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Rights as Excess: Understanding the Politics of Special Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller  and
Neal Milner
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Abstract

Although the expression special rights emerged most prominently in the twentieth century as a negative response to the civil rights movement, the use of the term has recently acquired a broader, more ubiquitous doctrinal reach. In this paper we elaborate on the meaning of the term special rights as a political device and a way to mobilize power. As a discourse, special rights inverts relations between majority and minority, threatens a cultural contract that distributes universalistic and particular norms, and alters relations of governance. We apply these ideas to an empirical study of special rights politics in three very different issues in Hawai'i-same-sex marriage, the conversion of landholding from leasehold to fee, and indigenous sovereignty. These case studies demonstrate both the pervasiveness and capaciousness of special rights. We show that the use and impact of this discursive strategy varied a great deal from case to case, as did the responses to the accusations of special rights. Our findings suggest that special rights language and its surrogates have become a pervasive part of post-civil rights politics.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , Fall 2003 , pp. 1075 - 1118
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2003 

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