Democracy's Edges

One of the liveliest debates engaging democratic theory at century's end concerns the relationship between civic equality and the public recognition of cultural differences among citizens. A number of theorists have begun using the phrase “politics of recognition” (Taylor 1992; Honneth 1992; Fraser 1995a and 1997) to refer to the chorus of claims and aspirations voiced on behalf of groups defined by a sense of shared cultural, national, ethnic, racial, religious, gender, or sexual identity. Proponents of a politics of recognition assert that democratic justice requires affirmative public acceptance of such identities. Mere tolerance of difference is not enough, nor is it sufficient for democratic societies to allow citizens to express different identities in the private realm. Equal moral and political status, and hence democracy, cannot be achieved unless social institutions and sensibilities become more attentive to, and reflective of, cultural differences.

It is important not to exaggerate the historical novelty of the politics of recognition. Democratic struggles have often been fought by, and in the name of, newly assertive identity groups, and democrats have mobilized as much against cultural domination as they have against autocratic rule. For instance, both the European revolutions of 1848 and the anti-colonial struggles of the middle of this century were demands for national or cultural recognition as much as (and often more than) they were efforts to replace autocratic political institutions with democratic ones.

What is new about the contemporary politics of recognition is more a matter of degree than of kind: demands for recognition by identity groups have gained greater immediacy and sharper theoretical focus.