Will Kymlicka - Thought

Thought

One of his main concerns throughout his work is providing a liberal framework for the just treatment of minority groups, which he divides into two basic categories: polyethnic or immigrant groups, and national minorities (such as the Canadian Québécois, or the Māori of New Zealand). He lists criteria for national minorities or "minority nations":

1. present at founding;
2. prior history of self-government;
3. common culture;
4. common language;
5. governing selves through institutions.

By these criteria, the two "minority nations" in Canada are the First Nations population and the Québécois. (This is open to debate, so far as Canadian aboriginals have no common language or government, and today's Québécois are descendants of French immigrants of the 17th and 18th centuries.) Kymlicka argues that such minority groups deserve unique rights from the state by the nature of their unique role and history within the national population. ("Group rights" are also a recent innovation in Western democracy, which, from the American Revolution up to the enfranchisement of women, emphasized individual rights as fundamental, and avoided assigning rights to particular groups, geographic, religious, linguistic or ethnic.)

Polyethnic groups are less deserving of such rights since they come to the state voluntarily and thus have some degree of responsibility to integrate to the norms of their new nation. This does not mean that they are not entitled to any rights as Kymlicka argues that all cultural minorities have a right to choose their own lives, but it does mean that they are not entitled to the same level of group rights which minority nations would be entitled to. Kymlicka makes various exceptions such as the problems faced by refugees, whether from conflict or poverty, and by such minority groups such as African-Americans (whose heritage in America clearly did not begin voluntarily) and argues that their needs with regards to cultural group-specific rights should be considered on a special basis.

In Multicultural Citizenship (1995), Kymlicka argues that group-specific rights are consistent with liberalism, and are particularly appropriate, if not outright demanded, in certain situations. He defines three such group-specific rights: special group representation rights (such as affirmative action policies in politics); self-government rights; and polyethnic rights (such as the policy exempting Sikhs from having to wear motorcycle helmets).

A distinction that Kymlicka draws, which is crucial to his liberal defence of group-specific rights for minorities, is between external protection and internal restrictions. Kymlicka argues that external protections between groups may be justified in order to promote equality (but they must not allow for oppression or exploitation, as in apartheid in South Africa). Internal restrictions, however, cannot be justified from a liberal perspective, insofar as they restrict a person's autonomy, though they may be granted in certain cases to national minorities.