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How do western democracies cope with the challenge of societal diversity?
Author(s) -
Smooha Sammy
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/nana.12402
Subject(s) - multiculturalism , diversity (politics) , liberal democracy , autonomy , political economy , nationalism , liberalism , political science , immigration , cultural diversity , power (physics) , sociology , ethnic group , democracy , law , politics , physics , quantum mechanics
In the modern era, the grand forces of modernism, liberalism and nationalism have opposed and minimized societal diversity in Western states. The Civil Rights Movement in the USA and the flow of millions of unassimilable immigrants, mostly Muslims, to Europe opened Western societies to cultural diversity. But liberal multiculturalism in the West consists mainly of endorsement of subcultures, non‐discrimination and inclusion. It falls short of instituting consociational components like cultural autonomy and power‐sharing. Fear and unease in the West increasingly give priority to majority over minority rights. While all Western democracies object to societal diversity, they differ in the way they handle it: liberal democracies deny it, consociational democracies institutionalize it and ethnic democracies partially allow and partially subordinate it. These three different strategies are evident in the way representative cases of Western democracies, namely the USA, Switzerland and Estonia, respectively, cope with societal diversity.

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