Identity in Democracy

Description

"This is a book about the good, the bad, and the ugly of identity politics by one of America's leading political thinkers. Amy Gutmann rises above the raging polemics that often characterize discussions of identity groups and offers a fair-minded assessment of the role they play in democracies. She addresses fundamental questions of timeless urgency while keeping in focus their relevance to contemporary debates: Do some identity groups undermine the greater democratic good and thus their own legitimacy in a democratic society? Even if so, how is a democracy to fairly distinguish between groups such as the KKK on the one hand and the NAACP on the other? Should democracies exempt members of some minorities from certain legitimate or widely accepted rules, such as Canada's allowing Sikh members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to wear turbans instead of Stetsons? Do voluntary groups like the Boy Scouts have a right to discriminate on grounds of sexual preference, gender, or race?"--BOOK JACKET.

First Sentence

Identify groups occupy an uneasy place in democracy.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Identity in DemocracyPaperbackPrinceton University Press2004-08-16
• Identity in democracyPrinceton University Press2002-01-01
• Identity in DemocracyHardcoverPrinceton University Press2003-01-27
• Identity in DemocracyPrinceton University Press2009-01-01