Multicultural Jurisdictions — Cultural Differences and Women's Rights (original) (raw)

2003, Contemporary Political Theory

Multiculturalism as a liberal policy to accommodate minority interests in liberal states has gained more and more attention from political theorists. Its defenders argue that rights accorded to minority cultures are necessary in order to protect them from oppression by the majority state. Its critics often argue that such rights give leeway to illiberal groups to oppress their own members, particularly women, whose discrimination is often justified on the grounds of 'traditional' cultural practices. Shachar helpfully addresses this central debate, by examining the jurisdictional tensions between state, nomoi groups (i.e. groups that share a comprehensive and distinguishable worldview that extends to creating a law for the community, p. 2), and individual group members. She provides a model of conflict resolution that is sensitive to the concern of liberal states for citizenship rights and individual interest for equality and autonomy while keeping in mind the need to safeguard minority cultures that do not necessarily subscribe to liberal values. In her model of adjudication, Shachar focuses on family law as an area of law that pertains to the community because it is through the family that cultural values are transmitted while often discriminating against women. Her motivation is clearly to design a model that would avoid putting members of cultural minority groups in the deadlock position of having to choose between either cultural affiliation or citizenship rights. Shachar identifies religious and cultural minorities as the groups most prone to come into conflict with majority state laws, while using examples taken from the accommodation of Aboriginal Peoples to illustrate her point. Indeed, the starkest conflicts between state, group, and individual will arise from those minorities that are embedded in a liberal state yet aim for more autonomy by claiming more encompassing self-government and self-determination rights. Put differently, those cultural groups that aim for political and cultural accommodation, including their own community laws. To tackle conflicts between cultural minorities and the liberal state that may arise from different conceptions of law, Shachar emphasizes that state and minority groups should share responsibilities for regulating contested submatter areas in her proposal for a joint governance arrangement. For example, when it comes to marriage, the religious community should implement rules for