A post-colonial end to history? A reflection on the relation between democracy and communitarianism
- 2002
- p.525-49.
- Sep-Dec
Can democratic rights be claimed for cultural communities without subverting the first principle of democracy? What theoretical assumptions have to be made - implicitly if not 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. - Reproduced.