Multicultural accommodation and the ideal of non-domination

Abstract

What normative principles should multicultural states be guided by in responding to minority claims for the accommodation of cultural and religious social practices? This article explores how theories of non-domination can contribute to debates on this question in the multiculturalism literature. It examines Philip Pettit’s, Cecile Laborde’s and Frank Lovett’s republican theories and argues that non-domination-based approaches to multicultural accommodation are more suitable to assess the dynamic of intra- and inter-group relations than the prominent liberal–multiculturalist alternative. However, their advantages are not contingent on the wider theories from which they emerge, but rather related to generalizable features of the non-domination ideal. This suggests that non-domination should also be appealing to non-republicans, who can adopt it minimally as a critical principle to determine illegitimate policies.