of respecting diversity and (2) it can offer adequate safeguards for fundamental rights.

V. (The politics of equal respect)
In contrast to the politics of equal rights, which he calls inhospitable to difference, Taylor calls for the politics of equal respect, which is cleared of homogenizing difference.

He critiques that "liberalism is not a possible meeting ground for all cultures, but is the political expression of one range of cultures, and quite incompatible with other ranges", "liberalism can't and shouldn't claim complete cultural neutrality. Liberalism is also a fighting creed" (p. 62). The reason for this is, he explains, that it requires a scheduling of rights. (One get a precedence over another.)

He calls attention to recognizing the equal value of different cultures in an affirmative way, that is to say, "we not only let them survive, but acknowledge their worth" (p. 64) He brings Frantz Fanon as an exemplary figure who called for a struggle to purge themselves of the depreciating self-images imposed by colonizers in order to begin with struggle for freedom.

Taylor writes "[T]here is perhaps after all a moral issue here" (p. 73) and seeks "something midway between inauthentic and homogenizing demand for recognition of equal worth, on one hand, and the self-immurement within ethnocentric standards, on the other" (p. 72).