Abstract
Can democratic rights be claimed for cultural communities without subverting the first principle of democracy? What theoretical assumptions have to be made—implicitly ifnot explicitly—to posit the sociological existence of a cultural collective as the first step towards mounting a political movement critical of a liberal system of governance founded upon the idea of citizenship? This article tries to address these questions through a textual analysis of two essays arguing for the political rights of 'cultural communities'as a means towards enhancing a democratic political culture. It concludes with the argument that the theoretical process which goes into the construction of a communitarian collective inexorably leads to a position where 'identity' and 'history' are conflated to disable democratic movements.
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