On the political and democratic preconditions of equal recognition

Alan Patten’s Equal Recognition is a compelling justification of a liberal, procedural conception of recognition. This conception is built upon a convincing conception of moral equality, but it does not offer a full theoretical discussion of recognition. I argue that the liberal recognition provided by Patten is too formal and narrow to address all relevant issues regarding conflicts of recognition in democratic societies. In particular, it does not consider the political and democratic preconditions that should be granted to minority groups or immigrants in order to provide them fair opportunities to effectively (and not only formally) reach equal recognition.     

Multiculturalisme et démocratie: quelques implications pour la théorie de la citoyenneté

La dynamique sociale et politique du multiculturalisme constitue un défi pour la conception libérale traditionnelle de la citoyenneté. L'article part du constat que ce phénomène se caractérise essentiellement par une dispersion des identités et par la coexistence d'une multiplicité d'allégeances culturelles. Sa spécificité tient au fait qu'un nombre croissant d'individus ou de groupes sociaux ressentent leur caractérisation identitaire comme étant “non-négociable”. Dès lors, la citoyenneté n'est plus en mesure de constituer le ferment de l'identité politique, ce qui représente une menace importante pour le fonctionnement et la légitimité des démocraties libérales. En tentant de surmonter les impasses auxquelles se heurtent les perspectives libérale et communautarienne de la citoyenneté, l'auteur propose un modèle fondé sur une articulation de la citoyenneté en tant que “règle” et en tant que “contenu”. Ce modèle a pour finalité d'assurer une plus grande intégration des minorités culturelles, au travers d'un processus égalitaire d'élaboration des principes susceptibles d'orienter la politique de la communauté.     

The impact of remittances and equivalence scales on poverty in Tajikistan

The aim of this paper is to study the impact of remittances from labour migrants on welfare, as well as the impact of the use of equivalence scales on poverty, in Tajikistan. The magnitude of remittances sent back is fairly well known from official statistics (e.g. the amount of remittances is regularly monitored by the balance of payment at the Central Bank). In 2009 a change in the flow of money from abroad occurred, and volumes dropped, but it was unknown to what extent; its impact on poverty is still officially unknown. This paper describes a project aimed at conducting a survey to investigate this impact. It would not be possible to do this kind of analysis with a traditional sample survey, since it would generate only a small selection of migrant households. Instead, the new Migration, Remittances and Poverty Survey was used, which was conducted by the Tajik State Statistical Office in August 2010 using an adaptive sampling design from a set of enumeration areas selected mainly from the 2009 Integrated Household Budget Survey (IHBS) and showing households with remittances. To evaluate the impact of equivalence scales on poverty measures, new scales have been estimated on the basis of consumption expenditure from the 2009 IHBS.