Associative democracy and minorities within minorities

That policies of multiculturalism are confronted with a serious dilemma is not really contested. Structural and cultural inequalities between majorities and minorities may require a fair amount of autonomy for minorities. However, structural and cultural inequalities within minorities require the protection of individuals and vulnerable minorities (women, minors, homosexuals, dissidents) against their organizations and leaders. These inequalities may be strengthened by multicultural policies. Roughly, one can distinguish between three different approaches: (i) a radical “absolutist free exercise,” “deference” or “unavoidable costs” approach; (ii) a radically secularist and individualist “re-universalizing citizenship” approach; and (iii) a “liberal democratic accommodationist” approach.

(i) Complete deference to the nomos (customs, ecclesiastical law), decision-making and authority of ethno-religious groups is defended by two radically different, theoretical and political positions. Radical libertarians like Kukathas (1998) defend complete deference to the nomos of religious groups, far-reaching autonomy and absence of any state intervention or scrutiny. These radical libertarians assume free, informed consent by adults and that entry into groups, associations and organizations should be as free as exit.

Traditionalist or conservative communitarians (as well as conservative religious leaders and fundamentalist religious politicians) defend absolutist deference and autonomy in a completely opposite way. “Our” illiberal and anti-democratic religion does not value “individual autonomy” and “free choice” at all, or not in the same way as radically individualist, modern liberals do.