Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T15:37:11.778Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Identity Politics and the Welfare State*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

Alan Wolfe  and
Jytte Klausen
Alan Wolfe
Affiliation:
Sociology and Political Science, Boston University
Jytte Klausen
Affiliation:
Comparative Politics, Brandeis University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Motivated by a deep sense that injustice and inequality are wrong, liberals and reformers in the Western political tradition have focused their energies on policies and programs which seek inclusion: extending the suffrage to those without property; seeking to treat women the same as men, and blacks the same as whites; trying to ensure that as few as possible are excluded from economic opportunity due to lack of resources. Under current conditions, such demands for inclusion take two primary forms, especially in the United States. One is a commitment to using the state to equalize the life chances of individuals. The other is a call for treating groups which have experienced discrimination with full respect. The former leads to the welfare state, while the latter is produced by, and in turn produces, what is commonly called identity politics, the politics of recognition, or the politics of presence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , Summer 1997 , pp. 231 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1997

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

1 See Piore, Michael, Beyond Individualism: How Social Demands of the New Identity Groups Constrain American Political and Economic Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Taylor, Charles, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; and Phillips, Anne, The Politics of Presence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).Google Scholar For a recent critique of identity politics, see Gitlin, Todd, The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is Wracked by Culture Wars (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1995).Google Scholar

2 Young, Iris Marion, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 174, 187.Google Scholar

3 Spinner, Jeff, The Boundaries of Citizenship: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in the Liberal State (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994).Google Scholar

4 Todorov, Tzvetan, On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought, trans. Porter, Catherine (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

5 Holmes, Stephen, Passions and Constraints: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 39.Google Scholar

6 Kymlicka, Will, Liberalism, Community, and Culture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 206–19.Google Scholar

7 Taylor, , Multiculturalism and the Politics of RecognitionGoogle Scholar; Kymlicka, Will, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).Google Scholar

8 Tamir, Yael, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

9 Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, revised ed. (London and New York: Verso, 1991)Google Scholar; Hobsbawm, Eric, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

10 Miller, David, Market, State, and Community: Theoretical Foundations of Market Socialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 284.Google Scholar A more extensive discussion of these issues by the same author can be found in On Nationalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).Google Scholar

11 Yack, Bernard, “Reconciling Liberalism and Nationalism,” Political Theory, vol. 23 (02 1995), pp. 166–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Kymlicka, Will, “Group Representation in Canadian Politics,” in Seidle, F. Leslie, ed., Equity and Community: The Charter, Interest Advocacy, and Representation (Brookfield: Ashgate Publishing, 1993), p. 74Google Scholar, cited in Phillips, , The Politics of Presence, p. 140.Google Scholar See also Taylor, Charles, “Shared and Divergent Values,” in Watts, Ronald L. and Brown, Douglas M., eds., Options for a New Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991).Google Scholar

13 Young, , Justice and the Politics of Difference, p. 184.Google Scholar

14 Taylor, , “Shared and Divergent Values,” p. 66Google Scholar; see also Phillips, , The Politics of Presence, pp. 132–33.Google Scholar

15 Marshall, T. H., Citizenship and Social Class, and Other Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), pp. 10, 11.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., p. 56.

17 Ibid., p. 69.

18 Marshall, T. H., Class, Citizenship, and Social Development: Essays by T. H. Marshall, with an introduction by Seymour Martin Lipset (Garden City: Doubleday, 1964), p. 247.Google Scholar

19 Esping-Andersen, Gøsta, Politics against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Korpi, Walter, The Democratic Class Struggle (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983).Google Scholar

20 See Siim, Birte, “Towards a Feminist Rethinking of the Welfare State,” in Jones, Kathleen B. and Jónasdóttir, Anna, eds., The Political Interests of Gender: Developing Theory and Research with a Feminist Face (London: Sage Publications, 1988), pp. 160–86Google Scholar; Orloff, Ann Shola, “Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship,” American Sociological Review, vol. 58 (06 1993), pp. 303–28Google Scholar; and Hernes, Helga Maria, Welfare State and Woman Power: Essays in State Feminism (Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

21 Pateman, Carole, “The Patriarchal Welfare State,” in Gutmann, Amy, ed., Democracy and the Welfare State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 231–60.Google Scholar

22 For an exception, see Klausen, Jytte, “Social Rights Advocacy and State Building: T. H. Marshall in the Hands of Social Reformers,” World Politics, vol. 47 (01 1995), pp. 244–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Marshall, , Citizenship and Social Class, and Other Essays, p. 41.Google Scholar

24 Tawney, R. H., Equality (1931; reprint, New York: Capricorn Books, 1961), p. 31.Google Scholar

25 Kymlicka, , Liberalism, Community, and Culture, pp. 135–61.Google Scholar

26 Quandt, Jean, From the Small Town to the Great Community: The Social Thought of Progressive Intellectuals (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

27 Dewey, John, The Public and Its Problems (New York: Henry Holt, 1927).Google Scholar

28 SirBeveridge, William H., The Pillars of Security, and Other War-Time Essays and Addresses (New York: Macmillan, 1943), p. 104.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 93.

30 Social Insurance and Allied Services: Report by Sir William Beveridge (New York: Macmillan, 1942).Google Scholar On the use of declining birth rates and other eugenic concepts by advocates of the welfare state, see Pedersen, Susan, Family, Dependence, and the Origins of the Welfare State: Britain and France, 1914–1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 316–19.Google Scholar

31 Beveridge, , The Pillars of Security, p. 164.Google Scholar

32 Beveridge, , “Children's Allowances and the Race,” in his The Pillars of Security, pp. 164–75.Google Scholar

33 Herrnstein, Richard J. and Murray, Charles, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (New York: Free Press, 1994).Google Scholar

34 The Labour Party, Let Us Face the Future: A Declaration of Labour Policy for the Consideration of the Nation (London: The Labour Party, 1945), p. 10.Google Scholar

35 Marshall, , “Social Selection in the Welfare State,” in his Class, Citizenship, and Social Development, pp. 236–55.Google Scholar

36 Myrdal, Alva, Nation and Family: The Swedish Experiment in Democratic Family and Population Policy (New York: Harper, 1941), p. 15.Google ScholarPubMed

37 Ibid., pp. 158, 161.

38 Myrdal, Gunnar, Beyond the Welfare State: Economic Planning and Its International Implications (1960; reprint, New York: Bantam Books, 1967), pp. 130–31.Google Scholar

39 Steinberg, Stephen, Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy (Boston: Beacon, 1995), pp. 191–92.Google Scholar

40 Togeby, Lise, “Political Implications of Increasing Numbers of Women in the Labor Force,” Comparative Political Studies, vol. 27 (07 1994), pp. 211–40Google Scholar; EG, kvinnorna och välfärden. Betänkende av EG-konsekvensultredningarna: Social välfärd och jämställdhet (Stockholm: SOU, 1993).Google Scholar

41 Walzer, Michael, Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994).Google Scholar

42 See Garza, Rodolfo O. de la et al. , Latino Voices: Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban Perspectives on American Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992), pp. 100–101Google Scholar; and Skerry, Peter, Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority (New York: Free Press, 1993).Google Scholar Much the same split between rank-and-file opinion and the opinion of leadership organizations on immigration can be seen among African Americans.

43 Portes, Alejandro and Stepick, Alex, City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 176–202. Immigration is also a more powerful force than color or racial identity; Portes and Stepick note that “Black Americans are profoundly ambivalent about Haitians in Miami, who, though ‘brothers’ in color, are regarded as a competitive threat in the labor market and business world” (p. 190).Google Scholar

44 Hollinger, David, Post-Ethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism (New York: Basic Books, 1995).Google Scholar

45 Klausen, Jytte, “Citizenship and Social Justice in Open Societies,” in Eriksen, Erik Oddvar and Loftager, Jørn, eds., The Rationality of the Welfare State (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1996), pp. 203–27.Google Scholar

46 See Omae, Kenichi, The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies (New York: Free Press, 1995).Google Scholar

47 Schlesinger, Arthur Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society (New York: Norton, 1992).Google Scholar

48 Marshall, , Class, Citizenship, and Social Development, p. 236.Google Scholar

49 Despite Marshall's emphasis on individualism, the welfare state, at least in its earlier phases, assumed that the family, and not the persons within it, was the main economic unit. For that reason, it was not until the feminist critique of the welfare state developed in the 1970s and 1980s that a truly individualist result was produced, one which disaggregated the family as a unit, so as to increase the rights of all the individuals, including the women (and children) who composed it.

50 Kymlicka, , Liberalism, Community, and Culture, p. 180.Google Scholar

51 Grofman, Bernard and Davidson, Chandler, “Postcript: What Is the Best Way to a Color-Blind Society?” in Grofman, Bernard and Davidson, Chandler, eds., Controversies in Minority Voting: The Voting Rights Act in Perspective (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1992), pp. 300–317Google Scholar; Amy, Douglas J., Real Choices/New Voices: The Case for Proportional Representation Elections in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 115.Google Scholar

52 Thernstrom, Abigail, Whose Votes Count? Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Guinier, Lani, The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy (New York: Free Press, 1994).Google Scholar

53 “High Court Voids Race-Based Redistricting,” New York Times, 06 14, 1996, p. A24.Google Scholar

54 Ibid.

55 Swain, Carol, Black Faces/Black Interests: The Representation of African-Americans in Congress (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).Google Scholar There is also evidence that black voters have become more conservative; see Tate, Katherine, From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 29–38.Google Scholar On the differences between black and white opinion, see Hochschild, Jennifer, Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

56 Marshall, , Class, Citizenship, and Social Development, pp. 219–20.Google Scholar

57 Piore, , Beyond Individualism, p. 25.Google Scholar

58 See, for example, Cohen, Carl, Naked Racial Preference (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1995)Google Scholar; Roberts, Paul Craig and Stratton, Lawrence M., The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1995)Google Scholar; and Eastland, Terry, Ending Affirmative Action: The Case for Colorblind Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1996).Google Scholar

59 Skerry, Peter, “The Affirmative Action Paradox: Group Rights and Individual Benefits,” unpublished paper.Google Scholar

60 Fine, Terri Susan, “Race and Political Culture: Blacks, Whites, and Commitment to Individualism,” Southeastern Political ReviewGoogle Scholar, cited in Skerry, , “The Affirmative Action Paradox,” p. 10.Google Scholar

61 Kahlenberg, Richard D., The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action (New York: Basic Books, 1996).Google Scholar

62 Marshall, , Citizenship and Social Class, pp. 65–66.Google Scholar

63 Marshall, , Class, Citizenship, and Social Development, p. 243.Google Scholar

64 Tawney, , Equality, p. 38.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., p. 50.

66 Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction, trans. Hurley, Robert (New York: Pantheon, 1969).Google Scholar

67 Halperin, David, Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

68 For an elucidation of psychological, neurological, hormonal, and biological arguments about homosexuality, see Ruse, Michael, Homosexuality: A Philosophical Inquiry (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988).Google Scholar

69 Levay, Simon, The Sexual Brain (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Mohr, Richard, Gay Ideas: Outing and Other Controversies (Boston: Beacon, 1992), pp. 221–42.Google Scholar

70 Butler, Judith, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (New York: Routledge, 1993).Google Scholar

71 Lorber, Judith, Paradoxes of Gender (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 292–93.Google Scholar

72 Kull, Andrew, The Color-Blind Constitution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

73 The story of how this happened is well told in Graham, Hugh Davis, The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960–1972 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

74 For examples, see Noddings, Nel, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Belenky, Mary Field et al. , Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1986)Google Scholar; and Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, How Schools Shortchange Girls: The AAUW Report: A Study of Major Findings on Girls in Education (Washington, DC: Association of American University Women, 1992).Google Scholar

75 Matsuda, Mari J., Lawrence, Charles R. III, Delgado, Richard, and Crenshaw, Kimberlè Williams, Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993).Google Scholar

76 For an interesting treatment of the directive, see Hollinger, , Post-Ethnic America, pp. 33–39.Google Scholar

77 Herrnstein, and Murray, , The Bell Curve (supra note 33).Google Scholar

78 Wright, Lawrence, “One Drop of Blood,” The New Yorker, vol. 70 (07 25, 1994), pp. 46–50ff.Google Scholar

79 Phillips, , The Politics of Presence, pp. 170–78.Google Scholar

80 Bates, Stephen, Battleground: One Mother's Crusade, the Religious Right, and the Struggle for Control of Our Classrooms (New York: Poseidon Press, 1993), p. 311.Google Scholar

81 Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).Google Scholar For two examples of this strategy, see Tribe, Lawrence, Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (New York: Norton, 1990), p. 86Google Scholar; and Hirsch, H. N., A Theory of Liberty: The Constitution and Minorities (New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 72–75.Google Scholar