Citizenship in Diverse Societies

Download or read book Citizenship in Diverse Societies written by Will Kymlicka and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2000-03-16 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is it possible, in a modern, pluralistic society, to promote common bonds of citizenship while at the same time accommodating and showing respect for ethnocultural diversity? 'Citizenship' and 'diversity' have been two of the major topics of debate in both democratic politics and political theory over the past decade. Much has been written about the importance of citizenship, civic identities, and civic virtues for the functioning of liberal democracies, and the need to accommodate the ethnocultural, linguistic, and religious pluralism that is a fact of life in most modern states. By and large, however, these two topics have been largely discussed in mutual isolation. Much of the writing on the issues of both citizenship and diversity remains rather abstract and general and disconnected from the specific issues of public policy and institutional design. Citizenship in Diverse Societies examines the specific points of conflict and convergence between concerns for citizenship and diversity in democratic societies and reassesses and refines existing theories of 'diverse citizenship' by examining these theories in the light of actual practices and policies of pluralistic democracies.