Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship Book

The number of stars I granted this book is not a political endorsement of its message, which lacks a critique of capitalism, to say the least. Rather, it reflects that the book is well-written, articulate, and engaging. It superbly does what it sets out to do.

This book puts forth a liberal theory of minority rights to mitigate the effects of state-sponsored nation-building. Interestingly, the author contends that while the state's nation-building projects often requires/justifies the need for minority rights, these same minority rights serve as justifications for state nation building projects. Kymlicka believes that "immigrant multiculturalism" and "multination federalism" provide forms of minority rights that are working well in Western democracies both to promote justice for minorities and the larger state-building project. I was surprised when he asserted that "Partly as a result of adopting these minority rights, Western democracies have learned how to deal with ethnic diversity in a peaceful and democratic way, with an almost complete absence of militancy, terrorism, violence, or state repression" (3). He does however cite exceptions: "African-Americans in the United States, guest-workers in northern Europe, illegal immigrants in southern Europe, indigenous peoples in the Americas, Australasia, and Scandinavia" (3).

Definitions: Kymlicka defines nation-building as "a process of promoting a common language, and a sense of common membership in, and equal access to, the social institutions based on that language" (27). His justification for minority rights within liberal nationalism (his term): "To oversimplify, we can say that minority rights are consistent with liberal culturalism if (a) they protect the freedom of individuals within the group; and (b) they promote relations of equality (non-dominance) between groups" (23).

Surprisingly, the larger book isn't totally irrelevant as its definition of liberalism is "the doctrine that each person has an intrinsic moral worth; that each person's interest must be taken into consideration by the state; and that each person should receive certain inviolable protections against mistreatment, abuse, and oppression" (69). Consequently, parts of the book can be applied to demonstrate some of the flaws in a purely individualist model of anarchism and I think libertarians (who might expect to find little in common with liberals) might discover it makes a convincing case for why minority rights are necessary.

I found the two chapters theorizing indigenous rights provocative. For example, "As a rule, stateless nations were contenders but losers in the process of European state-formation, where indigenous peoples were entirely isolated from that process until recently. Stateless nations would have liked to form their own states, but lost in the struggle for political power, whereas indigenous people existed outside the system of European states" (123). I gained a much clearer understanding of international law regarding both "stateless nations" and indigenous peoples.