Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T08:44:47.318Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The use and abuse of ‘universal values’ in the Danish cartoon controversy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2010

Christian F. Rostbøll
Christian F. Rostbøll*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, Copenhagen K, Denmark
*
* E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During the Danish cartoon controversy, appeals to universal liberal values were often made in ways that marginalized Muslims. An analysis of the controversy reveals that referring to ‘universal values’ can be exclusionary when dominant actors fail to distinguish their own culture’s embodiment of these values from the more abstract ideas. The article suggests that the solution to this problem is not to discard liberal principles but rather to see them in a more deliberative democratic way. This means that we should move from focusing on citizens merely as subjects of law and right holders to seeing them as co-authors of shared legal and moral norms. A main shortcoming of the way in which dominant actors in Denmark responded to the cartoons was exactly that they failed to see the Muslim minority as capable of participating in interpreting and giving shared norms. To avoid self-contradiction, liberal principles and constitutional norms should not be seen as incontestable aspects of democracy but rather as subject to recursive democratic justification and revision by everyone subject to them. Newcomers ought to be able to contribute their specific perspectives in this process of democratically reinterpreting and perfecting the understanding of universalistic norms, and thereby make them fit better to those to whom they apply, as well as rendering them theirs.

Keywords

universalismliberalismdeliberationdemocracyfallibilism
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , November 2010 , pp. 401 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © European Consortium for Political Research 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ammitzbøll, P.Lorenzo, V. (2007), ‘After the Danish cartoon controversy’, Middle East Quarterly 14(1): 3–11.Google Scholar
Benhabib, S. (2004), The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berg-Sørensen, A. (2006), ‘Religion i det offentlige rum? En rundtur i danske sekularismer’ [Religion in the public sphere? A roundtrip in Danish secularisms], Kritik 182: 30–38.Google Scholar
Bohman, J. (1997), ‘Deliberative democracy and effective social freedom: capabilities, resources, and opportunities’, in J. Bohman and W. Rehg (eds), Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 321–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohman, J. (2007), Democracy Across Borders: From Dêmos to Dêmoi, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, W. (2006), Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caney, S. (2005), Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwall, S. (2006), The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, R. (1978), ‘Liberalism’, in S. Hampshire (ed.), Public and Private Morality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 113–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, R. (2006), ‘The right to ridicule’, The New York Review of Books 53(5). Retrieved 16 August 2010 from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2006/mar/23/the-right-to-ridicule/Google Scholar
Fish, S. (2006), ‘Our Faith in Letting It All Hang Out’, New York Times, Op-Ed piece, 12 February.Google Scholar
Forst, R. (2007), ‘A critical theory of multicultural toleration’, in A.S. Laden and D. Owen (eds), Multiculturalism and Political Theory, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 292–311.Google Scholar
Galeotti, A.E. (2007), ‘Relativism, universalism, and applied ethics: the case of female circumcision’, Constellations 14(1): 91–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goul Andersen, J., Andersen, J., Borre, O., Hansen, K.M., Nielsen, H.J.(eds) (2007), Det nye politiske landskab: Folketingsvalget 2005 i perspektiv [The New Political Landscape: Perspectives on the 2005 Parliamentary Election], Århus: Academica.Google Scholar
Gutmann, A.Thompson, D. (2004), Why Deliberative Democracy? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, J. (1996), Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (translated by W. Rehg), Cambridge: Polity Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, J. (2006), ‘Jyllands-Posten havde ret til at bringe de tegninger – punktum’ [Jyllands-Posten had a right to publish those cartoons – period], an interview with Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Jyllands-Posten, 1 October.Google Scholar
Hansen, R. (2006), ‘The Danish cartoon controversy: a defence of liberal freedom’, International Migration 44(5): 7–16.Google Scholar
Hansen, J.Hundevadt, K. (2006), Provoen og profeten: Muhammedkrisen bag kulisserne [The Provocateur and the Prophet: The Muhammad Crisis Backstage], Copenhagen: Jyllands-Postens Forlag.Google Scholar
Hedetoft, U. (2006), ‘Denmark’s Cartoon Blowback’, openDemocracy. Retrieved 1 March 2010 from http://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-europe_islam/blowback_3315.jspGoogle Scholar
Hervik, P.Berg, C. (2007), ‘Denmark: a political struggle in Danish journalism’, in R. Kunelius, E. Eide, O. Hahn and R. Schroeder (eds), Reading the Mohammed Cartoons Controversy: An International Analysis of Press Discourses on Free Speech and Political Spin, Bochum, Germany: Projekt Verlag, pp. 25–39.Google Scholar
JrHill, T.E. (2000), Respect, Pluralism, and Justice: Kantian Perspectives, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hjarvard, S. (2006), ‘Religion og politik i mediernes offentlighed’ [Religion and politics in the media’s public sphere], in L. Christoffersen (ed.), Gudebilleder – Ytringsfrihed og Religion i en Globaliseret Verden [Images of God: Freedom of expression and religion in a globalized world], Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter, pp. 44–71.Google Scholar
Jerichow, A.Rode, M. (eds) (n.d.), Profet-affæren: Et PEN-dossier om 12 Muhammed-tegninger – og hvad der siden hændte [The Prophet Affair: A PEN Dossier About 12 Muhammad Cartoons – and What Followed], Danish PEN.Google Scholar
Jespersen, K.Pittelkow, R. (2006), Islamister og naivister – et anklageskrift [Islamists and Naïvists – an Indictment], Copenhagen: People’s Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1997), Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kunelius, R.Eide, E. (2007), ‘The mohammed cartoons, journalism, free speech and globalization’, in R. Kunelius, E. Eide, O. Hahn and R. Schroeder (eds), Reading the Mohammed Cartoons Controversy: An International Analysis of Press Discourses on Free Speech and Political Spin, Bochum, Germany: Projekt Verlag, pp. 9–21.Google Scholar
Laclau, E. (1996), Emancipation(s), London: Verso.Google Scholar
Lindekilde, L., Mouritsen, P.Zapato-Barrero, R. (2009), ‘The Muhammad cartoons controversy in comparative perspective’, Ethnicities 9(3): 291–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loftager, J. (2006), ‘Værdifri samfundskritik – teknokrati eller demokrati?’ [Value-free social criticism – technocracy or democracy?], in H.K. Nielsen and F. Horn (eds), Kritik Som Deltagelse [Criticism as participation], Århus: Klim, pp. 85–106.Google Scholar
Lægaard, S. (2008), ‘Moderate secularism and multicultural equality’, Politics 28(3): 160–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lægaard, S. (2009), ‘Normative interpretations of diversity: the Muhammad cartoons controversy and the importance of context’, Ethnicities 9(3): 314–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meer, N.Mouritsen, P. (2009), ‘Political cultures compared: the Muhammad cartoons in the Danish and British Press’, Ethnicities 9(3): 334–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, J.S. (1998), ‘On liberty’, in J. Gray (ed.), On Liberty and Other Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–128.Google Scholar
Mouritsen, P. (2006), ‘The particular universalism of a Nordic Civic Nation: common values, state religion and Islam in Danish political culture’, in T. Modood, A. Triandafyllidou and R. Zapata-Barrero (eds), Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship, London: Routledge, pp. 70–93.Google Scholar
Parekh, B. (2005), Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory, 2nd edn, Houndmills: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Post, R. (2007), ‘Religion and freedom of speech: portraits of Muhammad’, Constellations 14(1): 72–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, H. (1994), ‘Pragmatism and moral objectivity’, in J. Conant (ed.), Words and Life, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 151–181.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. (1993), Political Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, F. (2005), ‘Muhammeds ansigt’ [The Face of Muhammad], Jyllands-Posten, 30 September.Google Scholar
Rose, F. (2006), ‘Why I Published Those Cartoons’, Washington Post, 19 February.Google Scholar
Rostbøll, C.F. (2008), Deliberative Freedom: Deliberative Democracy as Critical Theory, Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Rostbøll, C.F. (2009a), ‘Dissent, criticism, and transformative political action in deliberative democracy’, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 12(1): 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rostbøll, C.F. (2009b), ‘Autonomy, respect, and arrogance in the Danish cartoon controversy’, Political Theory 37(5): 623–648.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rostbøll, C.F. (forthcoming), ‘Freedom of expression, deliberation, autonomy, and respect’, European Journal of Political Theory.Google Scholar
Rothstein, K.Rothstein, M. (2006), Bomben i turbanen [The Bomb in the Turban], Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter.Google Scholar
Sløk, C. (2009), ‘Here I stand: Lutheran stubbornness in the Danish Prime Minister’s office during the cartoon crisis’, European Journal of Social Theory 12(2): 231–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, R.M. (2008), ‘Religious rhetoric and the ethics of public discourse: the case of George W. Bush’, Political Theory 36(2): 272–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, C.R. (1995), Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech, New York: Free Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldron, J. (1998–99), ‘How to argue for a universal claim’, Columbia Human Rights Law Review 30: 305–313.Google Scholar