Multicultural Citizenship

A treatise, subtitled A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, arguing that a liberal state can and sometimes must grant group-differentiated rights to minority cultures. Kymlicka distinguishes two sources of cultural diversity: multinational states, which contain national minorities such as Indigenous peoples or the Québécois, and polyethnic states, shaped by immigration. He then distinguishes three kinds of rights: self-government rights for national minorities, polyethnic rights such as exemptions and funding that help immigrants integrate without abandoning their heritage, and special representation rights in political institutions. The liberal case rests on the idea of a societal culture, which provides the context of choice within which individual autonomy is exercised. Kymlicka draws a key line between external protections, which shield a group from pressures by the wider society and may be justified, and internal restrictions, which limit the liberty of a group's own members and are not. Critics on one side say the theory ranks liberal autonomy above traditional cultures; others doubt that group rights are needed at all.

It is the standard liberal defence of minority rights and gives clear terms for arguing about language policy, Indigenous self-government and the accommodation of immigrants.