The debate about multiculturalism takes many forms, and can focus on cultural domination, legal recognition of difference, and particular policy construction. But in these two volumes it pertains to liberal political theory and identity politics. Both are concerned with the challenges evident in the inability of some conceptions of liberalism to respond to the claims of the political relevance of categories of identity. Both are well grounded in current literature exploring the limitations and possibilities of liberalism. Both focus more on the political theory than on the political reality. But in the end, they champion different sides—Susan J. Hekman reconceptualizes and rehabilitates identity politics, and Michael Kenny reframes and reinvigorates liberalism. Although their conclusions are not incompatible, they are aimed at different audiences. Were the authors sharing a stage, they might largely talk past each other.

Hekman's Private Selves, Public Identities is a valuable and insightful book, which offers a fresh and well-argued defense of the importance of identity politics. Her analysis is strongly situated in feminist theory. Her understanding of the pitfalls of postmodern subjectivity (i.e., “woman” is a fiction), as well as liberalism's claim to neutrality (i.e., “man” equals human), informs her claim that the first point of error is our understanding of identity. Hekman uses object relations theory to challenge both Judith Butler's (Gender Trouble, 1990) assertion that (gender) identity is simply performative, and therefore identities might be made and remade in perpetuity, as well as the polar notion that identity is essential, unchanging. She argues that all individuals have a core self, formed in early childhood in relation to others, particularly in the complex relationships of parenting. That self endures, although it always reflects the context of being “constituted by a complex array of forces that are both public and personal” (p. 6). In this way, her conception of identity is both strong and contingent—providing a more realistically contestable character for deployment.

Further, Hekman's focus on identity illuminates the particularity embedded in liberal theory. Although some defenders of liberalism have worried that identity politics has no place in public life, Hekman explodes the notion that identity has ever been excluded from the polity. Citing Carole Pateman's (1988) book The Sexual Contract, she notes that the liberal citizen has always had a specific identity—white, male, owner of property—and that the threat to liberalism comes from the refusal to recognize that he is both universal and masculine, both neutral and positive. That is, liberalism has been hostile to only some sorts of identity, and Hekman uses the insights of feminist theory to help explain how identity can be both public and private, both fixed and shifting, both important and distracting. She advocates a shift in practice from the politics of “I am” to the politics of “I want,” recognizing that identities shift saliency with policy goals and partnership needs. Ultimately, she recognizes that identity politics is the usual way of doing business. But she urges us to recognize that marginalizing those “others” who claim nonhegemonic identities is no victory for liberalism, but antiliberal politics operating under a different name. Liberalism and identity politics can coexist for Hekman, because they share the same principles of “equality and justice for all as the cornerstone of political order” (p. 147). Identity politics does not kill liberalism but necessitates its transformation: “Differences between identities become the starting point of politics rather than that which must be eliminated” (p. 141).

Hekman's claims are well argued and persuasively presented in this well-written volume, which would be useful for advanced undergraduates, as well as for scholars of political theory less versed in feminism and feminist scholars new to liberal political thought. Particularly notable is Hekman's focus on the applications of her new conception of identity politics. Her concern is not for abstraction but for ideas about politics that can transform inequality, expand the pool of participants, and best effectuate justice for the marginalized.

Kenny also assesses the threat identity politics poses to liberalism, but his focus is on the integrity of liberal political theory. He describes a Manichean struggle between enlightenment universalism and multicultural particularism. In his description, the conflict takes on an all-or-nothing character, in which the assertion of identity claims threatens the liberal polity. Such identity claims are (erroneously, he says) too easily characterized as irrational claims to knowledge and political authority that would disrupt the public interest of the polity. Kenny presents a scrupulously detailed analysis of the many ways liberal thinkers have parried the advances of identity politics, including assertions that identity threatens democratic participation, saps citizenship, and inflames the benign ties of association. In response, he suggests that liberal values motivate the best alliances of identity and interest, and give rise to a more inclusive and democratic politics. The danger lies not in identity claims, which he shows have persisted through liberal thought, but in mistaken polarized notions of liberalism and the politics of identity.

At the same time, Kenny demonstrates that liberal theory can tolerate many more assertions of identity than have been claimed, so long as identity claims themselves are reconsidered. For example, he makes a distinction between ascriptive identity and voluntary identity, and concludes that the threat to liberalism comes from dominance, not difference. Throughout his argument, he focuses on the middle ground, on the points of agreement. He finds promise in an expanded notion of civil society—which would reflect the many associations of identity in which citizens might engage—by explicitly considering the political dimensions of social movements.

Kenny argues that exemplars of the politics of difference (he names William Connolly and Iris Young) fail to take seriously the implications of their particularist politics and neglect to see the elasticity of liberal thought. At the same time, those who demonstrate the politics of recognition (Charles Taylor, Nancy Fraser, James Tully) can provide a way to incorporate specific recognition of individuals and groups into the liberal tradition. The author applauds “the increased willingness of political theorists to consider culture and identity in relation to the self [which] reflects a growing understanding of the importance of psychological and interpersonal harms that can arise from the systemic marginalization and disrespecting of social collectivities in modern contexts” (pp. 172–73). He asks liberal thinkers to reconsider the utility and coherence of identity politics, and asserts that the tent of liberal theory has room for the particular claims of modern multicultural citizens.

The Politics of Identity is dense and best suited for advanced graduate students and those well versed in the liberal tradition. In contrast to Hekman, Kenny uses few examples from contemporary Anglophone politics. His arguments would have benefited from the judicious use of contemporary political and policy debates.

Both Hekman and Kenny find ways to reconcile identity claims and liberal virtues. Although their approaches differ, both recognize the importance of public recognition of assertions of identity and the fidelity to liberalism broadly understood. Identity matters because democratic participants say it matters. Equal moral status does not demand uniformity of identity. The politics of identity are not going to disappear quietly, and Hekman and Kenny offer two ways to manage their challenges.