Just and Reasonable, But Is It Multiculturalism? A Review of Raphael Cohen-Almagor’s Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism (2021, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Multiculturalism, it has been said, is in crisis. Its death knell has been sounded by politicians and some academics alike. David Cameron famously declared it “wrongheaded” and “disastrous”, and Angela Merkel said it had been “a failure, an absolute failure”. Cohen-Almagor opens Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism with the now well-known and oft cited statements of these two former world leaders. Yet, whereas Cameron called for a “muscular liberalism” in response to the charges laid at the door of multiculturalism, Cohen-Almagor seeks to provide a new statement on a multicultural liberalism. Rather than opposition between liberalism and multiculturalism, Cohen-Almagor sees connection, productive relations, and even a degree of synthesis. The main thesis of the book is that the apparent distance between liberalism and multiculturalism, especially on individual vs group rights, is in fact reconcilable, and bridges are there to be built. In Cohen-Almagor’s own words, the book aims to propose “reasonable standards for reconciliation between liberalism and multiculturalism, between individual rights and group rights” (p. 19). “Liberal democratic societies must tolerate illiberal groups”, he states, “so long as these groups conduct themselves in a manner that is just and reasonable” (p. 238). Cohen-Almagor is centrally concerned with setting out a framework to detail the conditions, checks and limitations seen as necessary to contain the more problematic aspects of multiculturalism, along with the conditions under which the state may legitimately interfere in minorities. The influence of Kymlicka’s Multicultural Citizenship (1995) is central to Cohen-Almagor’s framework, concerned as it is with issues of external and internal coercion. Cohen-Almagor also draws a distinction between historical national minorities and more recent migrants, initially stating that, “We should allow then

prohibition of cultural norms when individuals voluntarily migrate to a liberal state" (p.115) and "Once one has decided to come and live in the liberal world, one must accept its enshrined values and laws" (p.143)."But", he argues, "we should not bar cultural norms, however distasteful and harmful we might see them, in the case where cultural minorities lived their lives peacefully and the liberal state expanded and forced itself upon them" (pp. 115-116).Importantly, however, he comes to break with this position.He says on indigenous affairs and multination rights, for instance, that "I have revised my opinion thinking that there is scope for state interference to redress gender injustice" (p.184), and interference for reasons of ensuring gender rights and equality is a central concern of many discussions throughout the book.
Cohen-Almagor sets out an original and thoughtful position on liberalism and multiculturalism and the limits of the latter.He makes some careful distinctions as he builds his original framework and presents detailed, layered, and for the most part nuanced discussions on pertinent issues.The book is marked by an analytical rigour and in-depth knowledge of relevant positions and debates.It is a welcome addition to a growing body of work that thinks with and across the two traditions of liberalism and multiculturalism.

A Just, Reasonable Framework for Justice
Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism is split into four parts.The first lays out the theoretical bases and framework of the book (also summarised in the introduction).Cohen-Almagor presents this in layers, which are helpfully set out in pictorial form prior to the introduction.
The first or base layer is a fairly straightforwardly Rawlsian theory of justice, and despite the perhaps slightly misleading title of the book, liberalism provides the normative framework and orientation, and the points of appeal and legitimation, into which certain multicultural features can be accommodated.Indeed, Cohen-Almagor makes frequent appeals to the veil of ignorance to support points he makes throughout the book.This layer is then supplemented by "the most basic norms" (p.34) of a Kantian ethics when it comes to respecting others along with Mill's harm principle.Together, these form the just part of Cohen-Almagor's framework and a conception based in individual rights.Frequent reference is made to human rights throughout the text and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights invoked as "the normative foundation of human rights discourse" (p.180).
Multiculturalism comes into the picture in the second layer, where reasonableness is added as "a bridge" "to reconcile" liberalism and multiculturalism.This is where Cohen-Almagor seeks to "establish a middle ground between liberal reasoning and multiculturalists who see multiculturalism as an alternative to liberalism and who believe that protecting the group's culture trumps otherwise generally applicable laws" (p.46).In outlining the content of what it is to be reasonable, Cohen-Almagor distinguishes between moral, legal, social, and political reasonableness.Across these different dimensions, Cohen-Almagor emphasises that reasonableness involves, first and foremost, the application of reason and taking others into 1 3 Just and Reasonable, But Is It Multiculturalism?A Review of… consideration with a view to creating consensus (pp. 48-49)."A reasonable governance framework would accommodate the demands of reasonable people situated in an environment of reasonable pluralism and reasonable disagreement.Reasonable people strive to accommodate differences in order to reach a stable political consensus on social and political principles" (p.49) we are told.Reasonableness is constituted by respect for others and not harming others (p.52) and thus returns us to the first layer, with Cohen-Almagor arguing that "liberalism and multiculturalism are reconcilable provided that multiculturalism is reasonable" (p.48).
These first two layers constitute the theoretical ground, and multiculturalism on this account is assessed within and against a liberal framework, and in some ways, the reconciliation Cohen-Almagor proposes between multiculturalism and liberalism is very much an account of how the former should be constrained and necessarily tamed by the latter.

Compromise and Coercion
The third layer outlines the "operational mechanisms" of compromise and deliberative democracy.Here Cohen-Almagor distinguishes between two types of compromise, a "genuine" principled compromise of mutual recognition and a "temporary or postponed" tactical compromise that lacks mutuality, whether because one side is more dominant and so need not compromise or because one side is driven to accept something like the least worst option.This I think is an interesting distinction, and one that can potentially be helpful in thinking about deliberative dialogue.
The fourth layer adds to this a disaggregated view of coercion, where the intention of coercion in relation to the principles established in the first two layers is paramount.Here, Cohen-Almagor seeks to distinguish what might be legitimate coercion, on appropriately liberal grounds and its limits, from illegitimate coercion, where the purpose of coercion is for illiberal reasons.
The fifth, and final, layer then develops this idea of legitimacy and deals with types of harm, distinguishing physical from non-physical.Cohen-Almagor is concerned in particular with the rights of women and children, and, as well as establishing the conditions under which the state may legitimately interfere to ensure these rights are upheld, he is concerned with ensuring that conditions are such that the ability to "opt out" of the culture of one's upbringing are secured.Here, Cohen-Almagor makes some vital distinctions that go a long way to finding a path through some highly contentious and also often polarising issues.
Parts two and three then both seek to apply these principles and layers to cases in order to adjudge the extent to which, and whether, interference in minority affairs and practices by the state is justified.Part two addresses cases of physical harm, while part three looks at cases of non-physical harm.
Examples he draws on here include honour killing, circumcision and FGM as cases of physical harm, and a discussion in relation to Haredi Jews and the Amish as cases of (mainly) non-physical harm in relation to gender roles and children's education.The careful distinctions Cohen-Almagor makes provide discussions of FGM and circumcision that are nuanced and balanced.In part this is because here Cohen-Almagor takes what seems to be a more pragmatic approach that considers different harms, including those to a group, which his distinctions are designed to accommodate.Here, there is some thoughtful reflection on the benefits of multicultural sensibilities and how they might be incorporated.
The idea of the right to "opt out" based in reason is rather an abstract conception of social processes.Cohen-Almagor's way out of this, and way of establishing when the liberal state may interfere, relies on a further distinction, that of "selfcoercion" or what also later gets referred to as "internalised coercion".This is where it is adjudged that the autonomy of an individual has been overly restricted in allowing them to make a properly free, autonomous and voluntary choice.This quickly becomes less than simple, however.On the one hand, Haredi women who embrace their gendered social position are decided to clearly represent a matter of internalised coercion (p.201), but this is difficult to reconcile with other statements that allow that Haredi women may prefer being the "Queen of the House" (p.202) and an acceptance that the Amish way of life may in fact be broadly appealing to many of its members (similar difficulties arise in the discussion on children and education also, again notwithstanding important points).
Liberalism here appears as the ultimate arbiter of multiculturalism's reasonableness, especially if liberal coercion is legitimately exercised over people when "tradition and historical memory may keep internalized coercion alive even when it is clearly unjust in the eyes of outsiders" (p.103).As a principle, there is something important here, but also something troubling.On the one hand, the emancipatory "neutrality" of liberalism is there to rescue those for whom "concrete difficulties arise when some women in the said cultural or religious group fail to internalize fully the system of norms that discriminates against them" (p.103).Cohen-Almagor challenges the idea of forcing women to be free (p.263) and states, for instance, "paternalism that holds noble ideas about freeing women from coercion is justified when women complain about their subjugation" (p.262), but internalised coercion clearly goes beyond this.In addressing bans targeting the hijab, niqab and burqa in France, for instance, he argues that "people's dubious assumptions about women's internalised coercion cannot constitute a reasonable justification for interference" (p.262).Yet, the discussion of Haredi women seems to do just this.Cultural justifications in this instance are not to be appealed to (p. 106), but this fails to appreciate that the justifications the book itself sets out to carefully delineate are themselves cultural justifications, but which Cohen-Almagor sees as non-negotiable, as inherent, inviolable and even "natural", based in "the inherent quality of the person" and "inner spark of the soul we all possess" (p.36).Arguing that liberalism offers superior cultural justifications in contrast to others on matters of justice, equality, freedom and so on is one thing, but it is quite different from claiming they are not cultural in ways that other justifications are.
Part four rounds out the book and presents two chapters on two different country case studies where multiculturalism is juxtaposed with security concerns.The first is France and the veil and the second is Israel and its Arab/Palestinian citizens.The chapter on France covers well-trodden territory and critiques.The discussion is interesting enough, but there is perhaps little here for those already familiar with the debates over Muslim women's dress in France and French republicanism's conception 1 3 Just and Reasonable, But Is It Multiculturalism?A Review of… of freedom and state-citizen relations.The second country case chapter on Israel covers a case far less familiar in these kinds of discussions, and this is a welcome context for discussion here and one treated with Cohen-Almagor's sense of care and thoughtfulness found throughout the book.

But Is It Multiculturalism?
If the above has focussed on the main aspects of Cohen-Almagor's theoretical position of what is just and reasonable, I would now like to alight on how multiculturalism fits into this framework and the discussions in the book.
As noted above, Cohen-Almagor says he is addressing multiculturalists who see multiculturalism as an alternative to liberalism, but the question remains as to who these multiculturalists are; they are seldom to be seen in the book other than in the attacks of others or occasional court decisions.Cohen-Almagor addresses charges against multiculturalism that it is bad for women or bad for democracy, or that it is conducive to terrorism, to show how these are not necessarily the case.These kinds of defences have indeed been mounted by multiculturalists themselves, but what is not clearly outlined in the book are different theoretical statements on multiculturalism by multiculturalists.The targets of these kinds of critiques are very often caricatures of multiculturalism by others rather than the thought of multiculturalists themselves, and so a degree of shadow boxing occurs in places.
In a discussion of the difference between arranged and forced marriages, for instance, while interesting enough and an important distinction, it's not clear what practices condoned in the name of multiculturalism in a liberal state are being addressed.There is little in this section that I think the vast majority of multiculturalists would disagree with.In a section on murder for family honour, for example, he seems to sustain the critique that multiculturalism is responsible for "unwittingly engender[ing] non-interference and l[eading] to neglect on the state's responsibility", echoing various caricatured criticisms.In statements such as "I argue that intervention is justified in the case of gross and systematic violations of human rights, such as murder, slavery, expulsion or inflicting sever bodily harm on certain individuals or groups" (p.112), one is left wondering which multiculturalists he is challenging.There is a serious political and social point here of course, but a lack of theoretical substance which I think would help take Cohen-Almagor's otherwise thoughtful and theoretically astute discussions in interesting directions.
It is notable that across Cohen-Almagor's two layers, there is something of a thinness to the engagement with multiculturalist political theory.Kymlicka is the only multiculturalist discussed in any substantive way throughout the book and notably is the only to appear within the layered schema.As a result, I think, autonomy and liberty are rather too easily seen as neutral arbiters rather than formations of culture and choice themselves.Neutrality is invoked as an "inclination to provide individuals with freedom and scope to cultivate their personality and to promote their conception of the good as they see appropriate… liberal states refrain from promoting a single, all-encompassing ideal of the good" (p.10).But Cohen-Almagor does want to promote a conception of the good, a decidedly liberal-secular conception.Adults may opt out to a degree if they wish, having applied the requisite level of reason, but other cultural forms appear mainly as rationally chosen alternatives that continue to be policed by liberalism.In so far as this is a liberal framework, this is fair enough, but there are explicit references to bridging between these forms of multiculturalism and liberalism, and I think that there are some important insights that would form useful points of engagement.Prominent multiculturalists who have challenged liberal premises of neutrality also argue that multiculturalism need not rely on liberalism or seek its justifications in liberalism are not engaged; here, for instance, I am thinking of thinkers such as Bhikhu Parekh and Tariq Modood.This is also relevant in relation to two key terms in the book.Respect, for instance, has been a watchword in much multiculturalist thought, but here respect is derived from Kant and thus a source with a sense of ethical monism that has been the focus of direct critique by prominent multiculturalists (for example, Parekh, 2006).Respecting multiculturalism is, we are told, "respecting diversity" (p.10).Here, respect is about diversity as its own kind of good, but this conception does not necessarily entail respecting different ways of life as such, or at least beginning from a position of the presumption of respect of this kind as multiculturalists might; this is because for Cohen-Almagor the just exists already.Culture is held up as a primary good (pp.52-54), but respect is firmly individual and based in human rights.Even if we are inclined to agree with this, respect here is thin in being restricted to individuals abstracted from the cultural, religious, ethnic groups that sustain them.It is at the least, not an overly multiculturalist conception of respect.Parekh, for example, has a more contextual conception of human rights than Cohen-Almagor wants to work with argues that "human rights" are culturally mediated (2006: 133-136) and that "harm to others" is too vague (2006: 267).
Recognition too, another foundational and fundamental concept of multiculturalism, is construed in individual terms: "relations of mutual recognition in which each individual is respected as free and equal.The politics of recognition is a basic element of justice" (p.308).Yet, this is not a characterisation of the politics of recognition in its most famous, Taylorian sense, where a stronger emphasis is placed on groups.
None of this is to say that Cohen-Almagor need or should appeal to multiculturalism for his liberal framework.It is to say rather that the absence of engagement with it is striking, a certain conspicuousness by absence, given the task he sets himself.

Religion
A further and final area worthy of some reflection is in relation to religion.
Several liberal theorists have more recently come to revisit and rework theories and concepts (in some cases their own) to take greater account of religious groups and religion.Rawls and Habermas famously revised their views on religious language and reason in public and political spheres, and Laborde's almost instant classic Liberalism's Religion (2017) provides arguments for why liberals should see religion as legitimate in ways and in areas of public life many had previously tried to keep it out of.In large part, these revisions have been a result of issues of 1 3 Just and Reasonable, But Is It Multiculturalism?A Review of… multiculturalism in relevant social and political debates, and this is also the relevant background context to how Cohen-Almagor opens his own account of the need for a fresh reconciliation between liberalism and multiculturalism.Moreover, religious, or ethno-religious, grievances and claims have also been central to the thought of multiculturalists.But what of religion in Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism?
Religion is, I think a notably underdone aspect of the discussions.Consideration of religion as part of multiculturalism is in fact crept out of the discussion of France's bans that targeted the burqa and niqab, where Cohen-Almagor's focus is the failure "to recognise individuals as cultural beings" (p.270, emphasis added).
Elsewhere, religion in fact seems to have a special kind of opprobrium reserved for it, such as when Cohen-Almagor argues that Marx underestimated the power of religion (p.327), which I think is a strong take."Because religion is so powerful", we are told, "it needs to be confined to boundaries that would enable living together, in a community composed of a plurality of cultures and religion, possible" (p.327)."A more just and reasonable accommodation is to insist that religion does not enter the political realm.Separation between state and religion in the political sphere would make all people recognise that in the shared political domain one's religious views do not necessarily and directly prevail… then people would start to acknowledge the plurality of competing views as well as the principle of democratic legitimacy".Religious reasons we are told, when they conflict with liberal human rights, fall outside the "discursive realm" of liberals and so can safely be ignored as unreasonable (pp. 71, 86).Given the recent more accommodationist moves in much liberal thought, the thought of some prominent multiculturalists, as well as those who speak across political theory/political theology divides, and also the realities of secular arrangements in most of Western Europe, this would have benefitted from a much more nuanced and developed discussion.Many have argued quite the opposite; that religion is not bad for democracy, or certainly at least not specifically or uniquely bad, and a priori exclusion is not only anti-multicultural, but perhaps also not particularly liberal (depending on one's stripe of liberalism, I suppose).There are some important questions here when it comes to issues of liberty and equality that I think warrant and require further reflection and elaboration.
By way of summary then, Cohen-Almagor's book is a welcome addition to the field.It offers some helpful analytical distinctions and presents a compelling and coherent liberal framework with some multicultural sensibilities.The framework is, on its own terms, just and reasonable, and a fresh liberal statement that deserves attention.Yet, the main question I am left with is to what extent it is multiculturalism?
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