4 Diversity and Democratic
Inclusion
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While ‘‘equality theorists’’ have focused on economic maldistribution, and
‘‘diVerence theorists’’ have focused on cultural oppression, those who focus
on political domination might usefully be termed ‘‘diversity theorists.’’ Crit-
ical of the economic individualism of liberal egalitarians, and concerned
about the essentialism of recognition theorists, diversity theorists focus
both on equality of political participation, and on the process by which the
meaning of equality is itself determined.
Diversity theorists, attempting to negotiate a way beyond the apparent
tensions of equality as redistribution or as recognition, invoke the import-
ance of political voice and democratic inclusion. Bhikhu Parekh, for instance,
suggests that redistribution requires principles to decide who is entitled to
make what claims, and these principles ‘‘can only be arrived at by means of a
democratic dialogue, which generates them, tests their validity, and gives
them legitimacy’’ (Parekh 2004 , 207 ). This emphasis on democratic inclusion
shifts attention from the perennial ‘‘equality of what?’’ question (resources or
dignity?) to the wider issue of who partakes in this very debate. Centrally, it
focuses attention on the legitimacy of the actual process by which the norms
of equivalence are derived. In this way procedural norms also become central
to the pursuit of equality. A concern for democratic participation therefore
complements the debate on substantive equality.
As Benhabib notes, every procedure of universalizability presupposes that
‘‘like cases ought to be treated alike:’’ the diYculty lies in knowing what
constitutes a ‘‘like’’ situation. ‘‘Such a process of reasoning, to be at all viable,
must involve the viewpoint of the concrete other’’ (Benhabib 1992 , 163 ).
ReXecting on the implications of adopting the standpoint of the concrete
other in relation to the liberal-egalitarian theories of equality, one is struck
immediately by the unilateral manner in which Dworkin suggests that while
diVerences of talent should not be considered relevant when treating like
cases alike, diVerences of ambition should. Yet, as Monica Mookherjee rightly
notes, rectiWcation of unequal circumstances ‘‘cannot be achieved by applying
preconceived interpretations of the term equality itself. This is because a
necessary, if not suYcient, condition of equality is the enabling of excluded
groups to unsettle and destabilize meanings and interpretations which
the institutional culture has hitherto taken as universal and complete’’
equality and difference 483