Minority Claims Research Articles

Multicultural accommodation and the ideal of non-domination

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.

Forced Multiculturalism in the Neighbourhood: Ethnic Privilege and Boundary‐making in South Tel Aviv

AbstractEthnic migration from the former Soviet Union to Israel is widely considered to be a ‘laboratory of ethnicity’. Most of the research into this subject focuses on the cultural and linguistic factors of identity restructuring, whereas critical engagement with social status, class, and urban environment is a much newer development. Social, economic, and urban explanations of the remaining relevance of ‘old’ (ex‐USSR) identifications are particularly needed in the face of increasing alienation among various disadvantaged groups in Israel and the mobilization of large numbers of Russian‐speakers around nationalist political parties. On the basis of interviews, participant observations, and media analysis, this article argues that simultaneously deterritorialized and reterritorialized ideas of home and belonging shape this group's social and political mobilization patterns in contested city spaces. Further, I suggest that nationalist mobilization is a strategy to reach beyond ethno‐politics and make majority rather than minority claims.

The Future of Liberal Multiculturalism

This article considers the role and relevance of liberal multiculturalism in contemporary political theory. Liberal multiculturalism is a form of multiculturalism that emphasizes group-specific rights for minority groups within a liberal framework. Minority protections are adopted to secure basic liberal rights. The article first reviews Will Kymlicka's formulation of liberal multiculturalism; Kymlicka's work receives focus here as he provides the standard liberal multiculturalist position. The article then moves to exploring responses to the position. First I explore liberal responses and second I look at a recognition-based approach. In the final section the article provides a brief response to both of these critiques. I find that the liberal criticisms are overstated and that recognition-based approaches can help identify a possible way for liberal multiculturalism to respond better to the claims of minorities.

Playing the game: corporate social responsibility and the games industry

This paper provides an exploratory review of both the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agendas and achievements being publicly addressed by the world's leading games companies, and offers some wider reflections on the ways these companies are constructing and pursuing CSR strategies. The paper begins with a short discussion of the origins and characteristics of CSR and a thumbnail sketch of games and the games industry. The empirical material for the paper is drawn from the CSR material posted on the Internet by the world's top 10 games companies. The findings reveal that although the majority of the top 10 games companies provide some information on their approach to CSR, only a minority claim to be integrating CSR into their core business activities. Although the companies emphasize their commitment to promoting responsible gaming, they offer little if any commentary on what many critics see as the potentially damaging human consequences of the irresponsible development and playing of games. The majority of the top 10 games companies also address a wide range of impacts within the marketplace, the workplace, the environment and communities in which they operate. Although the leading games companies generally adopt a positive stance towards CSR, the independent external assessment of the reporting process is limited. More generally, the paper offers some critical reflections on the CSR agenda currently being pursued by the games industry. The paper provides an overview and some reflections on the CSR agenda being pursued by some of the world's leading games companies, and as such, it will interest academics in business and management, and information systems and media departments, a range of people working in management positions within the games industry and those professionals who work with the industry. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A French dilemma: Anti-discrimination policies and minority claims in contemporary France

This article explores the gap between the principled notion of a French republican model and actual discriminations against minority group members in French society. It suggests that anti-discrimination policies implemented to overcome this contradiction have produced what could be characterized, following Myrdal, as a ‘French dilemma’. Anti-discrimination as a new public agenda has paralleled a process of ethnicization, giving rise to virulent public controversy, with a particular focus on the issue of ethnic statistics. This has also fostered a range of identity claims by ethnic minority organizations. In particular, this article examines identity claims by two ethnic minority organizations (the French Representative Council of Black Associations or CRAN, and the Natives of the Republic Movement or MIR), through a Barthian ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ dichotomy. It shows how the CRAN and the MIR tend to reproduce and make publicly visible the division between two types of minorities (Blacks and Muslims) with which French society has not established the same boundaries.

Minorities and their nationalism(s): the terms of a discourse in South Asia

South Asia is the theatre of myriad experimentations with the doctrine of nationalism: religious, linguistic, religio-linguistic, composite, plural or exclusive – the region stands witness to all. However, officially promulgated nationalism, presented as the finality of one's affiliations and loyalties, comes to be fiercely contested by minority groups resolute on preserving what they see as the pristine purity of their cultural inheritance. A minority's claim to selfhood is consistently called into question through a politics of nomenclature. The nationalism of the minority groups is frequently relegated to either sub-nationalism, proto-nationalism or a pre-modern appellation, ethnicity. This article examines the perspective of minority identities as they negotiate their terms of co-existence, accommodation and adaptation with several other competing identities within the framework of ‘nation state’.

Two ways to get an Integral Theory: Ken Wilber's method of integration

Ken Wilber is at times deemed to be one of the most prominent and intellectual integral thinkers of our time. His so-called ‘Integral Theory’ shows up with no minor claims: it alleges to have succeeded in integrating most of the insights elaborated by contemporary natural sciences such as biology and physics, together with those of the social sciences and humanities, especially with the deep truths found in religion as well as in philosophy from the ancient Greeks until today. Wilber started developing his theory in the late 1970s. Today, he presents his theory as a framework that claims to provide no less than a place for everything that exists, including the various scientific disciplines and approaches. The theory seems to provide a proper place for everything. That place is defined first of all by its level of development and its specific perspective, from which it perceives and describes the world. This makes Wilber praise his theory as a downright ‘theory of everything’, being able to provide the long needed integration of the manifold and fragmented bodies of knowledge in our post-modern world. From his holistic theory Wilber derives prac­tical suggestions for a more integral life, an integral practice which consists of meditation, physical exercises and social commitment. In this article the author examines in particular the method that Wilber applies in making up his theory. The main focus lays on the question how it realises the integration, that became the core concept and main label under which his theory is traded today.

Legal protection of linguistic diversity in Russia: past and present

Russia is unique in its size and ethnic composition. There is a further linguistic complexity of more than 150 co-existing languages. Notwithstanding this diversity, the claims of linguistic minorities in Russia were traditionally neglected, first in imperial Russia and later in the Soviet politics and law. The political processes undergone from the middle of the 1980s have reactivated the awareness of identity in many linguistic communities of the new Russian Federation. Their aspirations demanded the most suitable legal and political initiatives to create the necessary conditions for the preservation of minority languages. How these demands have been reflected in the current legal framework is analysed in the paper.

Parental views on tissue banking in pediatric oncology patients

Research using banked tissue is key to advancing risk-stratification and treatment of children with cancer. Knowledge of parental attitudes to ethical issues arising in tissue banking is very limited but essential in obtaining respectful consent. One hundred parents of consecutively diagnosed children with cancer were offered a validated 34-item questionnaire. Respondents (n = 54) included 10 of 16 parents of deceased children. The majority (89%; n = 48) would agree to have tissue sent anywhere in the world but prefer pediatric aims (69%). Most (98%; n = 53) would permit genetic research, if it might improve the child's health, and 76% (n = 41) would permit it, even if no impact was anticipated. A minority (41%) would not allow painful, strictly research procedures, while 15% would regardless of the child's dissent. Just over half (54%; n = 29) wish to renew consent if stored tissue is used for another purpose. Most (98%) believe their child should confirm consent by the age of majority, but only 71% believe the mature child should be able to withdraw consent. A minority (n = 40; 74%) claim few or no rights to research profits; 83% believe these should be used to fund childhood cancer research. Parents are very supportive of tissue research, including genetic research. A majority of parents would prefer restricting research to pediatric conditions, and to be informed of results, even if of uncertain significance. These findings may assist Institutional Review Boards in assessing parentally perceived risks of research, and researchers in providing consent elements that support parents and adolescents in making fully informed choices.

Self‐legislation, Respect and the Reconciliation of Minority Claims

abstractIt is a widely supported claim that liberal democratic institutions should treat citizens with equal respect. I neither dispute nor champion this claim, but investigate how it could be fulfilled. I do this by asking, as a sort of litmus test, how liberal democratic institutions should treat with respect citizens holding minority convictions, and thereby dissenting from a deliberative output. The first step of my argument consists in clarifying the sense in which liberal democracies have a primary concern for the respectful treatment of citizens qua self‐legislating persons. Taking the second step, I address critically the common tendency in the literature to concentrate on what I have termed the ex ante legem phase, focusing solely on the structure of institutionalized decision‐making processes. I submit, rather, that the principle of equal respect for persons demands more of liberal democratic institutions to enhance citizens' chances to give voice to their consciences and influence, on that ground, the formulation of the rules to which they should conform. Fulfilling this commitment requires democratic theorizing to go beyond the ex ante legem phase and regard forms of ex post legem contestation as an extension of citizens' right to political participation. Against this backdrop, I take the third and last step and argue that a promising way forward consists in the adoption of an ex post legem version of conscientious exemptionism, granting citizens a conditional moral right to request exemptions on the grounds of conscience from certain controversial legal and political provisions.

Human Rights Litigation and Restrictive State Implementation of Strasbourg Court Judgments: The Case of Ethnic Minorities from Southeast Europe

Legal action by members from ethnic minorities in Strasbourg has often been an alternative route or mobilization strategy aiming to redress broader problems beyond the individual grievances concerned and to pressure national governments to change the way they treat minorities. It is premised on a widespread, but also highly disputed, expectation that judicial rulings can vindicate minorities and exert pressure upon governments to change their relevant laws and practices. Focusing specifically on four countries of Southeast Europe (Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Romania), this article explores the domestic implementation of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments addressing minority claims, as well as its impact (or lack of it) on the ways in which national authorities deal with minorities. Do national authorities implement Strasbourg Court judgments related to ethnic minorities, to what extent and under what conditions are they likely to do so? Does their implementation promote progressive reforms in state laws and policies towards historical minorities? What is the nature of European judicial and human rights influence – if any – at the national level?

Below the Radar: Litigation and the Advancement of Same-Sex Parental Rights

This project explores the conditions under which court-focused strategies for pursuing civil rights successfully avoid backlash. Recent scholarship on the role of the judiciary in advancing the claims of disadvantaged groups has remained skeptical about the potential for court decisions to produce social change without confronting significant opposition. In the absence of the “sword and the purse” argue these scholars, judges and courts who attempt to advance the claims of unpopular minorities are vulnerable to opposition movements that can use majoritarian institutions such as the legislature or the ballot process to thwart these efforts. Scholars look to abortion, school desegregation, and most recently gay marriage to support their misgivings about judicially created civil rights (Rosenberg 1991, 2008). The project starts from the premise that much of the literature on backlash to court decisions ignores the many instances where disenfranchised minorities make measurable gains through the courts and have successfully withstood backlash. This literature, I argue, suffers from two problems. First, by focusing almost exclusively on constitutional issues, the scholars miss an opportunity to explore the transformative potential of statutory, administrative, or common law claims. (Melnick 1994) While large constitutional victories such as abortion and school desegregation are important examples of the courts’ foray into civil rights they are by no means representative. Second, and relatedly, in treating court-centered strategies as a one-size-fits-all approach, these scholars ignore many of the strategic choices made by interest groups and activists deliberately designed to avoid backlash. This paper, part of a larger project exploring several instances where interest groups and activists have deliberately adopted low profile strategies in concert with litigation to advance rights, focuses on efforts to protect relationships between gay and lesbian parents and their children. Advocates rely on specific frames and legal arguments to keep their issue off the public agenda, thereby diminishing the risk of backlash.

The Joint Venture Fable

It recurrently is assumed that a is a distinct legal form. That is not a valid assumption. The claim materialised only aberrantly in the nineteenth century. A remedial distinction within partner ship law led to, or was the springboard for, the assertion that the joint venture had a legal identity different from every other form of commer cial association. That claim was confronted and rejected by most judges and commentators. Others were opposed to equating the with the partnership, or were hesitant to do so, insisting (or worrying) that there were basic differences. That thin wedge of dissent and hesitation allowed the claim to persist. It did not, however, prosper. Additional arguments offered in justification were easily repelled. Today there remains a stale deadlock between the majority and minority views. The minority claim now appears to be that the has a legal character that, while largely defined by the law of partnership, differs in certain substantive respects and therefore exists as a distinct form of association. The claim, however, remains fabulous. It is a fabrication or concoction that rightly has failed to secure the imprimatur of uniform judicial approbation. There is no historical basis for a distinct law of venture.

Mapping same-sex couple family households in Australia

Please click here to download the map associated with this article. The map (1:1,218,987) accompanying this report is the first to depict the distribution of same-sex couple family households across Australia. The map and the report contribute to emerging scholarship combining critical geographies of sexualities with quantitative techniques and GIS in order to advance the political claims of sexual minorities. The data were collected through the 2006 Census and obtained via consultation with the Australian Bureau of Statistics. These data included the number of same-sex couple family households for all Statistical Divisions across Australia and for Statistical Sub-Divisions within metropolitan capital cities. Geographical concentrations of same-sex couple family households were determined by calculating the proportion of couple family households that were same-sex in each Statistical Division and Statistical Sub-Division, since the Census defines cohabiting same-sex couples as a subset of couple family households. To visualise where the proportions fell above and below the national average, and thus where concentrations were found, these ratios were converted to location quotients using the Australian average as the denominator. The map combines different scales—Statistical Divisions and Statistical Sub-Divisions—to illustrate distributional patterns between inner-city and suburban areas, as well as between urban and regional localities. While high concentrations are found in inner-cities, there are also significant suburban and regional concentrations, thus contesting assumptions about same-sex couples' inner-city residential choices. Moreover, since same-sex couples were found in most Statistical Divisions, areas below the national average cannot be considered devoid of these families, with implications for constitutive identity politics and the operationalisation of equal rights legislation.

Equal recognition, consolidation or familiarization?

A number of theorists have tried to determine how liberal states should respond to the language recognition claims made by minority groups. Liberal multiculturalists defend the ‘equal recognition’ of minority and majority languages, liberal neutralists advance the ‘consolidation’ of a single unified language, and democratic liberals argue for ‘familiarization’ of the majority and the minority population as the fairest response to the groups’ claim. In this article, I illustrate and test these responses with the case of the Muslim minority of Western Thrace, a group that has resided in Greece since Ottoman times and has been the subject of competitive Greek and Turkish relations. Contextual analysis in this article will show that when minority groups are part of antagonistic interstate relations, a priori individual and collective rights approaches cannot ensure that their members are treated fairly. I argue that familiarization of linguistically diverse group members provides the fairest response to the claims of linguistic minorities. This is grounded on the democratic ideal of participation in common institutions under conditions of non-domination.

A GEOGRAFIA CULTURAL CONTEMPORÂNEA E OS FOCOS DE TENSÃO NO MUNDO: uma contribuição ao debate

Globalization, Culture and Politics are at issue in this approach, in which ideas and propositions of several researchers are discussed. Nowadays ethnogeographical conceptions are prevailing in this investigation. Main ethnical, cultural and religious conflicts (rising again throuhgout the world) are presented and detailed, emphasizing such discussions and debates in Brazilian territorial context. Geographical concepts and paradigms are adopted to clarify these dimensions. Linked environmental and gender questions are also considered and examined in this research. Besides, concepts and themes as for example minority claims; fundamentalist worldwide tendencies; postmodernity migration dynamics and processes; cultural landscapes classification; recent mutability in the recent role of Nation State, etc., are also focalized and verified. Key-Words: Ethnogeography, Cultural Geography, World Conflicts.

Limits of Integration Policy: Britain and Her Muslims

This essay examines a paradox: while the British state has done more than other European states to accommodate the claims of Muslim minorities, recent polls have shown British Muslims to be more disaffected and alienated than other Muslims in Europe. This raises the question of the limits of integration policy, which is obvious but rarely posed. I argue that, more than reflecting an adverse reality, the neologism ‘Islamophobia’ has functioned as a symbolic device of the British state to recognise the Muslim minority. However, the policy focus on Islamophobia had two negative consequences: first, it deflected from the real causes of disadvantage; secondly, it fuelled the quest for ‘respect and recognition’ that stands to be disappointed in a liberal state. I take the latter to be the main limit of integration policy as revealed by the British case.

Confronting global terrorism and American neo-conservatism: the framework of a liberal grand strategy

1. Introduction: Liberalism, Human Rights, Terrorism and Neo-Conservatism Liberalism Human Rights Terrorism and Terrorists Neo-Conservatism 2. Legal and Legitimate Use of Force: In the Struggle Against Global Terrorism Is the UN Charter Quaint? The Original Understanding The New Global Context and the Call for Loosened Restraints on the Use of Force The UN's Restatement of its Norms The Liberal Case for Conserving Normative Restraint 3. Cruelty and the National Interest: The Question of Legitimate Means Standards and the Post 9/11 Setting Deconstructing the Laws of War Liberal Values and the Temptation to Torture The Latin Americanization of the War on Terrorism 4. Terrorism, Communalism and Democracy: The Limits of Tolerance Civic Communities and Communities of Blood and Faith Communalism and Liberalism Reconciling Liberal Government and Minority Claims: General Principles and Human Rights Norms Liberal Values and Minority Claims: Toward Practical Accommodation Then ... What Is to be Done? 5. The iconic Conflict Between Israelis and Palestinians: The Normative Parameters of a Settlement The Legal Parameters of a Just Settlement The Problematics of Borders The Question of Forfeiture Israel and the Occupied Territories in Light of Human Rights Law and the Law of War A Legal Right in Search of a Remedy Conclusion: The South African Analogy 6. The Framework of a Liberal Grand Strategy Ideas and Actions Toward a Liberal Grand Strategy of Containment

Evolving Protection of Minority Groups: Global Challenges and the Role of International Jurisprudence

AbstractThis article explores the role of judicial discourse in articulating and accommodating minority claims under international law. It identifies four major movements in the field of minority protection and argues that, while the era of specialised standard-setting on minority groups seems to be largely over, international jurisprudence holds the promise of a wider and deeper (re-)assessment of minority issues within the human rights canon.

International Funding of NGOs in India: Bringing the State Back In

This article seeks to understand how the Indian state exercises control over transnational ties between foreign and domestic actors by examining the national legislative practices that determine receipt of foreign funds and the data on foreign funding flows to NGOs (a database of more than 18,000 associations). The article shows how legislative practices of democratic states serve to reduce foreign influence. Issue characteristics are also shown to determine state response to externalization, blocking transnational ties in “high politics” areas such as minority claims. Finally, within state imposed restrictions, religious rather than secular organizations remain dominant transnational actors in India. The study contributes evidence to suggest that contrary to the arguments of world polity theory and many transnational social movement scholars, states continue to remain powerful actors limiting transnationalization.