protection for practices that include gender discrimination would fail the test
of liberal citizenship.
Underlying these guidelines is an admission that group attachments, while
not perhaps as a dominant a value as some multiculturalists argue, do deserve
some respect; they can be dismissed, but should not be until there is good reason
to do so. This all points to what multiculturalists have not done well enough,
which is to explain people’s attachments to groups. While critics readily dismiss
these attachments as loose, perhaps weak, and certainly shifting, it appears to be
the case that some people at least are strongly attached to a particular group.
Multiculturalists are right to point out that group attachments need to be
noticed, but why people are so closely attached to their groups is under-
explained. This is perhaps because this is an empirical question that theorists
are ill-equipped to answer. But questions abound: why do many immigrant
groups—or their descendants—in the immigrant countries (Canada, the
USA, New Zealand, Australia) manage to integrate into the larger society,
while retaining only mostly symbolic attachments to their ancestral culture?
Why have many indigenous peoples failed to integrate, but have found their
confrontation with the West to leave them with such a bitter and enduring
legacy? Why do some nationsWght to unite with their co-nationals in one state,
while others do not? What is the relationship between multiculturalism and
globalization? The theoretical arguments between the multiculturalists and
their critics are not over, but these questions suggest that many empirical
matters, about group life, the contemporary state, and liberal democracy,
remain unexplored. These questions, too, suggest that the multiculturalism
debate would be enriched if scholars set their sights on non-Western countries,
something that the multicultural literature—heavily focused on the USA,
Canada, and Western Europe—has only just begun to do (Kymlicka and
Opalski 2001 ; Carens 2000 , ch. 9 ). Answers to these questions and expanding
the debate beyond the West may yet, in turn, change the nature of the multi-
cultural debate.
References
Barry,B.M. 2001 .Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Benhabib,S. 2002 .The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
560 jeff spinner-halev