Unequal recognition, misrecognition and injustice: The case of religious minorities in Denmark

Abstract

Euro-multiculturalism is (1) concerned with religiously defined immigrant minorities; (2) sees policies of recognition as a means to secure multicultural equality between groups; (3) endorses the moderate secularism of European states; and (4) adopts a contextualist approach to answering the normative question. Proponents of ‘Euro-multiculturalism’ want to ask when unequal recognition by the state of religious communities is a form of misrecognition and when it is unjust (or wrong). The article discusses the question by way of an examination of the Danish case of unequal recognition by the state of religious minorities. It argues that state–religion relations can be analysed as relations of recognition, which are not only unequal but also multi-dimensional, and that it is difficult to answer the question whether multi-dimensional recognitive inequalities are unjust or wrong if one endorses moderate secularism and contextualism.