Phil Parvin

Integration and Identity in an International Context: Problems and Ambiguities in the New Politics of Multiculturalism

Debates about multiculturalism, minority rights, and identity dominated Anglo-American political theory during the majority of the 1990s, and continue to raise important questions concerning the nature of citizenship, community, and the responsibilities of liberal states. They were popular, too, among policy makers, politicians, and journalists: many academics and practitioners were, for a time, united in their support for multiculturalism. Just as the philosophical literature at that time became more ‘multiculturalist’, so many European states increasingly adopted multiculturalist policies as a way of including historically marginalised groups into mainstream liberal culture or, in some cases, as a way of protecting minority groups from unfair pressures from the majority culture. However, as time has gone on, the multiculturalist turn in liberal political theory, and among many European governments, has waned. In the wake of terrorist atrocities around the world, growing concerns about the erosion of civic and national identity, and fears that cultural recognition can permit illiberal practices, many academics and practitioners have sought to distance themselves from the idea that it is a role of the state to afford special treatment to cultural minorities, and have sought once again to emphasise those common bonds which unite citizens of liberal democratic states, rather than those cultural identities which may serve to divide them. This article evaluates some of the recent philosophical literature on multiculturalism against the changing political landscape in Britain and Europe and suggests that the multiculturalist position remains weakened by a number of crucial ambiguities.

What’s Special About Culture? Identity, Autonomy, and Public Reason

This article challenges the widespread and influential claim – made by many liberals and non‐liberals – that cultural membership is a prerequisite of individual autonomy. It argues that liberals like Joseph Raz and Will Kymlicka, who ground autonomy in culture, underestimate the complex and internally diverse nature of the self, and the extent to which individual agents will often be shaped by many different attachments and memberships at once. In ‘selectively elevating’ one of these memberships (culture) as the most important to one’s autonomy or identity, culturalist liberals present a skewed and simplistic account of individual autonomy and, hence, of liberalism. Instead, autonomy should be seen as arising not out of any particular membership or attachment, but out of the interaction between those different memberships which shape the individual’s understanding of themselves and the world in which they live. This alternative account holds important implications for liberal theory, particularly the tensions between ‘political’ and ‘comprehensive’ liberals about the scope of liberal principles and the nature of public reasoning about justice.

Democracy, Capital, and the Rise of the New Inequality

This is a review essay. It was published in the journal Political Theory [© SAGE Publications] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0090591717693754

Idealism, realism, and immigration: David Miller’s Strangers in Our Midst

David Miller’s Strangers in Our Midst is an important contribution to the debate among political philosophers about how liberal democratic states should deal with the issue of migration. But it is also a thoughtful statement concerning how best to do political philosophy and, as such, contributes also to the growing debate within Anglo-American political theory about the relative merits of ‘ideal’ versus ‘non-ideal’ normative theorising. Miller’s argument in the book builds on his earlier published work in suggesting that political philosophy should be ‘for Earthlings’: it should not be understood as a process of ideal theorising which ignores political reality. He argues that normative theorists should seek to resolve complex political problems by taking seriously the political context that makes these problems complex, rather than putting aside that context in the interests of deriving first principles. This is a controversial approach, which requires political philosophers to take more seriously than they often do the expressed concerns of citizens living in democratic states and the practical problems associated with applying normative principles in ways which actually help address the issue at hand. This piece discusses some of these themes, and the issue of migration more generally, in order to help frame the debate which follows.

Modernism's Legacy: Dialogue, Objectivity, and Justice in Mark Bevir's Democratic Governance

Abstract This article looks at Mark Bevirs ideas on the changing nature of the modern state, as expressed in his book, ‘Democratic Governance’. In the book, the author argues that recent developments in the theory and practice of politics have their intellectual roots in wider trends in the academic study of society and politics. In particular, he argues, the rise in what he and others have called ‘the new governance’ – that is, the shift in Britain and elsewhere away from centralised policy making and implementation by state institutions toward policy networks in which the state is merely one actor among many – has emerged as a direct consequence of the rise of ahistorical, universalist social science methodologies.

What kind of dialogue do we need? Gender, deliberation and comprehensive values

Recent branches of political theory, including feminism, communitarianism, identity theory and difference theory, have criticised liberalism and liberal democratic politics for failing to recognise the importance of group diversity and identity. In response, political and democratic theorists have increasingly appealed to public deliberation as a means of resolving political questions. Deliberative democrats, for example, have sought to move beyond traditional understandings of democracy as a merely representative system by recasting it as a regime in which individual citizens determine policy outcomes and political decisions through their active participation in public dialogue with one another. Many liberals, meanwhile, have increasingly sought to ground liberal principles in agreements struck between participants in some form of deliberative process. That is, having taken on board claims about the importance of difference and identity to the ways in which people think and the values they hold, many liberal political theorists have felt the need to retreat from controversial commitments to substantive principles such as autonomy, and have instead grounded their theories in a more general commitment to public dialogue. Where liberalism was generally seen as either a perfectionist theory which stipulated the supremacy of certain values over others or a contractualist theory premised upon some appropriately modelled agreement between individuals bound by common standards of rationality, it is now increasingly seen as a deliberative theory rooted in inclusive dialogue among situated individuals. In making the transition from contractualism to deliberation, many liberals feel that they have developed a more effective way of justifying liberal principles in circumstances of diversity, by foregrounding inclusive, collective dialogue over hypothetical contracts and agreement models which require everyone to act and think in the same way.

The rationalist tradition and the problem of induction: Karl Popper's rejection of epistemological optimism

This article evaluates Karl Poppers contribution to analytic philosophy, and outlines some of the contradictions in his work which make it difficult to locate in any particular tradition. In particular, the article investigates Poppers own claims to be a member of the rationalist tradition. Although Popper described himself as a member of this tradition, his definition of it diverged quite radically from that offered by other supporters of rationalism, like, for example, Mach, Carnap, and the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. The reason for this was that Popper believed the rationalist tradition, if it were to remain coherent and relevant, needed to overcome the dilemma posed by Humes problem of induction. Popper believed that this problem rendered conventional understandings of rationalism, science, and inductive reasoning incoherent. This article suggests that Poppers principal contribution to modern philosophy was to reconfigure the rationalist tradition in such a way as to circumvent the problem of induction while preserving the rationalist commitment to reason, rational debate, and objective knowledge. Poppers reconfiguration of the epistemological bases of the rationalist tradition challenged dominant understandings of rationalist and analytic philosophy, and may be appropriately understood as part of a wider move among philosophers like Quine and Putnam to challenge conventional understandings of analytic philosophy, and of what philosophy itself could and could not achieve. It also informed a vision of social and political life (and of the social and political sciences) as rooted in principles of freedom, equality, and rational debate, but which cannot be fit within the traditional ideological landscape.

Representing the people: British democracy in an age of political ignorance

The article evaluates the arguments presented in Jason Brennan’s Against Democracy, Ilya Somin’s Democracy and Political Ignorance and Achen and Bartels’ Democracy for Realists and their implications for democratic theory and practice. The article uses their work to shine a light on ongoing and contradictory trajectories of democratic reform in Britain at the local and national levels, and to argue against the widespread view that British democracy should be reformed in ways that give citizens more control over political decisions. These books point to ways in which democracy might be salvaged, rather than replaced, and in which British democracy in particular might be reformed in order to better meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, by focusing less on participation and more on representation. This requires a two-pronged strategy. First, that we reform liberal democratic institutions in ways which better harness the power of non-majoritarian institutions, strengthen formal epistocratic checks and balances, and embrace the move towards greater political elitism in order to appropriately constrain the popular will and to ensure rigorous scrutiny within a traditionally configured representative democratic system. Second, that we explore ways of incorporating citizens’ voices at different points in the democratic system in order to circumvent some of the problems these authors describe and to ensure that the strengthening of representative institutions does not unfairly marginalise citizens. Achen CH and Bartels LM (2016) Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Brennan J (2016) Against Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Somin I (2016) Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter, 2nd edn. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

Dialogue, Politics and Gender: What kind of dialogue do we need?

Recent branches of political theory, including feminism, communitarianism, identity theory and difference theory, have criticised liberalism and liberal democratic politics for failing to recognise the importance of group diversity and identity. In response, political and democratic theorists have increasingly appealed to public deliberation as a means of resolving political questions. Deliberative democrats, for example, have sought to move beyond traditional understandings of democracy as a merely representative system by recasting it as a regime in which individual citizens determine policy outcomes and political decisions through their active participation in public dialogue with one another. Many liberals, meanwhile, have increasingly sought to ground liberal principles in agreements struck between participants in some form of deliberative process. That is, having taken on board claims about the importance of difference and identity to the ways in which people think and the values they hold, many liberal political theorists have felt the need to retreat from controversial commitments to substantive principles such as autonomy, and have instead grounded their theories in a more general commitment to public dialogue. Where liberalism was generally seen as either a perfectionist theory which stipulated the supremacy of certain values over others or a contractualist theory premised upon some appropriately modelled agreement between individuals bound by common standards of rationality, it is now increasingly seen as a deliberative theory rooted in inclusive dialogue among situated individuals. In making the transition from contractualism to deliberation, many liberals feel that they have developed a more effective way of justifying liberal principles in circumstances of diversity, by foregrounding inclusive, collective dialogue over hypothetical contracts and agreement models which require everyone to act and think in the same way.

What kind of dialogue do we need

Recent branches of political theory, including feminism, communitarianism, identity theory and difference theory, have criticised liberalism and liberal democratic politics for failing to recognise the importance of group diversity and identity. In response, political and democratic theorists have increasingly appealed to public deliberation as a means of resolving political questions. Deliberative democrats, for example, have sought to move beyond traditional understandings of democracy as a merely representative system by recasting it as a regime in which individual citizens determine policy outcomes and political decisions through their active participation in public dialogue with one another. Many liberals, meanwhile, have increasingly sought to ground liberal principles in agreements struck between participants in some form of deliberative process. That is, having taken on board claims about the importance of difference and identity to the ways in which people think and the values they hold, many liberal political theorists have felt the need to retreat from controversial commitments to substantive principles such as autonomy, and have instead grounded their theories in a more general commitment to public dialogue. Where liberalism was generally seen as either a perfectionist theory which stipulated the supremacy of certain values over others or a contractualist theory premised upon some appropriately modelled agreement between individuals bound by common standards of rationality, it is now increasingly seen as a deliberative theory rooted in inclusive dialogue among situated individuals. In making the transition from contractualism to deliberation, many liberals feel that they have developed a more effective way of justifying liberal principles in circumstances of diversity, by foregrounding inclusive, collective dialogue over hypothetical contracts and agreement models which require everyone to act and think in the same way.