Walsh
Grant Proposal 9-13
Are Rights Wrong? Multiculturalism and Women’s Rights in Liberal Democracies
Liberal democracies endorse multiculturalism and women’s rights to secure equal
citizenship for all. These rights, however, often conflict. For example, the Indian
government in 1986 passed the Muslim Women (Protection on Rights on Divorce) Act.
This Act confirmed the right of minority Muslims to adjudicate family law in their
communities independently of the Hindu-dominated state while ending Muslim women’s
right to long-term maintenance upon divorce. Although Muslim women gained rights as
members of a minority community threatened by Hindu nationalism they also lost rights
as women. Scholars and policymakers in liberal democracies are bedeviled by these
conflicts, which include the headscarf debate in France, female genital cutting in Britain,
customary marriage in South Africa, and native women’s membership status in Canada.
Multicultural-women’s rights conflicts have prompted scholars to seek resolutions to
these conflicts that respect group difference while advancing women’s rights. In this
book project, however, I find that liberal democracies systematically marginalize
minority women who are at the heart of these conflicts. Because minority women lack the
power to shape legislation that is about them multicultural-women’s rights policies
violate fundamental democratic norms. Worse, I find that multiculturalism and women’s
rights do little to redress this problem as they favor elite minority males and majority
women. In short, scholars and policymakers have misidentified the problem that needs
solving. The problem is not a multicultural-women’s rights conflict but tyranny of the
majority.
Just as a focus on multicultural-women’s rights conflicts obscures where rights go wrong
it also obscures the reality that liberal democracies implement policies that target
minority women. Minority women are not simply “victims” of their culture but also
citizens subject to state law. When liberal democracies implement multicultural-women’s
rights policies, what are the outcomes? Who benefits and why? Can rights be wrong by
failing to redress majority tyranny, but improve minority women’s lives when
implemented? Or is it time to move beyond rights? I am finding that while minority
women occasionally benefit from multicultural-women’s rights policies the primary
beneficiaries are political elites. This evidence suggests that marginalized groups like
minority women cannot rely on rights in liberal democracies and must seek political
power.
My evidence is derived from an innovative methodological approach that combines
political theory with comparative politics. One strand of comparative political theory
investigates normatively generated claims with empirical evidence. This subfield,
however, does not use a research design or qualitative methods to ensure systematic data
collection and analysis. Comparative politics offers both, and is in the midst of
revolutionizing its qualitative tools. Comparativists, however, rarely ask questions that
investigate the limits of actually existing democracy because they value predictive
models over usefulness. Alternatively, I draw on normative political theory and the
findings of empirical scholars to develop an intersectional approach to multiculturalwomen’s rights conflicts. This produces new questions and claims about rights. I probe
Walsh
Grant Proposal 9-13
the plausibility of these claims through a macro-historical, cross-regional comparative
analysis of multicultural-women’s rights policies in Canada, India, and South Africa. I
use process tracing to identify the key causal mechanisms at work. My data sources
include policy documents, stakeholder submissions, parliamentary records, newspaper
articles, and policy evaluations. I use purposeful sampling and saturation to identify
academics, non-governmental organizations, journalists, bureaucrats, politicians,
minority group activists, religious leaders, jurists, and lawyers in the three countries to
interview. I have completed 80 one-hour semi-structured interviews in South Africa and
Canada to date. I also have written and presented drafts of the first three chapters of the
book project at multiple professional conferences.
Policymakers and scholars in liberal democracies face excruciating choices when
addressing multicultural-women’s rights conflicts. By applying an intersectional
approach and using a qualitative macro-historical analysis, I am finding that a focus on
these conflicts obscures systematic inequalities in liberal democratic policymaking and
that the implementation of multicultural-women’s rights policies reinforces rather than
alters unequal relations of power. This suggests that the question to ask is not how to
resolve these conflicts, but whether rights are wrong when they obscure more inequality
than they remediate.