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The Individual, the State, and Ethnic Communities in Political Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Vernon Van Dyke
Vernon Van Dyke
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
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Abstract

Liberal political theory and contemporary expositions of human rights focus largely on the individual. Some liberal theorists even deny that ethnic communities and other groups, as collective entities, can have moral rights at all. The outlook is narrow and unfortunate. It reflects a preoccupation with domestic politics and a model of domestic politics that neglects the common fact of heterogeneity. It ignores widespread practices and urgent problems, for in many countries groups identified by race, language, or religion make moral claims, and their claims are sometimes conceded. It ignores the common view that nations or “peoples” have a (moral) right of self-determination, and it even leaves the state itself without justification. If theory is to give adequate guidance, its focus must be broadened. The question of group rights needs to be explored, and interrelationships between the rights of individuals, of groups, and of the state need to be clarified.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , April 1977 , pp. 343 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1977

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References

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32 Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23 (1968), at 39; emphasis added.

33 See, for example, Officers for Justice v. Civil S. Com'n, C. & C. San Francisco, 371 F. Supp. 1328 (1973), at 1332.

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