Hejazi, O: National Identity and Cultural Rights

This book is an attempt to explain and assess the liberal nationalist view on the problems of the legitimacy of nationalism and cultural rights. I want to look at some normative theories over the past fifteen years that evaluate ‘nationalism‘ according to the liberal principles. By considering the alleged conflict between the ‘minority nation-building‘ and the ‘majority nation-building‘ in multination countries, I will examine two models for resolving this conflict: ‘Multinational Federalism‘ and ‘Transnational Federalism‘. I will argue that, though most liberal nationalists support the former model, they fail to provide a convincing normative ground for justifying Multinational Federalism and stopping national minorities from secession. The liberal nationalists‘ arguments for necessity of nationalism, ironically, undermine their own claim about normative importance of Multinational Federalism in comparison to Transnational Federalism. This is what I call ‘the paradox of liberal nationalism‘.