The goal of this thirty ninth volume to NOMOS is to explore new normative, moral, and institutional questions about the political
and legal rights of people: rights based on ethnocultural group membership rather than on the familiar individual and collective
claims for rights based on citizenship and found in such beacons of liberal thought as the American Bill of Rights. As the editors
point out, while there is a long-standing literature devoted to the latter, the former has largely been neglected in Western
scholarship until recently. This new focus, they claim, is emerging because serious questions have been raised about the adequacy
of liberal political philosophy and institutions in providing solutions to many conflicts in the world today. The central problem studied
here is how to approach the underlying causes of ethno-nationalistic inspired conflicts, such as those in the former East European
communist states and elsewhere, and the often divisive and bitter disputes in the liberal Western states over multiculturalism,
immigration, and a host of other concerns pertaining to the politics of ethnicity.
Working from the presumption that important shifts in thinking about political and legal group rights are needed now, the seventeen
essays presented in this volume (grouped into six thematic categories) cover an impressive array of questions, issues, and case
studies. Essays by Kukathas, Walzer, Addis, and Walker debate questions about the extent to which ethnic group identity and
culturally-bound practices—practices which are sometimes obviously inconsistent with democratic freedoms and
institutions—should or should not be tolerated and accommodated into liberal democratic political life. The complex philosophical
and legal dilemmas that emerge from these discussions clearly illustrate the seemingly impossible task of reconciling core values in
liberalism with legitimate interests that many people might have by virtue of their ethnocultural group membership.
Pogge and Anaya each debate the equally complex question of to what extent, if any, can a legal standard be devised that
distinguishes ethnic group membership from lifestyle or professional or gender-based group membership. Such overlapping group
memberships characterize most people's lives. As Pogge and Anaya show, sorting these identities out is not easy. Essays by
Nickel, Réaume, and Stolzenburg take up the questions of what factors tend to expedite or to obstruct ethnic and minority groups
in acquiring legal autonomy and using their rights effectively to promote and protect their particular interests. And Young assesses
the prospects for adequate political representation of marginalized groups in the context of overlapping group memberships and in
light of the probability that a given ethnocultural minority group will most likely lack a unified set of opinions and interests. She
concludes that a new conceptualization of the meaning and function of political representation is needed. Stark poses the question
that if new forms of representation are to be created, who decides precisely which particular ethnic, racial, or lifestye group
identity is to be represented from among the complex mosaic of overlapping group memberships? More precisely, who decides
who can speak authoritatively for the group if indeed a group can be identified?
Authors of the final set of essays evaluate various strategies for resolving ethnic group conflict around the world. Horowitz
provides a careful analysis of the feasibility of the irredentist and secessionist solutions to ethnic conflict. Citing evidence from
many cases, he argues that these solutions rarely reduce conflict, despite the expectations of political elites. His findings are
consistent with the work of many others who have looked into the politics of partition. Kaspin examines causes of ethnic divisions
and conflict in Malawi's post-colonial history. She argues that former President-For-Life Banda's strategy for nation building
(which privileged the Chewa tribe and their territory over all others) ultimately backfired and led instead to an intensification of
ethnic conflict and division which spilled over in the 1994 presidential election. Ironically, this first opportunity for open political
participation might have set conditions for the beginning of a true national identity.
Essays by Jung and Seekings, Kane, and Cohen examine the course of multiculturalism in a variety of contexts. Jung and Seekings
in a study of post-apartheid South Africa, argue that whites in Ruyterwacht, a suburb of Capetown, are more open to racial
integration than in the past, but there are some important caveats: 1) the new favorable attitude is toward Coloureds in particular,
and 2) the attitude is essentially a replacement of open bigotry with what the authors refer to as a modern form of racism defined
as a mixture of egalitarianism and prejudice. Kane suggests that Australia's relative success with multiculturalism has more to do
with a popular rejection of its racist colonial legacy and with the image it wants to project to potential trading partners in Asia than
from any explicit national governmental policies. Cohen examines the politics of inclusion in the US and argues that the strategy
that eventually propelled minority white immigrant groups into mainstream American culture had to do with a long-term
demonstration of worthiness. This strategy, however, comes with the price of dilution to ethnocultural identity. She assesses the
implications for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered minority communities.
This broad sweep of content and the density of the arguments and case studies presented make plain the fact that there is a lot to
think about concerning the politics of ethnicity and group rights and new ways to think about them. The book is organized in a way
conducive to exploring multiple sides of a given issue of interest (for example, the meaning of toleration in a context of growing
ethnoculturalism). Cases pro and con are made with force, subtlety, and clarity. Hence, political philosophers will find the book
valuable and political lawyers in particular will find it useful as a guide to developing strategies in their legal cases. Policymakers
might also find it useful for the same reasons, but probably to a lesser extent. Meeting these needs makes the book a timely and
important contribution to these audiences.
But what might be the book's utility for empirical scholars? This is an important question particularly in light of the central thesis
that a research focus on group rights better explains ethnocentric conflict in most contexts than does a focus on individual rights.
An evaluation of the question shows that the book contributes considerably less to an empirical audience than to the others. For
example, with the single exception of Levy's tentative typology of cultural rights, no other essay among the seventeen presented
were dedicated specifically to sorting through the dense normative arguments with the goals of at least starting the process of
solving the complex empirical issues involved (e.g., typology, concepts, measurement strategies) and identifying testable
hypotheses. Yet it is common knowledge that these are the necessary next steps if the implications of the normative theories are
to be tested adequately and evaluated thoroughly.
The case studies presented in the latter third of the book help to illustrate the point. While interesting and convincing,
conceptualizations of ethnic group identity vary considerably across all of them, showing, in effect, a lack of consensus on central
concepts, on levels of analysis, and on common analytical approaches. In short, the editors missed an opportunity to truly identify
new directions for further research into ethnic conflict: they failed to include any discussions on the empirical issues behind the
normative essays. Thus, the question remains whether the groups'- rights approach as outlined in the book provides a better
framework for analyzing ethnic conflict than, say, Ted Gurr and associates' empirical work on minorities at risk, which was,
surprisingly, ignored.
Despite these disappointing shortcomings, there is much to be appreciated in this book. The normative essays are powerful,
interesting, informative, and timely. They reveal many complexities that must be considered in the study of ethnicity and group
rights. Solving the empirical issues is obviously the most important next step.
