Liberal Democracy and Group Rights: The Legacy of Individualism and its Impact on American Indian Tribes
- 1 September 1979
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Political Studies
- Vol. 27 (3), 421-439
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1979.tb01213.x
Abstract
Individualism is the foundation of democratic theory and practise in the United States. A multi-ethnic, but not really a multi-communal society in the same sense as Northern Ireland or India, the United States has not generally had to confront the nature and justification of its historical opposition to group rights and communal social and political organization. Only the American Indian tribes, with their treaty-mandated communalism, have presented exceptions to this pattern. This paper explores the assumptions underlying liberal democratic attitudes towards communalism, the ways in which group claims pose challenges to conventional notions of justice and equality, and the utility of introducing alternative assumptions about the nature and role of groups in democratic society. Discussion centers on the most recent attempt to reduce the group rights of American Indian tribes.Keywords
This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Individual, the State, and Ethnic Communities in Political TheoryWorld Politics, 1977
- Human Rights and the Rights of GroupsAmerican Journal of Political Science, 1974
- 'Special Rights' as a Strategy for Development: The Case of MalaysiaComparative Politics, 1972