Citizenship and Multiculturalism in Western Liberal Democracies
By (Author) David Edward Tabachnick
Edited by Leah Bradshaw
Contributions by Yasmeen Abu-Laban
Contributions by Ed Andrew
Contributions by Ronald Beiner
Contributions by Leah Bradshaw
Contributions by Sanjay Jeram
Contributions by Kostas A. Lavdas
Contributions by Tariq Modood
Contributions by David Edward Tabachnick
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Lexington Books
16th March 2017
United States
Professional and Scholarly
Non Fiction
Social and political philosophy
Politics and government
Political science and theory
323.6091821
Hardback
206
Width 158mm, Height 239mm, Spine 19mm
440g
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.
David EdwardTabachnickis professor of political science at Nipissing University. Leah Bradshaw is professor of political science at Brock University.