Private Selves, Public Identities: Reconsidering Identity
Politics. By Susan J. Hekman. University Park: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2004. 159p. $35.00 cloth, $24.00 paper.
The Politics of Identity: Liberal Political Theory and the
Dilemmas of Difference. By Michael Kenny. Cambridge: Polity Press,
2004. 212p. $59.95 cloth, $27.95 paper.
The debate about multiculturalism takes many forms, and can focus on
cultural domination, legal recognition of difference, and particular
policy construction. But in these two volumes it pertains to liberal
political theory and identity politics. Both are concerned with the
challenges evident in the inability of some conceptions of liberalism to
respond to the claims of the political relevance of categories of
identity. Both are well grounded in current literature exploring the
limitations and possibilities of liberalism. Both focus more on the
political theory than on the political reality. But in the end, they
champion different sides—Susan J. Hekman reconceptualizes and
rehabilitates identity politics, and Michael Kenny reframes and
reinvigorates liberalism. Although their conclusions are not incompatible,
they are aimed at different audiences. Were the authors sharing a stage,
they might largely talk past each other.