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Article: Five theses on identity politics.(Twenty-Fourth Federalist Society Student Symposium, Law and Freedom)
- Article from:
- Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
- Article date:
- September 22, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Harvard Society for Law and Public Policy, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The kind of freedom I want to address is the most vital kind: political freedom. By that I mean the summoning and exertion of energy to engage one another on matters of collective government. What I have in mind specifically is democratic political freedom. By that I mean political freedom in a context shaped by three simple norms: political equality, popular sovereignty and, therefore, majority rule.
What should we make of identity politics as an exercise of democratic political freedom? Let me respond with five connected theses.
Number One. All politics is identity politics. Political activity is--and, at its best, is--animated by efforts to define and ...