Liberal citizenship theory excludes communal identity from public recognition because diversity complicates state mediation

Evidence

First, the orthodox liberal construction of the person as solely a political being with rights and duties attached to their status as a citizen can be brought into question. Such a position does not countenance private identity, including a person’s communal membership, as something warranting similar recognition. These latter dimensions are excluded from the public realm because their inevitable diversity would lead to the complicated business of the state mediating between different conceptions of “the good life” (Dworkin, 1978; Rawls, 1985). On this basis, personal autonomy - based on the political rights attributable to citizenship - always takes precedence over personal (and collective) identity and the widely differing ways of life which constitute the latter. In effect, personal and political participation in liberal democracies, as it has come to be constructed, ends up denying group difference and posits all persons as interchangeable from a moral and political point of view (Young, 1993). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 880

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the orthodox liberal conception of the person as purely political, a key framing for the multiculturalism debate that follows.
• XREF: Connects to the discrimination-avoidance framing in the companion passages from ‘Communication as Culture’ about whom the public sphere excludes. — connects to: Liberal democracy’s neutral ideals mask racial and gendered domination — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 406; Liberal universal citizenship can leave excluded identity intact beneath its surface — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1620; Proxies for nonhumans extend an established liberal practice of representation — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice:…, 677 (+1 more)