Identity Politics in the Public Realm

Identity Politics

Groups are politicized on the basis of gender, ethnicity, language, religion, race, indigeneity to make claims for resources or opportunities based on some aspect of their identity.

Normative Political theory

…explores how claims to the recognition and accommodation of identity relate to broader principles of justice, freedom, human rights, and democratic citizenship (see Appiah 2005, Gutmann 2003, Kymlicka 1995, Taylor 1994, Tully 1995; for a notable exception and dissent, see Barry 2001).

Empirical Social Science

…explores the social and political processes which actually underpin the politicization of identity groups (see, e.g. Deveaux 2008, Jung 2008, Tilley 2002, etc.).

Risks of Identity Politics and Political Mobilization1. Entrenching elite hierarchies

Deveaux 2008, Shachar 2001, Song 2007

State accommodation can embolden group elites to exert pressure on their members to respect traditional lines of authorityor State refusal to accommodate can trigger cultural defensiveness or reactivism which reinforces power of conservative traditions (and elites) to shield the group from outside pressures

2. Cooptation/domesticationAlfred 1999, Coultard 2007, see Brysk 2000

Risk that identity politics offers minor adjustments while diverting resources of vulnerable groups away from political struggles that are more directly relevant to addressing underlying causes of injustice

3. Essentialism and stereotypingPhillips 2007

Identity groups will press their claims by playing into mainstream stereotypes and thereby encouraging narrow and stereotypical understandings of what constitutes their identities

4. Social fragmentation/group polarizationMiller 1995, Putnam 2007

Identity politics encourages people to mobilize on the basis of what distinguishes them rather than unites them and it undermines social trust

How do public institutions respond to the risks of identity politics?

Factors that make a difference to institutional responses

• History matters• International influences• Democratic engagement/effective participation• Institutional reflexivity/humility

References

1. Introduction: Bringing Institutions Back InAvigail Eisenberg and Will Kymlicka

2. Democratic Dilemmas of Census Categorization in the Post-Civil Rights EraMelissa Nobles

 3. Knowledge and the Politics of Ethnic Identity and Belonging in Colonial and Post-Colonial States Bruce Berman

4. Defining Indigeneity: The Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997 in the Philippines, Representation and Indigenous IdentityVillia Jefremovas and Padmapani L. Perez

 5. Defining Indigeneity in Latin America: How to Classify Afro-descendants?Juliet Hooker

 6. Domestic and International Norms for Assessing Indigenous IdentityAvigail Eisenberg

 7. The Challenge of Naming the Other in Latin AmericaVictor Armony

8. From Immigrants to Muslims: How the French Politics of Integration Transformed SecularismEléonore Lépinard

 9. Beliefs” and “religion”: categorizing cultural distinctions among East AsiansAndré Laliberté

10. Assessing Religious Identity in Law: Sincerity, Accommodation and HarmLori G. Beaman

 11. Reasonable Accommodations and the Subjective Conception of Freedom of Conscience and ReligionJocelyn Maclure

• Forthcoming UBC Press Fall 2011