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January 27, 2011
Is it possible to reconcile the conflicting imperatives of respect for cultural diversity and sustained democratic legitimacy? So asks Cecile Laborde in From Constitutional to Civic Patriotism. His purpose is to assess whether constitutional patriotism succeeds in reconciling democratic legitimacy and cultural diversity. He says that although he is in broad sympathy with the constitutional patriotic project, he argues that the strategy of the relative insulation of politics from culture that it pursues – at least in its ‘neutralist’ version – is self-defeating.
It turns out to be deficient on the ground of legitimacy – a familiar criticism of constitutional patriotism – but also of inclusiveness – a less common and more damaging criticism. This is because constitutional patriotism fails to take seriously the need for cultural mediations between citizens and their institutions. This need, I suggest, is better accommodated by a more civic form of patriotism, which recognizes the role of particularist political cultures in grounding universalist principles. Civic patriotism is both more ‘situated’ and more radical than ‘neutralist’ constitutional patriotism: it emphasizes the motivational prerequisites of democratic governance, stresses the need to preserve existing ‘co-operative ventures’, and demands that existing political cultures be democratically scrutinized and re-shaped in an inclusive direction. It promotes a mainly political identity, whose political content makes it compatible with a variety of practices and beliefs, but whose thin particularistic form justifies citizens’ commitment to specific institutions.
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