Key Figures by Charante Leclerc

LIBERALISM

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:29:14 UTC

John Locke (1632-1704)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:29:49 UTC

An English philosopher and politician, Locke was a consistent opponent of absolutism and is often portrayed as the philosopher of the 1688 'Glorious Revolution' (which established a constitutional monarchy in England). Using social contract theory and accepting that, by nature, humans are free and equal, Locke upheld constitutionalism, limited government and the right of revolution, but the stress he placed on property rights prevented him from endorsing political equality or democracy in the modern sense. Locke's foremost political work is Two Treatises of Government (1690).

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:32:05 UTC

A Scottish economist and philosopher, Smith is usually seen as the founder of the 'dismal science'. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), he developed a theory of motivation that tried to reconcile human self-interestedness with unregulated social order. Smith's most famous work, The Wealth of Nations (1776), was the first sysematic attempt to explain the workings of the economy in market terms. Although he is sometimes portrayed as a free-market theorist, Smith was nevertheless aware of the limitations of laissez-faire.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:32:23 UTC

A German philosopher, Kant's 'critical' philosophy holds that knowledge is not merely an aggregate of sense impressions; it depends on the conceptual appartus of human understanding. Kant's political thought was shaped by the central importance on morality. He believed that the law of reason dictates categorical imperatives, the most important of which is the obligation to treat others as 'ends', and never only as 'means'. Kant's most important works include Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and Metaphysics of Morals (1785).

Thomas Jefferson (1734-1826)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:32:40 UTC

A US political philosopher and statesman, Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and later served as the third president of the USA (1801-1809). Jefferson advocated a democratic form of agranianism that sought to blend a belief in rule by a natural aristocracy with a commitment to limited government and laissez-faire, although he also exhibited sympathy for social reform. In the USA, 'Jeffersonianism' stands for resistance to strong central government and a stress on individual freedom and responsibility, and states' rights.

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:32:57 UTC

A British philosopher. legal reformer and founder of utilitarianism. Bentham developed a moral and philosophical system based on the belief that human beings are rationally self-interested creatures, or utility maximizers. Using the principle of general utility - 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number' - he advanced a justification for laissez-faire economics, constitutional reform and, later in life, political democracy. Bentham's key works include A Fragment on Government (1776) and An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789).

James Madison (1751-1836)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:33:24 UTC

A US statesman and political theorist, Madison played a major role in writing the US Constitution and served as the fourth President of the USA (1809-1817). Madison was a leading proponent of pluralism and divided government, urging the adoption of federalism , bicameralism and the separation of powers as the basis of US government. Madisonianism thus implies a strong emphasis on checks and balances as the principle means of resisting tyranny. His best-known political writings are his contributions to The Federalist (1787-1808).

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:33:43 UTC

A British philosopher, economist and politician, Mill's varied and complex work straddles the divide between classical and modern forms of liberalism. His opposition to collectivist tendencies and traditions was firmly in nineteenth-century principles, but his emphasis on the quality of individual life, reflected in a commitment to individuality, as well as his sympathy for causes such as female suffrage and workers' cooperatives, looked forward to later developments. Mill's major writings include On Liberty (1859), Utilitarianism (1861) and Considerations on Representative Government (1861).

Thomas Hill (T.H.) Green (1836-1882)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:33:54 UTC

A British philosopher and social theorist, Green highlighted the limitations of early liberal doctrines and particulary laissez-faire. Influenced by Aristotle and Hegel, Green argued that humans humans are by nature social creatures, a position that helped liberalism reach an accommodation with welfarism and social justice. His idea of 'positive' freedom had a major influence on the emergence of so-called 'new liberalism' in the UK. His chief works include Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (1879-1880) and Prolegomena to Ethics (1883).

John Rawls (1921-2002)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:34:11 UTC

A US political philosopher, Rawls used a form of social contract theory to reconcile liberal individualism with the principles of redistribution and social justice. In his major work, A Theory of Justice (1970), he developed the notion of 'justice as fairness', based on the belief that behind a 'veil of ignorance' most people would accept that the liberty of each should be compatible with a like liberty for all, and that social inequality is only justified if it works to the benefit of the poorest in society.

Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:34:42 UTC

(Also in Multiculturalism) A Latvian-born UK historian of ideas and philosopher, Berlin developed a form of liberal pluralism that was grounded in a lifelong commitment to empiricism. Basic to Berlin's philosophical stance was the idea that conflicts enced 'post-liberal' thinking about multiculturalism. A fierce critic of totalitarianism, Berlin's best-known political work is Four Essays on Liberty (1969), in which he extolled the virtues of 'negative' freedom over 'positive' freedom.

Robert Nozick (1938-2002)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 11:34:52 UTC

A US political philosopher, Nozick developed a form of rights-based libertarianism in response to the ideas of John Rawls, Drawing on Locke and nineteenth-century US individualists, he argued that property rights should be strictly upheld, provided that property was justly purchased or justly transferred from one person to another. His major work, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), rejects welfare and redistribution, and advances the case for minimal government and minimal taxation. In later life, Nozick modified his extreme libertarianism,

SOCIALISM

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:11:27 UTC

Robert Owen (1771 - 1858)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:12:25 UTC

A British socialist, industrialist and pioneer of the cooperative movement, Owen's A New View of Society (1816) envisaged a transformation in human nature consequent on a change in its environment, suggesting that progress requires the construction of a 'rational system of society'. Owen advanced a moral indictment of market capitalism, which he proposed should be replaced with a society based on small-scale cooperative communities in which property would be communally owned and essential goods freely distributed.

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:12:34 UTC

A German philosopher, economist and life-long revolutionary, Marx is usually portrayed as the father of twentieth-century communism. At the centrepiece of Marx's thought is a 'scientific' critique of capitalism that highlights, in keeping with previous class society, systemic inequality and therefore fundamental instability. Marx's materialist theory of history holds that social development will inevitably culminate in the establishment of classless communist society. His vast works include the Communist Manifesto (1848 - written with Frederick Engels [1820-1895]) and the three-volume Das Kapital (1867, 1885 and 1894 - the last two published by Engels).

Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:12:40 UTC

A German socialist politician and theorist, Bernstein attempted to revise and modernize orthodox Marxism in the light of changing circumstances. In Evolutionary Socialism (1898), Bernstein argued that economic crises were becoming less, not more, acute, and drew attention to the 'steady advance of the working class'. On this basis, he drew attention to the possibility of a gradual and peaceful transition to socialism, and questioned the distinction between liberalism and socialism, later abandoning all semblance of Marxism.

Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870-1924)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:15:20 UTC

A Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Lenin was the first leader of the Soviet state (1917-1921). In What is to be Done? (1902), he emphasized the central importance of a tightly organized 'vanguard' party to lead and guide the proletarian class. His Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), he developed an economic analysis of colonialism, highlighting the possibility of turning world war into class war. The State and Revolution (1917) outlined Lenin's firm commitment to the 'insurrectionary road' and rejected 'bourgeouis parliamentarianism'.

Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:15:33 UTC

A Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Trotsky joined forces with Lenin in 1917 but after Lenin's death was driven from power and eventually murdered by Stalin. Trotsky's chief theoretical contribution to Marxism was the theory of permanent revolution, which suggested that socialism could be established in Russia without the need for the bourgeois stage of development. Trotskyism is usually associated with an unwavering commitment to internationalism and an anti-Stalinsim that highlights the dangers of bureaucratization, as outlined in The Revolution Betrayed (1937).

Richard Henry Tawney (1880-1962)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:15:46 UTC

A British social philosopher and historian, Tawney championed a form of socialism that emphasizes (moral) equality, a common humanity and service, firmly rooted in a Christian social moralism that is unconnected with Marx's class analysis. Stressing the basic value of fellowship and a sense of community, Tawney argued that the disorders of capitalism derived from the absence of a 'moral ideal', leading to unchecked acquistiveness and widespread material inequality. Tawney's major works in The Acquisitive Society (1921) and Equality (1931).

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:16:00 UTC

An Italian Marxist and revolutionary, Gramsci tried to redress the emphasis within Orthodox Marxism on economic and material factors. In his major work, Prison Notebooks (1929-1935), Gramsci rejected any form of 'scientific' determinism by stressing, through the theory of 'hegemony' (the dominance of bourgeois ideas and beliefs), the importance of political and intellectual struggle. Although he did not ignore the 'economic nucleus', he argued that bourgeois assumptions and values needed to be overthrown by the establishment of a rival 'proletarian hegemony'.

Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:16:27 UTC

A German political philosopher and social theorist, Marcuse portrayed advanced industrial society as an all-ecompassing system of repression that subdues argument and debate, and absorbs all forms of opposition. Drawing on Marxist, Hegalian and Freudian ideas, Marcuse held up the unashmedly utopian prospect of personal and sexual liberation, looking not to the convential working class as a revolutionary force but to groups such as students, ethnic minorities, women and workers in the developing world. His key works include Eros and Civilization (1958) and One-Dimensional Man (1964).

ANARCHISM

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:18:32 UTC

William Godwin (1756-1836)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:19:47 UTC

A British philosopher and novelist, Godwin developed a thorough-going critique of authoritarianism that amounted to the first full exposition of anarchist beliefs, Adopting a optimism based on the Enlightenment view of human nature as rationable and perfectible, based on education and social conditioning, Godwin argued that humanity would become increasingly capable of self-government, meaning that the need for government (and, with it, war, poverty, crime and violence) would disappear. Godwin's chief political work is An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1773).

Josiah Warren (1798-1874)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:20:01 UTC

A US individualist anarchist, inventor and musician, Warren was a founding member of the New Harmony experimental community in Indiana. Drawing on the fundamental principle of 'sovereignty of the individual', Warren advocated a system of 'equitable commerce', which recognized labour as the only legitimate capital and promised to banish both poverty and excessive luxury. His Cincinnati Time Store is sometimes seen as the first experiment in mutalism. Warren's key writings include Equitable Commerce (1852) and True Civilization (1863).

Max Stirner (1806-1856)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:20:25 UTC

A German philosopher, Stirner developed an extreme form of individualism, based on egoism, which condemned all checks on personal autonomy. In contrast to other anarchists' stress on moral principles such as justice, reason and community, Stirner emphasized solely the 'ownness' of the human individual, thereby placing the individual self at the centre of the moral universe. Such thinking influenced Nietzsche and later provided a basis for existentialism. Stirner's most important political work is The Ego and his Own (1854).

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:21:01 UTC

A French social theorist, political activist and largely self-educated printer, Proudhon's writings influenced many nineteenth-century anarchists, socialists and communists. His best known work, What is Property? (1840), attacked both traditional property rights and collective ownership, and argued instead for mutualism, a cooperative productive system geared towards need rather than profit and organized within self-governing communities. In The Federal Principle (1863), Proudhon proposed that such communities should interact on the basis of 'federal' compacts, although this federal state would have minimal functions.

Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:21:24 UTC

A Russian political agitator and revolutionary, Bakunin was one of the key proponents of collectivist anarchism and a leading figure within the nineteenth-century anarchist movement. Arguing that political power is intrinsically oppressive and placing his faith in human sociability, Bakunin proposed that freedom could only be achieved through 'collectivism', by which he meant self-governing communities based on voluntary cooperation, the absence of private property, and with rewards reflecting contributions. Bakunin extolled the 'sacred instinct of revolt' and was ferciously anti-theological.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:22:34 UTC

A US author, poet and philosopher, Thoreau's writings had a significant impact on individualist anarchism and, later, on the environmental movement. A follower of transcendentalism. Thoreau's major work, Walden (1854), described his two-year 'experiment' in simple living which emphasized the virtues of self-reliance, contemplation and a closeness to nature. In Civil Disobedience (1849), he defended the validaty of conscientious objection to unjust laws, emphasizing that government should never conflict with individual conscience, but he stopped short of explicity advocating anarchy.

Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:22:52 UTC

A Russian geographer and anarchist theorist, Kropotkin's work was imbued with a scientific spirit, based on a theory on evolution that he proposed as an alternative to Darwin's. By seeing 'mutual aid' as the principle means of human and animal development, he claimed to provide an empirical basis for both anarchism and communism, looking to reconstruct society on the basis of self-management and decentralization. Kropotkin's major works include Mutual Aid (1902), The Conquest of Bread (1892), and Fields, Factories and Workshops (1898).

Murray Rothbard (1926-1995)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-03 16:23:15 UTC

A US economist and libertarian thinker, Rothbard advocated 'anarcho-capitalism' based on combining an extreme form of Lockean liberalism with Austrian School free-market economics. Taking the right of total self-ownership to be a 'universal ethic', he argued the economic freedom is incomptible with the power of government and became a fierce enemy of the 'welfare-welfare' state, championing non-intervention in both domestic and foreign affairs. Rothbard's key writings include Man, Economy and State (1962), For a New Liberty (1978) and The Ethics of Liberty (1982).

NATIONALISM

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-05 21:22:00 UTC

Jean-Jaques Rousseau (1712-1778)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-05 21:22:29 UTC

A Swiss-born French moral and political philosopher, Rousseau is commonly viewed as the architect of political nationalism, but also influenced liberal, socialist, anarchist and, some claim, facist thought. In The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau argued that 'natural right' could only throw off the corruption, exploitation and domination imposed by society and regain the capacity for moral choice through a radical form of democracy, based on the 'general will'. This subordinates the individual to the collective and promises political liberty and equality for all.

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-05 21:35:54 UTC

A German poet, critic and philosopher, Herder is often portrayed as the 'father' of cultural nationalism. A leading intellectual opponent of the Enlightenment, Herder's emphasis on the nation as a organic group characterized by a distinctive language, culture and 'spirit' helped both to found cultural history and to give rise to a form of nationalism that emphasizes the intrinsic value of the national culture. Herder's major work was Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1784-1791).

Guiseppe Mazzini (1805-1872)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-05 21:39:52 UTC

An Italian nationalist, often portrayed as the 'prophet' of Italian unification. Mazzini practiced a form of liberal nationalism that fused a belief in the nation as a distinctive language and cultural community with the principles of liberal republicanism. In this view, nations are effectively sublimated individuals endowed with the right to self-government, a right to which all nations are equally entitled. Mazzini was also one of the earliest thinkers to link nationalism to the prospect of perpetual peace.

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-05 21:43:35 UTC

A US historian and political scientist and later politician, Wilson was the 28th President of the USA (1913-1921). His 'Fourteen Points', laid down in 1918 as the basis for peace after World War I, proposed to reconstruct Europe according to the principle of national self-determination, and also to ban secret diplomacy, expand trade and achieve security through a 'general associations of nations'. Wilsonian liberalism is usually associated with the idea that constructing a world of democratic nation-states (modelled on the USA) is the surest way of preventing war.

Charles Maurras (1868-1952)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-05 21:47:12 UTC

A French political thinker and leading figure within the political movement Action Francaise, Maurras was a key exponent of right-wing nationalism and an influence on fascism. His idea of 'integral nationalism' emphasized the organic unity of the nation, fusing a clearly illiberal rejection of individualism with a stress on hierarchy and traditional institutions (in his case, the French monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church). His insular and exclusionary nationalism articulated hostility towards, amongst others, Protestants, Jews, Freemasons and foreigners in general.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-05 21:52:21 UTC

An Indian spiritual and political leader (called Mahatma 'Great Soul'), Gandhi campaigned tirelessly for Indian independence, which was finally achieved in 1947. His ethic of non-violent resistance, Satyagraha, reinforced by his ascetic lifestyle, gave the movement for Indian independence enormous moral authority. Derived from Hinduism, Gandhi's political philosophy was based on the assumption that the universe is regulated by the primacy of truth, or satya, and that humankind is 'ultimately one'. Gandhi was a trenchant opponent of both Hindu and Muslim sectarianism.

Marcus Garvey (1887-1940)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-06 18:26:21 UTC

A Jamican political thinker and activist, and foundeer of the Universal Negro Improvement Society, Garvey was an early advocate of black nationalism. Placing a particular emphasis on establishing black pride, Garvey's vision for Africa as a 'homeland' provided the basis for a pan-African philosophy and an associated political movement. Although his call for a return to Africa to 'redeem' it from European colonialism was largely ignored, his views provided the basis for the later Black Power movement and also helped to inspire Rastafarianism.

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-06 18:30:53 UTC

A Martinique-born French revolutionary theorist, Fanon is best known for his views on the anti-colonial struggle. In his classic work on decolonialization, The Wretched of the Earth (1965), he drew on psychiatry, politics, sociology, and the existentialism of Jean-Paul Satre in arguing that only total revolution and absolute violence can help black or colonized people to liberate themselves from the social and psychological scars of imperialism. Fanon's other works include Black Skins, White Masks (1952) and Towards the African Revolution (1964).

FEMINISM

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-08 17:57:23 UTC

MULTICULTURALISM

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-08 17:58:52 UTC

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-08 17:59:50 UTC

A British social theorist, Wollstonecraft was a pioneer feminist thinker, drawn into radical politics by the French Revolution. Her A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) stressed the equal rights of women, especially in education, on the basis of the notion of 'personhood'. Wollstonecraft's work drew on an Enlightenment liberal belief in reason, but developed a more complex analysis of women as the objects and subjects of desire; it also presented the domestic sphere as a model of community and social order.

Simone de Beauvoir (1906-1986)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-08 18:08:29 UTC

A French novelist, playwright and social critic, de Beauvoir's work reopened the issue of gender politics and foreshadowed the ideas of later radical feminists. In The Second Sex (1949), she developed a complex critique of patriarchal culture, in which the masculine as the positive or the norm, while the feminine is portrayed as the 'other' - fundamentally limiting women's freedom and denying them their full humanity. De Beauvoir placed her faith in rationality and critical analysis as the means of exposing this process.

Betty Friedan (1921-2006)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-08 18:18:46 UTC

A US political activist, Friedan is sometimes seen as the 'mother' of women's liberation. In The Feminine Mystique (1963) (often credited with having stimulated the emergence of second-wave feminism), Friedan attacked the cultural myths that sustained domesticity, highlighting the sense of frustration and despair that afflicted suburban American women confined to the roles of housewife and mother. In The Second Stage (1983), she nevertheless warned that the quest for 'personhood' should not encourage women to deny the importance of children, the home and the family.

Kate Millett (1934-?)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-10 13:57:54 UTC

A US feminist writer, political activist and artist, Millett developed a comprehensive critique of patriarchy in western society and culture that had a profound impact on radical feminism. In Sexual Politics (1970), Millett analyzed the work of male writers, from D.H.Lawerence to Norman Mailer, highlighting their use of sex to degrade and undermine women. In her view, such literature reflects deeply patriarchal attitudes that pervade culture and society at large, providingevidence that patriarchy is a historical and social constant.

Germaine Greer (1939-?)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-10 14:02:25 UTC

An Australian writer, academic and journalist, Greer's The Female Eunuch (1970) helped to stimulate radical feminist theorizing. Its principle theme, the extent to which male domination is upheld by a systematic process of sexual repression, was accompanied by a call for women to re-engage with their libido, their faculty of desire and their sexuality. In Sex and Destiny (1985), Greer celebrated the importance of child-bearing and motherhood, while The Whole Woman (1999) criticized 'lifestyle feminists' and the alleged right to 'have it all'.

Jean Bethke Elshtain (1941-2013)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-10 14:16:00 UTC

A US political philosopher and social critic, Elshtain has made a major contribution to feminist scholarship and wide political debates. In Public Man, Private Woman (1981), she examined the role of gender in forming the division between the public and private spheres in political theory. Her Woman and War (1987) discussed the perceptual lenses that determine the roles of men and women in war, highlighting the myths that men are 'just warriors' and women are 'beautiful souls' to be saved.

Andrea Dworkin

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-10 14:57:14 UTC

A feminist writer and activist, Dworkin was a trenchant critic patriarchal culture and an advocate of radical lesbianism. In Woman Hating (1974) and (with Catherine MacKinnon) Pornography and Civil Rights (1988), Dworkin argued that pornography is the tool by which men control, objectify and subjugate women. With MacKinnon, she drafted a Minnesota ordinance that proposed that victims of rape and other sex crimes should be able to sue pornographers for damage, based on the belief that pornography supports sexual violence against women.

Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-10 15:05:34 UTC

A Latvian-born UK historian of ideas and philosopher, Berlin developed a form of liberal pluralism that was grounded in a lifelong commitment to empiricism. Basic to Berlin's philosophical stance was the idea that conflicts of values are intrinsic to human life, a position that has influenced 'post-liberal' thinking about multiculturalism. A fierce critic of totalitarianism, Berlin's best-known is political work Four Essays on Liberty (1969), in which he extolled the virtues of 'negative' freedom over 'positive' freedom.

Edward Said (1935-2003)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-10 15:34:27 UTC

An Palestinian-born US academic and literary critic, Said was a prominent advocate of the Palestinian cause and a founding figure of post-colonial theory. He developed, from the 1970's onwards, a humanist critique of the western Enlightenment that uncovered its link to colonialism and highlighted 'narratives of oppression', cultural and ideological biases that disempower colonized peoples. He thereby condemned Eurocentrism's attempt to remake the world in its own image. Said's key works include Orientalism (2003) and Culture and Imperialism (1993)

Charles Taylor (1931-?)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-10 15:45:18 UTC

A Canadian academic and political philosopher, Taylor drew on communitarian thinking to construct a theory of multiculturalism as the 'politics of recognition'. Emphasizing the twin ideas of equal dignity (rooted in an appeal to people's humanity) and equal respect (reflecting difference and the extent to which personal identity is culturally situated), Taylor's multiculturalism goes beyong classical liberalism, whilst also rejecting particularism and moral relativism. His most influential work in this area is Multiculturalism and 'the Politics of Recognition' (1994).

Bhikhu Parekh (1935-?)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-10 15:55:33 UTC

An Indian political theorist, Parekh has developed an influential defence of cultural diversity from a pluralist perspective. In Rethinking Multiculturalism (2005), he rejected universalist liberalism on the grounds that what is reasonable and moral is embedded in and mediated by culture, which, in turn, helps people to make sense of their lives and the world around them. 'Variegated' treatment, including affirmative action, is therefore required to put ethnic, cultural or religious minorities on an equal footing with the majority community.

James Tully (1946-?)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-10 16:04:17 UTC

A Canadian political theorist, Tully has championed a plural form of political society that accomodates the needs and interests of indigenous peoples. He portrayed modern constitutionalism, which stresses sovereignty and uniformity, as a form of imperalism that denies indigenous modes of self-government and land appropriation. In its place, he advocated 'ancient constitutionalism', which respects diversity and pluralism, and allows traditional values and practices to be accepted as legitimate. Tully's key work in this area is Strange Multiplicity (1995).

Jeremy Waldron (1953-?)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-10 16:12:02 UTC

A New Zealand legal and political theorist, Waldron has developed a 'cosmopolitan' understanding of multiculturalism that stressed the rise of 'hybridity'. Waldron's emphasis on the fluid, multifarious and often fractured nature of human self provided the basis for the development of cosmopolitanism as normative philosophy that challenges both liberalism and communitarianism. It rejects the 'rigid' liberal perception of what it means to lead an autonomous life, as well as the tendency within communitarianism to confine people within a single 'authentic' culture.

Will Kymlicka (1962-?)

charanteleclerc — 2014-05-10 16:17:08 UTC

A Canadian political philosopher, Kymlicka is often seen as the leading theorist of liberal multiculturalism. In Multiculturalism Citizenship (1995), he argued that certain 'collective rights' of miniority cultures are consistent with liberal-democratic priniciples, but acknowledged that no single formula can be applied to all miniority groups, particularly as the needs and aspirations of immigrants differ from those of indigenous peoples. For Kymlicka, cultural identity and minority rights are closely linked to personal autonomy. His other works in this area include Multicultural Odysseys (2007).