Can Groups Have Rights? What Postmodern Theory Tells Us About Participatory Democracy in the Era of Identity Politics

The aim of this article is to draw out some implications of Jean-Francois Lyotard's account of democratic legitimation for current debates about 'identity politics'. I relate Lyotard's theory to struggles over global rights and global democracy, aboriginal rights, multiculturalism (Quebec's language laws), and proportional group representation (racial redistricting in the US). I then argue that Lyotard's own conception of postmodern democratic justice wavers between a Rawlsian model of 'overlapping consensus' and a Habermasian model of 'communicative consensus'. I conclude that, although each model has distinctive advantages and disadvantages, the latter model is better equipped to bring about broad participatory democracy in the long run.