The Politics of Identity: Liberal Political Theory and the Dilemmas of Difference

“Michael Kenny identifies, analysis and deftly cuts through the obstacles that have heretofore impeded or precluded communication between Kantian-universalist liberals, on the one hand, and multicultural particularists, on the other. Although ultimately siding with the former over the latter, Kenny nevertheless shows very nicely how and what liberals can learn from multiculturalists. The politics of Identity is a timely and welcomed contribution to one of the central theoretical and political debate of our time.”
Terrance Wall, Arizona State University

“An authoritative, detailed and lucid examination of one of the key questions preoccupying political philosophers and policy makers alike. No better account of the challenges posed to Anglophone liberal philosophy by the politics of identity has been provided.”
Jeremy Jennings, Birmingham University

“The politics of Identity sensitively argues that liberals and their multicultural critics have over inflate the difference between themselves, reducing each others position to unnuanced caricatures. As a consequence, identity politics wrongly appears wholly incompatible and threatening to liberal political theory. For Kenny, liberalism has always been conceptually more robust and more flexible than both its opponents and even proponents have recognized, and this is because, in part, both liberals and their detractors. have lost sight of the richly textured contours of the liberal traditions. This book has long been overdue.”
David Weinstein, Wake Forest University