Nation-Building,Neutrality and Ethnocultural Justice

Abstract

This article examines Will Kymlicka's theory of ethnocultural justice as it is presented in his recent work, particularly that which tries to apply `western political theory' to Eastern and Central Europe. The article makes four principal claims. First, what Kymlicka calls the `myth of ethnocultural neutrality' is problematic as a critique of liberal principles. A myth should combine two features: it should be widely and strongly believed and it should be false or misleading. Kymlicka does outline a possible interpretation of `ethnocultural neutrality' that is false or misleading, but it is not widely believed by liberals and it is not strongly implied by liberalism. Moreover, the sort of ethnocultural neutrality that is widely and strongly believed by liberals is not shown to be false by Kymlicka's arguments. Second, Kymlicka's claim that the existence of an official language threatens cultural survival is also problematic as a critique of liberalism for two reasons: he does not provide enough evidence or argument for the claim and, even if true, the claim need worry only those liberals who agree with Kymlicka that culture is a primary good -not all liberals and certainly not all western political theorists. Third, Kymlicka's recent work recasts the concept of the societal culture that was introduced in his earlier work, but this recasting leaves us with two confused accounts rather than one coherent one. Fourth, Kymlicka's comparison between what he calls majority and minority `nation-building' does not hold; the two are different things and thus require different philosophical justifications.