Page 185 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

Citizenship 171

democracies, ” like those of Holland and Belgium, in which religious
cleavages are represented by different political parties. In such cases,
political stability is supposed to depend on sharing decision - making power
so that the cabinet will be composed of leading fi gures from all parties,
there will be minority veto over socially divisive issues, and so on (Phillips,
1995 : 14 – 15). The system in New Zealand is similar in that Maoris
select candidates from a specifi c electoral list so that they are guaranteed
representation in parliament as a group, though there is no Maori party.
However, there are no examples of special political rights for racialized
minority groups in Europe. Although consociational democracies are
apparently more open to the possibility of fi tting Muslim representation
into the existing pluralist framework than other political systems, this
remains no more than a possibility at present (Phillips, 1995 : 15).
The whole issue of group - differentiated rights might be considered
highly contentious in relation to the critique of essentialism which has
been so important, as we have seen, in relation to citizenship for women
and “ sexual minorities. ” It is, however, less well developed than in these
cases. In some respects, this is surprising. The anti - essentialist case against
the concept of ethnicity as a way of distinguishing actual groups of
persons is highly developed. Anti - essentialists argue strongly that we
should see culture as process rather than as a set of attributes possessed

by a particular group. Culture is not fixed in eternal forms; it is constantly
being made and re - made in historical processes. It is on these grounds
that theorists of race and ethnicity have argued that cultural identities are
“ hybrid ” : they are always constructed by drawing on a multiplicity of
cultural symbols and identifi cations which are re - combined in ways such
that there are no “ authentic ” ethnic groups (Hall, 1990, 1991a, 1991b ;
Gilroy, 1993 ).
In addition, individuals identify in a range of ways: why should they
be identified with the cultural belonging their parents, or even their grand-

parents, may have inherited (Hollinger, 2000 )? Multiculturalism is, there-
fore, seen as problematic insofar as it contributes to what Gilroy calls
“ ethnic absolutism, ” the construction of rigid and supposedly unchanging
distinctions between cultures in ways that constrain creativity, individual-
ity, and challenges to the status quo (Gilroy, 1993 ).
In recent years, concerns about the dangers multiculturalism raises for
reifying cultural differences have been linked much more to questions
about social cohesion and civic values than to the problems of balancing
equality, diversity, and freedom for members of minority groups. David
Hollinger (2000) criticized multiculturalism along these lines, as well
as on anti - essentialist grounds, before 9/11, arguing for the political