In a major speech the Prime Minister reflected on the role of multiculturalism in a modern and evolving society.
In preparation for his lecture, the fifth in the Our Nation’s Future series, Tony Blair considered the following paper - one of those written by a range of experts in the field.
The authors are independent, and all views and opinions are their own. They do not necessarily agree with Government policy, but each makes an interesting contribution to the debate.
About the expert
Ian Kearns and Richard Muir co-wrote this article. Ian is Deputy Director at the Institute for Public Policy Research and Richard is a Research Fellow.
Read the paper
Citizenship in a multicultural democracy
1. This note is intended as a follow up to the recent Downing Street seminar on extremism and multiculturalism. At the seminar IPPR’s Deputy Director Ian Kearns suggested the following:
- That debates on extremism too often draw dividing lines in the wrong place, between Muslims and non-Muslims, rather than between those who believe in democracy on the one hand, and those who fundamentally reject it on the other.
- That the British state, despite recent moves in the area of citizenship ceremonies and education, has taken a largely laissez faire attitude to shared identity formation and the definition and sustenance of a set of shared civic values among the populace.
- That a statement of what the essential minimum rights and duties of British citizenship are would be both a useful and much needed statement of what this country stands for and would provide a useful backdrop against which to frame debates about multiculturalism on the one hand and extremism on the other.
2. This note develops these ideas further. Here, we ask:
- How might the essential minimum be defined, both in terms of civic rights and civic duties?
- How does this essential minimum relate to the idea of a multicultural society and to a world in which people posses multiple identities?
- What does the essential minimum imply by way of an approach to dealing with the problem of extremism?
- What does all this mean for policy?
Below, we address each of these questions in turn.
Defining the Essential Minimum
3. We believe this needs to reflect a synthesis of liberal and communitarian thought. This might be termed a civic liberal view of the desirable relationship between the citizen and the state.
The essential minimum should be liberal in the sense that it should:
- Guarantee for each citizen the largest possible degree of personal liberty that is compatible with the liberty of others.
- Promote a notion of the good society in which people are free to pursue their own autonomously considered conceptions of the good life.
- Provide a strong framework of legal, civil and political rights set out in law.
- Ensure equality of treatment or ‘procedural fairness’ in the exercise of those rights.
- Ensure that the social conditions exist in which equal citizenship, including peoples’ liberties, are realities not mere formalities.
However, a mere association of free rights-bearing individuals is unlikely on its own to foster the other-regarding virtues, commonality of purpose, or habits and practices of mind that are required to sustain cohesive communities within the context of democracy. This is because if citizens do not exercise a certain amount of responsibility in addition to exercising their rights, the communities in which they live fragment and the democratic framework on which our liberties depend weakens.
4. If communities are to be strong and cohesive, a commitment to certain civic virtues is needed. These civic virtues should include a duty on people to:
- Refrain from anti-social behaviour.
- Have and display respect for the law and accede to legitimate decisions reached through a fair and democratic process
- Uphold the basic rules on a day to day basis and to frown upon their infringement.
- Acknowledge the equal citizenship of others and respect the life choices made by others.
- Participate in public affairs in some minimal respect. There are certain citizen duties so essential to the functioning of a democratic society that one might make them legally enforceable. Jury service, for instance, is seen as so important to the functioning of our system of justice that it is compulsory to participate. The duty to vote, compulsory in many countries, is more controversial, but it can certainly be argued that if election turnout falls to a level that puts the legitimacy of the system (and in the long run our liberties) at risk, compulsory voter turnout can be required. This is an argument that we have developed elsewhere at length (Keaney and Rogers 2006).
5. These duties of political citizenship might on one level seem illiberal. But there is a liberal defence of these duties of political citizenship, which is that our individual liberty is fundamentally tied to the preservation of a healthy democracy. Only a democratic system of government brings with it the contestation, accountability and checks and balances required to prevent our liberal freedoms being eroded.
6. So a civic liberal position generally combines the centrality of rights that comes from traditional liberalism with a communitarian position that holds that there are certain obligations which come with our citizenship, both to ensure our communities do not fragment and that our democracy is preserved. Our argument is that these specific rights and responsibilities are the essential minimum of British citizenship.
The Essential Minimum, Multicultural Society and Identity
7. Being explicit about the essential minimum while defining it in the way we have suggested has two advantages in the context of a society that is increasingly diverse and multicultural in nature. It encourages solidarity between citizens and a belief in a shared set of citizenship values on the one hand but its liberal nature defends and maintains respect for diverse beliefs and practices on the other.
8. We accept Bhikhu Parekh’s definition of multiculturalism as the belief in a society that respects minority cultures and values cultural diversity while making this diversity itself a part of its own self-understanding (Parekh 2006). We believe however, that a commitment to this multicultural idea must be nested within and underpinned by a wider commitment to the values defined in our essential minimum. A commitment to multiculturalism without an explicit commitment to the essential minimum can be perceived as favouring the needs of ethnic minorities over other citizens and can therefore be divisive. In fact however, multiculturalism both depends upon and forms a part of a society built on the liberal and civic values of the essential minimum and an explicit commitment to the essential minimum is not only compatible with multiculturalism but the two are mutually reinforcing.
9. This view leads us, not surprisingly, to reject an assimilationist approach to integration. Assimilationist views are intellectually incoherent: there is no mono-culture that we should all assimilate into. They are also unethical since they breach the basic liberal nostrum at the foundation of our system that people should be free to pursue their own conception of the good life. Finally, assimilationist views are counter-productive. Integration will only be achieved if both minority and majority groups make accommodations and are sensitive to cultural differences. Majority dominated institutions which refuse to make accommodation to the deeply felt beliefs of religious minorities, for instance, will likely to drive up barriers and increase social segregation.
10. Our belief that multiculturalism can and should be nested within the wider essential minimum values of our democracy also leads us to reject the view expressed by some recently, that multiculturalism is incompatible with integration. Integration is an important goal of policy and many policies aimed at sustaining multiculturalism, such as respecting religious holidays in the workplace or allowing uniforms to be adapted to cater for religious symbols, facilitate integration. They do this because they reduce the barriers that prevent minority groups from participating in common public institutions. This participation is crucial to ensuring that people from different backgrounds mix and that members of minority groups have equal opportunities to access services and get on in life.
11. Finally, we believe a nesting of a commitment to multiculturalism within a wider essential minimum is consistent with the reality that people possess multiple identities. A shared identity built around the values defined as the essential minimum needs to sit alongside other identities. Identity cannot and should not be a zero sum game, where one has to feel less Muslim or Hindu in order to also sign up to the core values of British citizenship.
The Essential Minimum and Extremism
12. It is important to note that extremism is on the increase in a number of different ways. While the most pressing aspect of the problem relates to radical and violent Muslim groups, other forms of extremism are on the rise too. Hate crimes are on the increase, attitudes to asylum seekers and immigrants are becoming more negative, and the BNP have gained an electoral base (Lewis 2005). Extremist groups also feed off each other with one group of extremists using the actions of another as justification for their own behaviour. This is not to deny that extremist threats vary in intensity and level of danger or that government policy must prioritise action against the most dangerous. It is simply to say that the problem we face is a wider one than that of the current Muslim terrorist threat, even if the latter is the most pressing at the moment.
13. Against this backdrop we believe that an explicit statement of the essential minimum offers a benchmark against which extremism can be defined. If an individual or movement refuses to seek change through democratic politics and pursues violence or intimidation, this is extremism. If a political movement openly rejects the idea of equal citizenship or the right of all citizens to be treated with equal respect, this is extremism even if it does not manifest itself in violence. The issue is not whether the extremists are Muslim, Baptist, Hindu or members of the BNP, but that they use their own citizenship rights and freedoms to seek to undermine or destroy the democratic values at the core of our society.
14. We further believe there is political advantage in using the essential minimum in this way. Such an approach would demonstrate that all forms of extremism are resisted, even if not all forms of extremism are resisted with equal intensity at any given moment in time. It would help to undermine those who argue that measures to tackle extremism are actually a form of state backed persecution of a minority group. And finally, use of the essential minimum in this way would offer a route out of our current problem in which we talk of Muslim extremists while straining to make clear that it is not the fact that the extremists are Muslim that is important.
The Essential Minimum and Policy
In this section, we do not suggest policy ideas across the entire spectrum of debates on multiculturalism and extremism but limit ourselves to policy that might need to follow if one wanted to use the notion of an essential minimum.
15. If the Prime Minister wanted to use the notion of an essential minimum to frame debates on multiculturalism and extremism he would first need to make the notion explicit. This could be through a major speech or statement defining what the British state stands for and what citizenship of it entails. Such a speech might also need to refer to the fact that reality inevitably falls short of our ideals in this area, and that that the struggle to do more and to match our ideals must be ongoing and renewed for each generation. We believe this kind of statement would be important because it would kick-start a debate on the values we share as a community and it would correct the mistaken view, deep rooted in the political class, that popular belief in our democratic ideals is somehow so deeply embedded that it needs no support, explicit definition, or robust defence. The rise of extremism in various forms shows this to be a complacent view.
16. Specific institutional changes such as a written constitution, together with ongoing drives to open up decision-making to greater public involvement and to tackle social injustice have an important part to play. These would be aimed at ensuring continued advance in the area of equal treatment for all citizens, an important issue in combating extremism in all its forms. However, policy as statement is sometimes as important as policy as action and this is one such area; starting a discussion on the core ideological content of the state would be a substantial advance in and of itself.
17. A second area of policy development relates to investing in practical measures to build and maintain core values. This might need to extend recent moves beyond our traditional laissez faire approach to issues of citizenship (such as citizenship classes in schools and citizenship ceremonies for new immigrants) by doing more to spread knowledge of and celebrate the story of how Britain’s democracy was won and at what cost. This could be done through the way we teach history in schools, through the events we celebrate in the civic calendar, through our local and national museums and through the public art in our streets and town centres. If we are to challenge those who wish to divide society on cultural, religious and racial grounds, we should also emphasise the value of a multicultural society in much the same way - in terms of diversity in the history we teach, the events we celebrate and the heritage we preserve. The government’s current work on the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade is a good example of how the state can take the lead in addressing our diverse and democratic heritage, especially exploring some of its most shameful episodes.
18. There are also a series of actions at the local level that can also provide a context conducive to shared identity, including encouraging children to mix in the neighbourhood or at school, designing public spaces such that people from all backgrounds are likely to interact, making sure sporting and cultural activities take place across ethnic, racial and class lines and making sure we provide more community resources, such as Sure Start centres, that help foster ‘bridging social capital’ between people from different backgrounds (Halpern 2005). Shared action is in this sense an important building block for shared identity.
19. Finally, much of this activity would need to be funded. This does not necessarily mean more money but it might mean reviewing current spending to ensure that where possible we are providing financial incentives for behaviour that supports and reinforces the essential minimum rather than providing a premium for activities that accentuate difference.
References
- Halpern D (2005) Social Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press.
- Keaney E and B Rogers (2006) A Citizen’s Duty. Voter Inequality and the Case for Compulsory Turnout. London: IPPR.
- Lewis M (2005) Asylum. Understanding Public Atttitudes. London: IPPR.
- Parekh B (2006) Rethinking Multiculturalism. Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillian.
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