166-416 Justice, Democracy and Difference

Admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth-year honours in political science or public policy and management, or postgraduate coursework programs in political science.

This subject provides a critical examination of contemporary debates about ideas of justice, democracy and the politics of difference. The subject critically explores both the major liberal approaches to justice alongside critiques of liberal approaches by communitarian, socialist, feminist, postmodern and radical ecological theorists. Students will be introduced to the different perspectives on justice in terms of their linkages and, in some cases, increasing convergence with different approaches to dealing with democracy and difference. In particular, the major differences between different conceptions of justice are critically explored in terms of who is included/excluded and/or favoured in terms of distributive justice, political participation and political recognition. Particular emphasis is given to the tensions between cosmopolitan versus communitarian approaches to ordering political life and the tensions between arguments for individual versus group/communal rights. The different perspectives on justice, democracy and difference are analysed and applied in relation to a range of contemporary political conflicts concerning race, ethnicity, class, gender, the environmental justice movement and the multicultural state. Examples include political claims for the recognition of ethnic minority rights; the political recognition of religious, ethnic and/or gender difference; the special or weighted political representation or veto rights of ethnic minorities; the different political interpretations of, and priorities accorded to, the human rights agenda; and claims for self-determination by indigenous peoples and national minorities. On completion of the subject, students should be able to recognise the major traditions of contemporary political thought on the subject of justice, understand the linkages between different conceptions of justice and democracy, understand the tensions between the case for individual versus group rights and grasp the differences between cosmopolitan and communitarian approaches to ordering political life.

Written work totalling 5000 words

• W Kymlicka (ed.), The Rights of Minority Cultures. OUP 1995.