Strange multiplicity

The first John Robert Seeley lectures, given by James Tully in 1994, address the six types of demands for cultural recognition that constitute the most intractable conflicts of the present age: supranational associations, nationalism and federalism, linguistic and ethnic minorities, feminism, multiculturalism and Aboriginal self government. Neither the prevailing schools of modern Western constitutionalism nor post-modern constitutionalism provide a just way of adjudicating such diverse claims to recognition because they rest on untenable assumptions inherited from the age of European imperialism. However, by means of a historical and critical survey of four hundred years of European and non-European constitutionalism, with special attention to the American Aboriginal peoples, Tully develops a post-imperial philosophy and practice of constitutionalism. This consists in the conciliation of claims for recognition over time through constitutional dialogues in which citizens reach agreements on appropriate forms of accommodation of their cultural differences, guided by common constitutional conventions. This form of constitutionalism has the capacity to mediate contemporary conflicts and bring peace to the twenty-first century.