Will Kymlicka regards Estonia as a democracy, stressing the peculiar status of Russian-speakers, stemming from being at once partly transients, partly immigrants and partly natives.
Writing in the The Globe and Mail, political philosopher Will Kymlicka called it a "clear and accessible overview" though "none of this is particularly new".
He defines three such group-specific rights: special group representation rights (such as affirmative action policies in politics); self-government rights; and polyethnic rights (such as the policy exempting Sikhs from having to wear motorcycle helmets).
•
("Group rights" are also a recent innovation in Western democracy, which, from the American Revolution up to the enfranchisement of women, emphasized individual rights as fundamental, and avoided assigning rights to particular groups, geographic, religious, linguistic or ethnic.)
•
One of his main concerns throughout his work is providing a liberal framework for the just treatment of minority groups, which he divides into two basic categories: polyethnic or immigrant groups, and national minorities (such as the Canadian Québécois, or the Māori of New Zealand).