Citizenship and Multiculturalism in Western Liberal Democracies

Edited by David Edward Tabachnick and Leah Bradshaw - Contributions by Yasmeen Abu-Laban; Ed Andrew; Ronald Beiner; Leah Bradshaw; Sanjay Jeram; Kostas A. Lavdas; Tariq Modood; David Edward Tabachnick; Lee Trepanier and Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos

This volume explores some of the tensions and pressures of citizenship in Western liberal democracies. Citizenship has adopted many guises in the Western context, although historically citizenship is attached only to some variant of democracy. How democracy is configured is thus at the core of citizenship. Beginning in ancient Greece, citizenship is attached to the notion of a public sphere of deliberation, open only to a small number of males. Nonetheless, we take from these origins an understanding of citizenship that is attached to friendship, preservation of a distinct community, and adherence to law. These early conceptions of citizenship in the west have been dramatically altered in the modern context by the ascendancy of individual rights and equality, expanding the inclusiveness of definition of citizenship. The universality of rights claims has led to debate about the legitimacy of the nation state and questioning of borders. A further development in our understanding of citizenship, and one that has shifted citizenship studies considerably in the last few decades, is the backlash against the universalism of rights in the defense of cultural recognition within democratic polities. Multiculturalism as a broad spectrum of citizenship studies defends the autonomy and recognition of cultural, and sometimes religious, identity within an overarching scheme of rights and equality. This collection draws upon the many threads of citizenship in the Western tradition to consider how all of them are still extant, and contentious, in contemporary liberal democracy.

Lexington Books

Pages: 206 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-1172-8 • Hardback • March 2017 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-1173-5 • eBook • March 2017 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

Series: Honor and Obligation in Liberal Society: Problems and Prospects

Subjects: Political Science / Civics & Citizenship, Philosophy / Political, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / General

Citizenship and Multiculturalism in Western Liberal Democracies

Hardback

eBook

Summary

This volume explores some of the tensions and pressures of citizenship in Western liberal democracies. Citizenship has adopted many guises in the Western context, although historically citizenship is attached only to some variant of democracy. How democracy is configured is thus at the core of citizenship. Beginning in ancient Greece, citizenship is attached to the notion of a public sphere of deliberation, open only to a small number of males. Nonetheless, we take from these origins an understanding of citizenship that is attached to friendship, preservation of a distinct community, and adherence to law. These early conceptions of citizenship in the west have been dramatically altered in the modern context by the ascendancy of individual rights and equality, expanding the inclusiveness of definition of citizenship. The universality of rights claims has led to debate about the legitimacy of the nation state and questioning of borders. A further development in our understanding of citizenship, and one that has shifted citizenship studies considerably in the last few decades, is the backlash against the universalism of rights in the defense of cultural recognition within democratic polities. Multiculturalism as a broad spectrum of citizenship studies defends the autonomy and recognition of cultural, and sometimes religious, identity within an overarching scheme of rights and equality. This collection draws upon the many threads of citizenship in the Western tradition to consider how all of them are still extant, and contentious, in contemporary liberal democracy.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 206 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-1172-8 • Hardback • March 2017 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-1173-5 • eBook • March 2017 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

Series: Honor and Obligation in Liberal Society: Problems and Prospects

Subjects: Political Science / Civics & Citizenship, Philosophy / Political, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / General

Author

David Edward Tabachnickis professor of political science at Nipissing University.

Leah Bradshaw is professor of political science at Brock University.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Aristotelian Citizenship for a Multicultural World
Chapter 2 Challenges to a Deliberative Model of Citizenship
Chapter 3 Secularism as a Common Good
Chapter 4 Citizenship against the Nation
Chapter 5 Multicultural Taxpayers and Canadian Citizenship: Between the End of History and the Class of Civilizations
Chapter 6 Majoritarian Interculturalism and Multicultural Nationalism
Chapter 7 Multiculturalism and National Identity in Canada and the United States after September 11th, 2001
Chapter 8 Civic Virtue and Cultural Pluralism from the Standpoint of The Other: Debating Multiculturalism in the Age of Security and Surveillance
Chapter 9 The European Union as a Transnational Republic? Consociational, Multicultural, and Post-Territorial Dimensions
Chapter 10 Striking a Balance? The Battle for Euskara in a Diversifying Basque Country