What ought to be the role of identity groups in the politics of a just democratic society? In her book, Amy Gutmann sets out to explore this question. She does not offer a definitive answer to it; however, she does offer evaluative criteria by which we may decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether or not the political interventions of organized identity groups are beneficial to a democratic society such as she presumes the United States to be. When, Gutmann asks (p. 5), may the politics of organized identity groups contribute to a society structured on what she identifies as the three basic principles of democratic justice: civic equality (equal standing as a citizen), liberty, and opportunity? Conversely, when are they inimical to such principles?

Gutmann's goal, wisely, is not to enter the fray of the often-heated, all-or-nothing, for-or-against debates that have surrounded identity politics. Instead, she seeks to clarify what constitutes identity group politics in contradistinction to interest group politics; to differentiate between differently constituted kinds of political identity groups (the four core chapters address, in order, [1] cultural identity groups, [2] voluntary identity groups [3] ascriptive identity groups, and [4] the question of whether religious identity is a special case of identity group politics); and to discriminate among their kinds of political interventions so as to be able to evaluate “the good, the bad, and the ugly of identity politics.” Methodologically, the book proceeds to make such discriminations through a nuanced evaluation of numerous specific examples and concrete cases. These enable her to explore issues as diverse as those arising from practices of clitoridectomy among immigrant groups in the United States (Chapter 1), the exclusion of homosexuals from the Boy Scouts (Chapter 2), the self-interested use of ascriptive identity for personal material gain (Chapter 3), or balancing religious conscience with the demands of nondiscrimination (Chapter 4), among many others.

One important question that Gutmann addresses is how to distinguish identity groups from more traditional interest groups. The paradigmatic distinction she offers is that interest groups are instrumental alliances of self-interested individual agents and are formed only for the purpose of attaining a particular end that their members all want, whereas identity groups are bound up “with a sense of who people are” (p. 15). Identity groups thus have important affective qualities, and are often about a shared sense of belonging—that is, “identification” with others. This is especially so for identity groups based on involuntary ascription, for example, groups organized to resist racist or gender oppression. However, as she notes, in actuality, the distinction between interest and identity groups is often blurry. For identity groups frequently struggle for their members' interests, while members of interest groups sometimes develop identifications with one another over time. This being so, it might well be that many of the questions the author raises about identity group politics also apply to more conventional interest group politics.

Gutmann is highly critical of instances in which the rights of an identity group are asserted at the expense of the rights of any of its individual members for, she claims, group identity can never be fully constitutive of individual personhood. Thus, principles of democratic justice are violated in cases that subordinate an individual's rights to the claims of his or her group. But questions about the relationship between group identification and individual selfhood remain disappointingly underexplicated in the book. Gutmann's claim that social identity is not ever wholly constitutive of the self veers strongly toward a conception of the human self as a rational, autonomous individual, one that is a bearer of interests and a maker of free choices existentially prior to its identities. Such a conception of the self has been profoundly put into question not only by thinkers in the communitarian tradition who have emphasized the strong social constitution of selves, and by poststructuralist thinkers who emphasize the discursive construction of selves, but also by feminist and critical race theorists who have argued that identities such as gender and/or race are so deep that they are ineradicably constitutive of selfhood. An engagement with other perspectives such as these would have clarified Gutmann's own conception of selfhood and further strengthened the book.

In spite of her concerns that identity groups may sometimes be coercive of their members, or that they may be too particularistic in their agendas, Gutmann is also appreciative of the rich goods that identity group politics may bring. For there are positive values to “identification” that are sui generis and that are not reducible to either rational self interest or to principled moral obligation. Beyond matters of political efficacy, participation in organized identity groups may give people a much-needed sense of belonging and so contribute to their personal well-being. In addition, participation may also enlarge our sensibilities about the injustices suffered by others beyond our own identity groups. Thus, Gutmann argues, impartiality and a strict sense of moral obligation are not necessarily the most effective paths toward a more just society. For when we identify with others, we may fulfill ourselves in acting on their behalf, instead of sacrificing ourselves to do so: People “can live more fulfilling lives by contributing to justice-friendly associations of their choice [such as the Red Cross, or Oxfam] out of identification rather than obligation” (p.148). By pointing us toward the importance of the domains of affectivity and emotion as also integral aspects of a just democratic society, she provocatively complicates those conventional liberal arguments that ground accounts of democratic justice above all in principles. Both here, and elsewhere, Identity in Democracy provides a rich and nuanced resource for thinking creatively about the place of identity groups in contemporary political life, and Gutmann opens up new and important avenues for further inquiry.