Bhikhu Parekh
Biographic Data
| ID | 245394 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bhikhu Parekh |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bhikhu |
| FAMILY NAME | Parekh |
| SIGNATURE | PAREKH B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Hull |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 70 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 618 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 68 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Multicultural conversations: The nature and future of culture, identity and nationalism
Despite well-known criticism of multiculturalism in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Australia, India and elsewhere since 9/11, such policies have proliferated ( Banting and Kymlicka, 2013 ; Mathieu, 2018 ) and the Canadian and Australian policies of multiculturalism have since celebrated their 50th birthdays. Political theories of multiculturalism have proliferated in this period too ( Lenard, 2022 ; Modood, 2007/2013 ; Patten, 2014 ; …
Ethnocentric political theory, secularism and multiculturalism
Ethnocentric Political Theory: The Pursuit of Flawed Universals
Knowledge and Belief in Politics: The Problem of Ideology
Bentham's Political Thought
In this book, first published in 1973, the editor has drawn heavily on Bentham’s manuscripts and has tried to provide a coherent statement of Bentham’s legal and political thought. Unlike Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes or Mill, Bentham did not write one single work containing the basic principles of his legal and political philosophy. This titles presents Bentham’s work in a systematic manner, and will be of interest to students of philosophy, politics…
Marx's Theory of Ideology (RLE Marxism)
Although Marx’s concept of ideology has been a subject of considerable discussion, much of the debate has proved to be rather disappointing. There has been no systematic attempt to examine why Marx needed the concept of ideology, why it was an important concept for him and how it related to his views on truth and objectivity. This book, first published in 1982, considers these and other neglected questions. It explains why Marx continued to use t…
Marx's Theory of Ideology (RLE Marxism)
Dialogue between cultures
Private and public spheres in India
In the traditional Indian way of life, the social realm consisting of the joint family, the kinship network and the caste plays a dominant role, and colonises both the private and public spheres. This is challenged by the increasingly influential ideas of personal autonomy, equal citizenship and a democratically constituted public realm. The tension between the two provides a clue to much of contemporary Indian political life. India cannot succes…
Promoting a Global Culture of Science
Basic scientific research is largely limited to the West. Original scientific contributions by the rest of the world are extremely limited, though China, South Korea and India are beginning to make their presence felt. This absence of scientific research is largely due to the undeveloped state of scientific culture. To counter this, systematic and rigorous theoretical training of talented minds is crucial. That requires close interaction with the…
Defining British National Identity
Travelling Concepts: Negotiating Diversity in Canada and Europe
Logic of identity
Identity refers, among other things, to what distinguishes an individual and makes him or her this person rather than some other. It has two closely related dimensions: personal and social. Personal identity refers to the individual's fundamental beliefs and commitments in terms of which he orientates himself to the world and defines his place in it. Social identity refers to those relations with which the individual identifies and which he regar…
Clearing the fog
A New Politics of Identity
Being British
In This Article I Do Two Things. I Begin With A Brief Discussion of the nature of political community in general, and argue that a political community is defined and constituted by the common public commitments of its citizens. Its identity is political not ethnic or cultural in nature, an important distinction that is obscured by the term ‘national identity’ and often ignored in much of the discussion of it. Its identity has an inescapable moral…
Rethinking Multiculturalism
Race Relations in Britain: A Developing Agenda
Bringing together distinguished experts in the field of race relations this book addresses questions which are increasingly relevant in the current socio-political context of Great Britain. The kind of visions of multicultural Britain which are currently being canvassed and the problems which ethnic minorities continue to face are addressed, together with an examination of the new policy initiatives which are needed to tackle these problems. Race…
Redistribution or recognition? A misguided debate
In recent years cultural issues in one form or another have come to dominate the public agenda. Gays and Lesbians, women, ethnic and cultural minorities, religious communities, indigenous peoples, and others demand that society should recognize their identities, respect their differences, and take full account of these in its laws, political institutions, and public policies. This, what is generally called the politics of recognition, has attract…
Towards a multicultural democracy: Some thoughts on the recent Indian elections
The surprising defeat of the BJP in May's elections is evidence of longterm trends in India's politics. Welcomed by the diaspora with mixed feelings, the results inspire confidence in India's progress towards a mature multicultural democracy. The elections demonstrate that India is a far more diverse and pluralistic country than previous elections might have suggested and that Indian democracy successfully mirrors the country's ideological spectr…
Non-Western political thought
Four points of clarification are needed about the theme of this chapter and the title itself. First, from a non-Western perspective the twentieth century could be said to begin in 1905 when Japan defeated Russia, an event that destroyed the widespread myth of European invincibility and was celebrated by millions from China to Peru, or in 1918 when the savagery of the First World War, or what non-Europeans call a European civil war, shook their li…
Culture and Economy in the Indian Diaspora
Gurharpal Singh Introduction 1. Vinesh Y. Hookoomsing Choat Bharat, Mauritius: The Myth and the Reality 2. Alleyn Diesel Hinduism in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa 3. Ravindra K. Jain Culture and Economy: Tamils on the Plantation Frontier in Malaysia Revisited, 1998-1999 4. Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake Diaspora and Citizenship: Forgotten Routes of Identity in Lanka 5. Prakash C. Jain Culture and Economy in an 'Incipient' Diaspora: Indians in the Pe…
Cosmopolitanism and global citizenship
The author argues that we have obligations to our fellow citizens as well as to those outside our community. Since these obligations can conflict and since neither automatically trumps the other, the author provides the general principles needed to resolve the conflict. While rejecting the notion of global citizenship, he argues for a globally oriented national citizenship and spells out its political and institutional implications
Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory
Bhikhu Parekh's voice has always been a distinctive one in the growing chorus of political theorists who talk about the challenge of cultural diversity.His perspective is not easy to classify.He criticizes liberal, communitarian or neorepublican theories and yet combines their core ideas in his own approach.Some readers of Rethinking Multiculturalism may feel that his outlook is too ecumenical.Parekh defends not only cultural, but also doctrinal …
The future of multi-ethnic Britain: Reporting on a report
This article outlines the basic theses of the Report on The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain . It then goes on to explain why and how it was misunderstood and misrepresented by the right-wing press, and draws important general lessons about the nature of political discourse
Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory
The Cultural Particularity of Liberal Democracy
Liberal democracy is liberalized democracy: that is, democracy defined and structured within the limits set by liberalism. The paper outlines the constitutive features of liberalism and shows how they determined the form and content of democracy and gave rise to liberal democracy as we know it today. It then goes on to argue that liberal democracy is specific to a particular cultural context and cannot claim universal validity. This, however, doe…
Discourses on National Identity
Ethnocentricity of the Nationalist Discourse
Nationalism is a theory about the nature, purposes, boundaries and the basis of the legitimacy and the unity of the state. It maintains that the state should ideally be constituted as a nation. This means that a nation has a right to form a state of its own, as also that every state should endeavour to become a nation. The nationalist discourse rests on several assumptions, such as that nationalism is a universal phenomenon, that nationalist move…
The Rushdie Affair: Research Agenda for Political Philosophy
Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention
Although the currently dominant concept of humanitarian intervention has a long history, it is also distinctive in several crucial respects. This article analyzes its nature, historical specificity and presuppositions. It argues that the concept of humanitarian intervention is logically unstable in the sense that it both presupposes and seeks to go beyond the statist manner of thinking which has dominated political life for the past three centuri…
Dilemmas of a Multicultural Theory of Citizenship
In his multicultural citizenship Will Kymlicka offers a liberal theory of minority rights. I argue that although his theory is ingenious, it is seriously defective. Since liberalism itself is a specific culture, a liberal theory of multiculturalism is logically incoherent. Kymlicka makes the further mistake of thinking that all cultured communities conceptualise and relate to culture in an identical manner. His discussion of the rights of immigra…
Cosmopolitanism and global citizenship
The author argues that we have obligations to our fellow citizens as well as to those outside our community. Since these obligations can conflict and since neither automatically trumps the other, the author provides the general principles needed to resolve the conflict. While rejecting the notion of global citizenship, he argues for a globally oriented national citizenship and spells out its political and institutional implications
A Misconceived Discourse on Political Obligation
In much of the post-Hobbesian discourse on political obligation, the question is defined as an inquiry into the reasons why a citizen should obey the law, but this depoliticizes political obligation and fails to appreciate its specific nature. Legal, civil and political obligation are distinguished and it is argued that political obligation properly so-called is concerned with such things as the citizen's obligation to take an active interest in …
The History of Political Ideas: A Critique of Q. Skinner's Methodology
The future of multi-ethnic Britain: Reporting on a report
This article outlines the basic theses of the Report on The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain . It then goes on to explain why and how it was misunderstood and misrepresented by the right-wing press, and draws important general lessons about the nature of political discourse
Distorted imagination: Lessons from the Rushdie affair
Bentham's Political Thought
In this book, first published in 1973, the editor has drawn heavily on Bentham’s manuscripts and has tried to provide a coherent statement of Bentham’s legal and political thought. Unlike Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes or Mill, Bentham did not write one single work containing the basic principles of his legal and political philosophy. This titles presents Bentham’s work in a systematic manner, and will be of interest to students of philosophy, politics…
Cultural Pluralism and the Limits of Diversity
Almost every modern society includes groups whose ways of life are different from that of the mainstream society. The society wishes, and is right to wish, to preserve its way of life. However, that is also true of the constituent groups. This raises the question as to how the wider society should respond to their desire to preserve their ways of life and what it is to be done when the latter offend against its deeply held values. This article ad…
The concept of national identity
Although national identity is a subject of much agonised debate in almost all countries today, the debate is marred by several dubious assumptions. These include such beliefs as that national identity consists in being different from others and is diluted by intercultural borrowing, that it is historically fixed, that it is the sole or the major source of political legitimacy, that the state's primary task is to maintain it, and that national ide…
Multicultural conversations: The nature and future of culture, identity and nationalism
Despite well-known criticism of multiculturalism in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Australia, India and elsewhere since 9/11, such policies have proliferated ( Banting and Kymlicka, 2013 ; Mathieu, 2018 ) and the Canadian and Australian policies of multiculturalism have since celebrated their 50th birthdays. Political theories of multiculturalism have proliferated in this period too ( Lenard, 2022 ; Modood, 2007/2013 ; Patten, 2014 ; …
Logic of identity
Identity refers, among other things, to what distinguishes an individual and makes him or her this person rather than some other. It has two closely related dimensions: personal and social. Personal identity refers to the individual's fundamental beliefs and commitments in terms of which he orientates himself to the world and defines his place in it. Social identity refers to those relations with which the individual identifies and which he regar…
Common Citizenship in a Multicultural Society
A common sense of belonging among the component cultural communities that make up a multicultural society is essential for its stability and unity. Four conditions are necessary for that sense to be present: constitutional accommodation of diversity, justice, a multiculturally constituted common culture, and a shared sense of loyalty to the political community. Every multicultural society has increasingly felt compelled to move towards enactment …
Minority Practices and Principles of Toleration
The Political Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott
Although Michael Oakeshott has written on such a wide variety of subjects as religion, jurisprudence, education, science, aesthetics and history, Ishall concentrate in this essay on his political philosophy. As a political philosopher Oakeshott has been concerned with two basic themes: firstly, to develop a conception of the nature of philosophy in general and political philosophy in particular; and secondly, to develop a substantive theory of po…
Theorising Political Theory
Equality in a multicultural society
Much of the traditional discussion of equality deals with that between individuals and is predicated on the assumption of a culturally homogenous society. It is therefore of limited help in dealing with intercultural equality or with equality between individuals belonging to different cultures. Equality requires equal treatment of those who are equal in relevant respects. What respects are relevant, what responses they deserve, and what constitut…
Minority Practices and Principles of Toleration
In a multicultural society, different groups entertain different conceptions of the good life. The wider society cannot be expected indiscriminately to tolerate all kinds of minority practices, nor can it justifiably ban all practices that diverge from its own. This raises the question as to how it should decide which practices to tolerate and which ones to ban. The appeal to such principles as the society's fundamental values, human rights, and …
Some reflections on the Hindu diaspora1
This article explores the nature, origins and forms of adjustment of the Hindu diaspora.2 The first part of the article traces the origins of the Hindu diaspora and analyses its composition. Overseas Hindus took with them nothing more than such cultural and moral capital as their civilisation had given them. The article goes on to discuss how they drew on and modified it in the course of coping with the problems of settlement, concentrating mainl…
When will the State Wither Away
Politics and Experience
Politics and Experience
Bentham's Theory of Equality
The History of Political Ideas: A Critique of Q. Skinner's Methodology
The Concept of Socialism
Does Traditional Philosophy Rest on a Mistake
The Political Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott
Although Michael Oakeshott has written on such a wide variety of subjects as religion, jurisprudence, education, science, aesthetics and history, Ishall concentrate in this essay on his political philosophy. As a political philosopher Oakeshott has been concerned with two basic themes: firstly, to develop a conception of the nature of philosophy in general and political philosophy in particular; and secondly, to develop a substantive theory of po…
The Political Thought of Sir Isaiah Berlin
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Marx's Theory of Ideology
Bilingualism and educational investment
(1986). Bilingualism and educational investment. New Community: Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 185-194
Books
British thinking about race before and after 1945 Paul B. Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1986,272 pp., £25. Reassessing the ‘black presence’ in English literature David Dabydeen (ed.), The Black Presence in English Literature, Manchester University Press, 1985, 214 pp.. £5.95 pb. 1 The Colonial Encounter: A Reading of Six Novels (Rex Collings, 1977). 2 The Study of Literature in an African University was pu…
Gandhi's Concept of Ahimsā
When will the State Wither Away
The Rushdie Affair: Research Agenda for Political Philosophy
Einstein's assessment of Gandhi
Obituary: Robert Nandor Berki (1936–91)
Be careful with Muhammad: The Salman Rushdie affair
Distorted imagination: Lessons from the Rushdie affair
Letter to Christendom
Books
Harry Goulbourne (ed), Black Politics in Britain, Aldershot: Avebury, 1990, 201 pp., £28.50 h.b. Michael Watson (ed), Contemporary Minority Nationalism, London: Routledge, 1990, 227 pp., £35.00 h.b. Colin Clarke, Ceri Peach and Steven Vertovee (eds), South Asians Overseas: Migration and Ethnicity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, 375 pp., £35.00 h.b. Freda Hawkins, Canada and Immigration: Public Policy and Public Concern, 2nd edition …
Colonialism, Tradition and Reform: An Analysis of Gandhi's Political Discourse
Introduction Hindu Responses to British Rule Gandhi and Yugadharma Theory of Non-Violence Dialogue with the Terrorists Sex, Energy and Politics Discourse on Untouchability Indianization of Autobiography Gandhi and the Bourgeoisie
The Cultural Particularity of Liberal Democracy
Liberal democracy is liberalized democracy: that is, democracy defined and structured within the limits set by liberalism. The paper outlines the constitutive features of liberalism and shows how they determined the form and content of democracy and gave rise to liberal democracy as we know it today. It then goes on to argue that liberal democracy is specific to a particular cultural context and cannot claim universal validity. This, however, doe…
Marxism and the Problem of Violence
A Misconceived Discourse on Political Obligation
In much of the post-Hobbesian discourse on political obligation, the question is defined as an inquiry into the reasons why a citizen should obey the law, but this depoliticizes political obligation and fails to appreciate its specific nature. Legal, civil and political obligation are distinguished and it is argued that political obligation properly so-called is concerned with such things as the citizen's obligation to take an active interest in …
Equality, fairness and limits of diversity
Most western societies today are multi‐ethnic and multicultural. As such they need to determine the range of permissible diversity and develop a consensus on what an equal and fair treatment of minorities implies. This paper takes some of the controversial minority practices and analyzes the debates they provoked in Britain. It ends by suggesting how best to reconcile the community's desire to preserve its identity with the demands of fairness an…
Political science (60 works) · Sociology (51 works) · Law (50 works) · Politics (43 works) · Law (33 works) · Philosophy (31 works) · Philosophy (22 works) · Epistemology (20 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (18 works) · Political economy (12 works)