Page 180 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

166 Citizenship

such matters. Supposed universality, therefore, is a mask for the domi-
nance of one culture over others. As Kymlicka sees it, there is an impec-
cable liberal argument for individual freedom which follows as a
consequence of acknowledging the cultural specifi city of liberal institu-
tions. The central liberal tenet is that individuals should be free to choose
their own lifestyles. It is this premise that makes liberals view cultural
rights with suspicion, since they are opposed to forcing any individual to
conform to a set of group values. However, as Kymlicka points out, in
order to make choices, there have to be valuable ways of life to choose
from. It is culture – traditions, history, and language – which gives
choices meaning, makes them comprehensible, vivid, and desirable to us.
Therefore, in the name of individual freedom, cultural differences should
be upheld and protected (Kymlicka, 1995 ).
Kymlicka analyzes multiculturalism into two kinds, each of which is
now a somewhat different issue with respect to group - differentiated rights

in liberal democracies. The first he calls “ multinationalism. ” Multinational
societies contain within them minorities which, under different circum-
stances, might have retained or established their own sovereign govern-
ments, but which have been incorporated into a single state, either
voluntarily through federation, or as a result of conquest. The US, he
argues, is of this kind, containing American Indians, Puerto Ricans, the
descendants of Mexicans (Chicanos), Hawaiians, and others (Kymlicka,
1995 : 11). Typically, demands for rights from these groups are for rights
to some kind of self - government as a separate nation. Quebec has achieved
such status in Canada, for example, through the federal division of powers
which gave the province extensive powers over language, education,
culture, and immigration. Native peoples in North America have also
gained considerable rights to self - determination through the system of
reserved lands within which they have increasing control over health,
education, family law, policing, criminal justice, and resource develop-
ment (1995: 29 – 30). Legitimate multinationalism, in Kymlicka ’ s view,
results in virtually parallel sets of citizenship rights which overlap only to
some extent in common rights for all.
The second type of multiculturalism he calls “ polyethnicity. ” Societies
into which there has been migration are of this type. Polyethnic societies
are those in which immigrants participate in the public institutions of
the dominant culture, but maintain some distinctive ways of life in terms
of customs, religion, language, dress, food, and so on. Again, the US is a
good example. Immigrants have been expected to conform to the English -
speaking institutions of the public sphere and, although tolerated in
private, it is only since the 1970s that the expression of different cultural