The Ties That Bind: A Review of Michael Ignatieff's The Rights Revolution

Abstract

Book Review

Full text

Canadian Public Policy
Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Cristie L. Ford
Source:
Canadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques,
Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec., 2001), pp. 516-520
Published by: University of Toronto Press on behalf of Canadian Public Policy
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516 Reviews/Comptes
rendus
The Rights Revolution
by Michael
Ignatieff.
Toronto: Anansi
Press,
2000.
Pp. xi, 170. $16.95.
Michael Ignatieff says that his latest book, The
Rights
Revolution,
is a "modest exercise
in demo-
cratic education." Its text was delivered
originally
in five parts
for the famed
Massey
Lectures
Series,
and broadcast
on CBC Radio
in November
2000. In
fact,
this small book
- it is only 141
pages
long
-
grapples
with some very big questions:
How can a
modern
society reconcile
political equality
and so-
cial diversity?
Do group rights jeopardize
individual
rights?
Do individual
rights
weaken the idea
of com-
munity?
What
is going on in Canada,
and
why
have
we seen so many
constitutional
and
social crises
in
recent
years?
Just as ambitiously,
the book tries to
address
two audiences
simultaneously: political
and
legal academics who have made careers writing
about
such
things,
and an informed
lay audience that
wants to locate
Canadian
public
life within
a larger
discussion of rights,
democracy,
and
equality.
None of this makes this dense
and
idiosyncratic
book
easy to read or easy to review.
Yet
Ignatieff's
snapshot
of the state of modern Canada is too in-
sightful
to be ignored. Ignatieff's
book asks what,
for
Canadians,
is the
hardest
question
of all: whether
or not the "rights
culture"
we have
developed
over
the last generation
will be enough
to hold our soci-
ety together,
in the face of the many
and
profound
cross-cutting
forces that
threaten to pull
it apart.
His
conclusion
- almost
a year ago
now
- was
hopeful,
but
open-ended.
As the
anniversary
of the lectures rolls
around,
it is time
to consider whether
we know
any-
thing
more about
the answer to his question.'
Ignatieff
sets the stage
for his discussion
by way
of a sweeping, high-speed
tour through
Canada's
political and social landscape, highlighting
such
features as Quebec's
secession debate,
Aboriginal
self-government,
the evolving
nature
of the family,
and the impact
of immigration.
The image of the
Canadian cultural
environment that
emerges
looks
like this (and
both he and
I are
being impressionis-
tic here):
first,
the country
bears
the inheritance of
three nations
- the English,
the French,
and the
Aboriginal
- that,
unlike other
"minority
groups,"
assert
collective political rights
based on the fact
that they were present
when Canada was created
such that
its original
legitimacy
rested
(or ought
to
have
rested)
on their consent.
Second,
those
nations
disagree profoundly
with
each other
when
it comes
to central truths about Canadian
history
and iden-
tity. According
to Ignatieff,
this cuts
deeper
than
just
contested
interpretations
of a common
experience
in whose truth
everyone
ultimately
believes.
He ar-
gues that Canada's constituent nations
literally
do
not inhabit
the same historical
reality,
even though
they share
a coincidence of time and
place;
they
are
three solitudes.
Third,
this historical Canada
is be-
ing
transformed
by fundamental
demographic
shifts,
particularly
the presence
of more recent
immigrant
populations
that
are
not prepared
simply
to accept
the
"founding
nations"
mythology
on which the fed-
eration's
original
parties
struck
their
bargain.
For
these
new
Canadians,
the
notion of Canada as a pact
between
founding
nations undermines not only the
rhetoric of multiculturalism,
but also all Canadians'
legitimate
claims to inclusion as equal, rights-bear-
ing citizens.
Ignatieff's
keen
eye picks
up
how Canadians
have
longed at times to be a straightforward
nation
of
individuals,
freed
from the encrustations of history
and
group allegiance.
He argues,
for example,
that
Trudeau's
bilingualism policy was really aimed at
eliminating the political significance of one's
francophone
or anglophone
status, rather than at
celebrating
the
country's
dual
linguistic
heritage.
On
the other
hand,
Ignatieff
points
to the
persistent
role
that
linguistic, religious,
and
educational
group
al-
legiances
have
played
in Canada,
and
to the group-
conscious political theory that Canadians like
Charles
Taylor
and
Will Kymlicka
have
produced.2
He
argues
that
multinational,
multi-ethnic
states
like
Canada cannot be described
accurately
either as a
nation of identical
rights-bearing
individuals
oper-
ating
within an undifferentiated
political space, or
as a patchwork quilt
of distinct
national collectives
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY - ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES, VOL. XXVII, NO. 4 2001

Reviews/Comptes
rendus 517
contained
in one state; they are both. The conse-
quence is a continual tension between individual
identity
and
group
affiliation that has resurfaced in
various guises throughout
the country's history.
Ignatieff
observes
correctly
that
in this
environment,
the delicate Canadian federation
traditionally
has
been
kept
up
- for at least a century
almost
everyone
seemed to believe,
in good
faith,
that it could
only
be
kept
up
- as a conscious,
tightly
choreographed po-
litical
dance directed
by a select few
powerbrokers
and
constitutional
specialists,
with
minimal
input
from,
or
accountability
to, the
citizenry.
Enter,
unexpectedly,
a Rights
Revolution.
Begin-
ning
in the 1960s
but
reaching
a zenith
over
the
last
decade,
the struggles
of women
and minorities for
full civil rights, and the struggle of Aboriginal
peoples for self-government,
have widened and
deepened
the scope of political
debate.
Rights
talk
has
seeped
into
every
conversation
and even become
something
of a trump
card,
not only in the public,
but also the social and private spheres.
The argu-
ments mustered
in favour of expanded rights recog-
nition have been compelling.
As a result,
Ignatieff
argues
(a bit prematurely,
I think)
that
for the first
time
in their
history
western liberal societies are
try-
ing to make
democracy
work on conditions
of total
inclusion,
not only of propertied
men,
or whites,
or
traditional dual-gender married
couples, but of
everyone.
Greater inclusion
is, of course,
more
just;
yet the rights
revolution has also been divisive and
destabilizing. Certainly
in Canada,
the increasingly
democratic
and
disputatious
nature
of political
de-
bate
has made the
country
harder to govern by usual
means.
To
switch to the author's
metaphor,
the
"high
priests of federalism," who for 125 years
"interpret[ed]
the sacred
texts and wave[d]
the in-
cense of rhetoric in the direction
of the congrega-
tion,"
had
lost control
utterly
of the "rituals
of unity"
by the time of the 1995 Quebec
Referendum.3
The book's most important question
is how the
explosion of rights talk is shaping a particularly
Canadian neurosis:
the view of our history as an
unresolved
struggle
to fashion a common
sense of
identity
and place in the world. Ignatieff poses it
squarely:
the central
question for Canada at this
point in its rights revolution
is whether a culture
based on rights
"is enough
to hold the country
to-
gether,
whether
it creates
a sufficiently
robust sense
of belonging,
and a sufficiently
warm-hearted kind
of mutual
recognition,
to enable us to solve our dif-
ferences
peacefully."4
He does not try
to finesse the
answer;
there are no satisfied
nods to geography,
"Good
Government,"
non-Americanness,
or even
beer commercials.5
Ignatieff recognizes that the
country
faced
alarming
doubts in the 1990s,
not
only
about what held it together
as a state
but also about
what,
other than
necessity and historical
accident,
held Canadians
together
as a society.
But
Ignatieff's
most arresting
observation is that in contemporary
Canada,
it is a rights
culture or
nothing,
no Canada;
this
state cannot fall back
on blood or
culture or even
common
history.
In an attempt
to understand where events have
taken
us, the
author looks at what
recognizing rights
actually
means for a society. He distills his own
concept
of "rights"
down to four key elements at
the
end of the book's second
chapter.6
First and
most
basically, rights
mandate
limits on the use of force
against human beings. Second, rights create
reciprocities,
which are the bedrock of communi-
ties; they express
not only individual
but also col-
lective values.
Third,
the supreme
value that
rights
protect
is human
agency
(which
he defines as "the
capacity
of individuals
to set themselves
goals and
to accomplish
them as they
see fit"').
Because indi-
vidual agency manifests
in uniqueness,
not same-
ness, Ignatieff advocates the "recognition" of
difference
(as Charles
Taylor
uses the term),
and
a
focus on reciprocity
- that
is, on a demonstrated
give-and-take
between
parts
of society
- rather than
on mirror-image
identity
of treatment.
Fourth,
rights
are not abstractions.
They represent
the core of a
society's values, as forged by its own unique
his-
tory
and
through
the efforts of its own ancestors.
Each of these observations
receives
sophisticated
treatment
in Ignatieff's
hands,
but the second
one is
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518 Reviews/Comptes
rendus
the most relevant here. In claiming
that
reciprocal
rights
are community-creating, Ignatieff
disagrees
with Mary Ann Glendon, who coined the term
"rights
talk"
and who would set rights
and
commu-
nity in opposition
to each other.8
Ignatieff argues
that
rights
are
not
only dynamic
themselves,
but also
have the
potential
to transform the
landscape
around
them.
Rights
themselves can be a source of legiti-
macy and cohesion. By recognizing reciprocal
rights,
groups
can create a particular
kind of com-
munity,
based on a "rights
culture,"
even
where other
cultural
or historical ties may not pre-exist.
That
community
is based
on the principle
that all indi-
viduals are deliberative
equals,
that
no group
may
be excluded
from
the
public
forum
simply
by virtue
of who its members
are,
and
that the
essential
strat-
egy and
the ultimate
goal
are both to stay
in the
room
and keep talking,
no matter how large our differ-
ences may seem. Inevitably
the political space of
rights
cultures will be conflictual and unfinished,
but
this is not a bad
thing.
For
Ignatieff,
the
balance
that
just, pluralistic
societies need
to seek is one in
which there is "just enough
collective sense
of pur-
pose to resolve these disputes,
but not so much
as
to force individuals into a communitarian
strait-
jacket."g
In his view, if the goal is to permit
human
agency
and
diversity,
then this is as much
unity
as
modern life can afford.
Ignatieff
finds it painful
that
outsiders do not rec-
ognize how significant
and
how promising
the Ca-
nadian
experiment
is. Ours is not the only modern
heterogeneous society
facing
the great
challenge
of
"[reconciling] equality
with diversity
in an age of
entitlement,"'"
but it is one of only a handful
trying
to do so within a political space so contested that
continued
national
existence is at risk. Moreover,
what
Ignatieff
calls
Canada's
civic nationalist
rights
culture
is remarkable
for how much
weight
it gives
to both
group recognition
and
individual
rights,
both
equality
and human
agency.
Ignatieff
argues
com-
pellingly that Canada's
political
culture
may even
be the country's
most distinctive and
unifying
fea-
ture. The truth,
however,
is that we cannot
yet be
sure
that
the Canadian
experiment
will work
here,
let alone be instructive
to anyone
else. Ignatieff
has
posed the burning
question
facing us - a hugely
significant
act - but he has not answered
it.
It is frustrating
that there
is so little how in this
book. Ignatieff
believes, as I do, that
equal
rights
alongside
ongoing,
respectful dialogue
between
in-
dividuals
and
groups
represent
the most
promising
way forward
for the country.
We agree
that
where
common
history
and
experience
are lacking, equal
and
reciprocal
rights
alone cannot
create
a commu-
nity, but they can create
trust. Yet the concept
of
equal rights
is too vague
to ensure
an automatic
pro-
gression
to recognition,
mutual
trust,
and commu-
nity.
Respectful
dialogue
does not
just happen.
The
very
least
that
can be said
is that
deep diversity, equal
rights, and effective public deliberation
relate in
complicated
ways.
The
next
step
for
Canada has to be more
work
on
the tricky
details of turning
a rights
revolution into
the foundation of a satisfying
and
sustainable com-
munity.
Some important
work
already
exists: even
within
the covers
of this short book Ignatieff
could
have
pointed
to the work
going on in the (foreign-
sounding
but not
actually
that
foreign)
"civic
repub-
lican" school of constitutional
legal thought, to
which his presentation
owes a great
deal."
Modern
civic republicanism,
which
emphasizes
active citi-
zen participation
as a means
of creating community
and evolving social norms,
could be an attractive
approach
for a country
that nearly
unravelled for
lack of a common
vision of itself. I would
also have
liked to see Ignatieff
turn
his mind more
explicitly
to bridging
the gap - surely
this work
is not yet
done
- between
liberalism,
republicanism,
and the
Canadian
"multicultural"
school of thought
with
which
he also identifies.12
Just as importantly, Ignatieff
could have talked
about the
actual
processes by which
this
rights
revo-
lution
could
be nudged
in the direction
of respect-
ful community-building
dialogue, processes that
include
ensuring
that
effective and
accessible
forums
exist for democratic
conversations
about rights-
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY - ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES, VOL. XXVII, NO. 4 2001

Reviews/Comptes
rendus 519
balancing;
that
public decision-making processes
are
demonstrably legitimate,
accountable,
and
transpar-
ent; and that mechanisms are
in place
to recognize
and build on the successful
trust-building strategies
that do evolve in practice."
In truth,
so much
of the
how is working
itself out on the ground
(or on the
Internet or in the myriad
other interstices of our
networked and decentralized
society).
To come back
to Ignatieff's starting point, rights-consciousness
has
transformed
the way we interact at every
level, and
the rights revolution has spilled far beyond the
boundaries
of the formal
political sphere.
Now that
we have
recognized
this new reality,
our
goal must
be to develop
real-world
strategies
to channel this
rights
revolution into a community-building
force.
If Michael
Ignatieff
is right
about the amount of
consensus we can expect
in a rights-based pluralis-
tic society,
then
negotiable,
contingent
solutions
are
all we ever had anyway.
So what if we are an im-
probable
combination
of three
founding
nations,
and
we do not always
agree
about
deep things,
and
our
collective
destiny
is not always
manifest to us? It is
not the end of history.
Since the 1995 Referendum,
we Canadians
have been
making
our
way
back
from
the brink
of disintegration
not
by grand design,
but
through
an accretion of incremental,
pragmatic
ac-
commodations
by individual
people
and
groups.
The
rights
revolution
offers us a renewed
opportunity
to
build
a sense
of collective
identity,
as the-ones-who-
worked-it-out-together.
The
hope
- optimistic,
but
far from
impossible
- is that we can realize
through
practice
what we may only be able to name,
with
pride,
in retrospect:
the foundation of a richer,
more
authentic, and more democratic Canadian
community.
NOTES
'I have
chosen
to emphasize
what
I see as the book's
primary
themes,
which are national
and
political
in ori-
entation. At least one commentator has discussed
the
book's international human
rights
themes
in
some
depth:
see
Andres
Kahar,
"Michael
Ignatieff's
Surprising
Hab-
its,"
Peace
Magazine
(April/June
2001). At <http://
www.peacemagazine.org/0104/kahar.htm>. Ignatieff
also
devotes the whole
fourth
of his
five
chapters
to consider-
ing the effect of the rights
revolution on the
"private"
sphere
of the family,
where
Canadians continue to strug-
gle with the balance between the personal
drive toward
"authenticity,"
respect
for
others,
and
respect
for
the
fam-
ily as a unit.
While
it is gratifying
to see the sphere
of the
family
incorporated
into this
argument,
the
chapter
is pri-
marily an illustration,
in a parallel
factual context, of
themes
developed
earlier in the book.
2Even
if some
of these thinkers
might
not do so them-
selves, Ignatieff
offers
the idea that one could
speak
of a
"Canadian school of rights thought"
that includes Will
Kymlicka,
Charles
Taylor,
James
Tully,
Peter
Russell,
Stdphane
Dion,
and
Guy
Laforest.
Ignatieff
correctly
iden-
tifies his heavy
debt to Kymlicka,
in particular
Will
Kymlicka,
Multicultural
Citizenship:
A Liberal
Theory
of Minority Rights
(1995),
and also to Charles
Taylor,
The
Politics
of Recognition,
Multiculturalism:
Examining
the
Politics
of Recognition (Amy
Gutmann,
ed. 1994).
3Ignatieff, supra
note
I at 116.
4Ignatieff,
supra
note
1 at 126.
5See
Jeff Jacoby,
"The
Unbearable
Lightness
of Be-
ing Canadian,"
Boston Globe Frontpage
Magazine,
20
April
2000. At <http://216.247.220.66/jacoby/2000/
jj04-21
-00.htm>.
6The
fact
that
the author chose
not to be more
precise,
earlier,
about the term
"rights"
also makes the book slower
going than
it otherwise would be. For
example,
in a sin-
gle chapter
he talks about
the tension
between
rights
and
democracy;
about
rights
as indications of what
we as citi-
zens value;
and about
rights
as the positive
and
negative
entitlements
citizens can lay claim to from the state.
Ignatieff
also weighs
group
and individual
rights
against
each other at times as though they
were
comparable
units
of measurement and not, as some people believe, alto-
gether different
things. (None of this includes human
rights,
which he treats
separately
and at length by way
of
moving
examples
from
international and
refugee
law and
the history
of war
crimes.)
There is something
to be said
for
under-defining
arguably
over-theorized
ideas,
not
only
when lecturing
on a radio
show.
Yet for those who have
been trained to recognize each of his observations as
shorthand for entirely separate
conversations,
the effect
is disorienting.
More importantly
for his general
audi-
ence, which
may
not have
tried
to reconcile
equality
with
diversity from this perspective
before, the result is a
somewhat
unwieldy "backpack"
concept
of rights
to have
to carry
around.
7Ignatieff,
supra
note 1 at 23.
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520 Reviews/Comptes rendus
'Mary
Ann
Glendon,
Rights
Talk: The
Impoverishment
of Political
Discourse, 1991.
9Ignatieff,
supra
note I at 34.
'"lgnatieff, supra
note 1 at 138.
"This American school of political theory
has noth-
ing to do with either
the
political
party
of the
same
name,
or the governmental
structure that
may be distinguished
from constitutional
monarchies like Canada's. Modern
civic republicanism's
fundamental assertion is that
highly
participatory
political deliberation
is indispensable
to a
well-functioning democracy.
Like Ignatieff,
the republi-
cans emphasize
a "romantic"
view of human
agency
and
the
relationship
between human
agency
and
evolving pub-
lic norms. "Active
citizenship"
is crucial
as a means for
ensuring
that
peoples'
rights
are observed
and for eman-
cipating
marginalized
groups. Political participation
is
also intrinsically
valuable,
both because
it demonstrates
respect
and recognition
of the participants,
and
because
inclusion
produces
bonds of community.
Modern
repub-
licans assert that the respectful
interaction
of communi-
ties and individuals allows social norms
to evolve and
community
to be created
even
where
it does not
pre-exist.
In other
words,
they
believe that democratic deliberation
is what Frank Michelman calls "jurisgenerative."
Frank
I. Michelman,
Law's
Republic,
97 Yale L.J.
(1988) 1493,
1495. See also Richard
K. Dagger,
Civic
Virtues.
Rights,
Citizenship,
and Republican
Liberalism
(1997); Cass R.
Sunstein,
Beyond
the Republican
Revival,
97 Yale L.J.
(1988) 1539, 1566-71. On republicanism's
relevance
to
Canadian constitutional
evolution,
see Janet
Ajzenstat
and
Peter J. Smith, Liberal-Republicanism:
The
Revisionist
Picture
of Canada's
Founding,
in Canada's
Origins:
Lib-
eral, Tory,
or Republican?
ed. Janet
Ajzenstat
and Peter
J. Smith
(Ottawa:
Carleton
University
Press, 1995).
12The
debates between
liberals,
civic republicans,
and
"multiculturalists"
is beyond
the
scope
of this review. Each
school
disagrees
with the
others
on issues of varying mag-
nitude;
for
example,
Kymlicka's
main issue with
republican
citizenship
is that it is not neutral as between different cul-
tural
groups;
see, for
example,
"Liberal
Egalitarianism
and
Civic Republicanism:
Friends or Enemies?"
in Debating
Democracy's
Discontent:
Essays
on Politics,
Law and Pub-
lic Philosophy,
ed. Anita Allen and Milton
Regan
(Oxford:
Oxford
University
Press,
1998),
pp. 131-48.
13Ignatieff
observes
that
rights-balancing
conversations
in Canada
traditionally
have taken
place in the courts,
but I am not convinced
that courts
are the only, or the
best, institutions
for dealing
with disputes
of this scope
and significance.
My views are expressed
in Cristie
L.
Ford,
In Search
of the
Qualitative
Clear
Majority.
Demo-
cratic
Experimentalism
and the Quebec
Secession
Refer-
ence, 39:2 Alberta Law Review 511 (Oct. 2001). In that
article,
I attempt
to integrate
direct democratic
delibera-
tion with
the enforcement of constitutional norms in the
context
of the
Quebec
secession debate.
I argue
that,
rather
than
attempting
another
referendum,
the
debate over
Que-
bec's future
needs to be re-oriented
by reference to the
normative framework set out by the Supreme
Court of
Canada
in the Secession
Reference,
combined with a re-
newed democratic
process. In describing
that renewed
democratic
process, I incorporate
a non-Canadian con-
stitutional model called "democratic
experimentalism,"
which
proposes
concrete
mechanisms
for
ensuring legiti-
macy,
participation,
and
accountability
within
heteroge-
neous,
complex
democratic
systems. My
conclusion is that
democratic
experimentalism
is compatible
with
Canada's
constitutional values and
traditions,
and
with
the notion,
emerging
from the Secession Reference,
of creating
a
"clear
qualitative majority." Creating
the clear qualita-
tive majority,
as I have defined
it, is precisely
an act of
community-building through ongoing and respectful
democratic
dialogue.
CRISTIE
L. FORD,
Attorney, Davis, Polk & Wardwell,
New York, and 2000-2001 Lecturer in Law, Colum-
bia University School of Law
Toward a New Mission Statement for Canadian
Fiscal Federalism
edited by Harvey Lazar. Montreal and Kingston:
McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000. Pp. xxii,
428. $24.95.
The intersection of the set of people interested in fis-
cal federalism
and those not yet jaded with talk about
"mission statements" is probably very small, so one
wonders about
the choice of title for this book. In fact,
of the 14 chapters
in the book probably only two (those
written
by the editor
and presumed
title chooser) have
much to do with mission statements.
Rather,
the book
is another
in the series of useful reviews of the state
of
the Canadian
federation
provided by Queen's Institute
of Intergovernmental
Relations. The papers
in the
book
fall into three categories: reviews of recent develop-
ments and
recaps
of current
thinking;
contributions
by
members
of the "Queen's
school" of fiscal federalism
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY - ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES, VOL. XXVII, NO. 4 2001