The Culturalist Challenge to Liberal Republicanism

by Michael Lusztig

Overview

It is tempting to think of liberal democracy in terms of immortality. Democracies have survived wars and depressions, Nazis and communists – so much so that at the end of the Cold War Francis Fukuyama famously declared the “end of history.” In The Culturalist Challenge to Liberal Republicanism, Michael Lusztig assesses the risks that multiculturalism and other forms of culturalism pose to liberal democracy. Establishing the nature of the current regime and exploring the emergence of a cogent theory of justice grounded in both liberal and republican theory, Lusztig demonstrates the inconsistencies between liberal republicanism and culturalist theories of justice. Exploring both the institutional and cultural effects of the tension between culturalism and liberal republicanism, he seeks a balanced view that falls somewhere between Fukuyama’s optimism for regime mortality and the pessimism inherent in the work of more conservative theorists like Samuel Huntington. Lusztig concludes that the narrowness of liberal republican justice is ameliorated by multiculturalism, but the hidden danger is that multiculturalism can serve as a stalking horse for more pernicious agendas. Given the increasing cultural diversity faced by North American and European nations, The Culturalist Challenge to Liberal Republicanism has important implications for political stability in the twenty-first century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773551053
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	09/13/2017
Series:	McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Ideas , #72
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Michael Lusztig is professor of political science at Southern Methodist University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xiii

1 The End of History or the End of the World? 3

2 Greatness, Goodness, and Equality 19

3 Liberal Republicanism: Liberty, Obligation, and Purpose 53

4 A Liberal Republican Code of Justice 81

5 Multiculturalism and Justice 103

6 A Typology of Culturalism 135

7 Welfare, Immigration, and Cultural Appropriation 160

8 Challenging the Participatory Ideal 198

9 Conclusion 223

References 237

Index 269

Editorial Reviews

"Lustzig's book offers a liberal republican theory of justice that involves reconciling four differing sets of values (equality, liberty, obligation, and purpose), and it evaluates the threats from four types of culturalism. Highly recommended." Choice


“In The Culturalist Challenge to Liberal Republicanism, Michael Lusztig provides an impressive, fair, and eloquent defence of liberal republicanism that synthesizes a wide range of sources in the history of political ideas and the social sciences.” John von Heyking, University of Lethbridge

From the Publisher