Private Selves, Public Identities: Reconsidering Identity Politics and The Politics of Identity: Liberal Political Theory and the Dilemmas of Difference

Extract

Private Selves, Public Identities: Reconsidering Identity Politics. By Susan J. Hekman. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. 159p. $35.00 cloth, $24.00 paper.

The Politics of Identity: Liberal Political Theory and the Dilemmas of Difference. By Michael Kenny. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004. 212p. $59.95 cloth, $27.95 paper.

The debate about multiculturalism takes many forms, and can focus on cultural domination, legal recognition of difference, and particular policy construction. But in these two volumes it pertains to liberal political theory and identity politics. Both are concerned with the challenges evident in the inability of some conceptions of liberalism to respond to the claims of the political relevance of categories of identity. Both are well grounded in current literature exploring the limitations and possibilities of liberalism. Both focus more on the political theory than on the political reality. But in the end, they champion different sides—Susan J. Hekman reconceptualizes and rehabilitates identity politics, and Michael Kenny reframes and reinvigorates liberalism. Although their conclusions are not incompatible, they are aimed at different audiences. Were the authors sharing a stage, they might largely talk past each other.