attention from issues of redistribution to those of recognition, but also
informs diverse policy initiatives that further erode the conditions required
to pursue a redistributive politics. For the claim implicit in a politics of
recognition, that groups have diVerences that require state recognition, shifts
attention away from the structures that create inequalities and on to the
characteristics of the ‘‘claimant.’’ One of the limitations of focusing on group
rights therefore lies in the fact that depicting the problem of inequality as a
problem relating to the group as an entity serves to obfuscate the problem of
inequality as a problem of systematic structures of oppression and domin-
ation. In other words, the reiWcation of group identities contributes to the
displacement of struggles to address economic inequality.
Whilst more sympathetic to the concerns of diVerence theorists, Anne
Phillips also interrogates the ‘‘parting of the ways between political and
economic concerns’’ ( 1999 , 1 )inWhich Equalities Matter?Her argument,
that there has been a shift of attention from the class inequalities that
undermine democracy to the gender, racial, or cultural hierarchies that
subvert equal citizenship ( 1999 , 14 ), grapples with the ‘‘problem of displace-
ment.’’ She notes that this shift has resulted in a polarization between
economic and political approaches to inequalities, with political approaches
appearing to jettison concern with economic issues altogether (Phillips 1999 ,
15 ). Similarly, Nancy Fraser argues that the preoccupation with cultural
domination works to marginalize concerns about economic injustices
( 1995 ). Accordingly, she proposes a theoretical framework that addresses
both the political economy and culture, and considers both redistribution
and recognition as appropriate responses to inequality, but ones that stand
in tension to one another: the aYrmative politics of recognition conXicts
with the transformative politics of redistribution in that the former
aYrms group identity whilst the latter aims to eliminate the group as a
group (Fraser 2000 ).
The lengthy debate about recognition and redistribution (see Markell in
this volume) signals the extent to which concerns about both maldistribution
and cultural oppression now frame attempts to theorize equality. Yet the
binary construction of this debate has perhaps obfuscated the importance of
domination in relation to theorizing equality. The neat dichotomy between
recognition and redistribution appears to allow no place for speciWcally
political issues, pertaining to political participation and citizenship. It pits
economic maldistribution against cultural oppression and thereby allows no
conceptual space for considerations of democratic inclusion.
482 judith squires