Debating Multiculturalism

Peter Balint is a Senior Lecturer in International & Political Studies at UNSW Canberra. His most recent book Respecting Toleration: Traditional Liberalism and Contemporary Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2017), was awarded an APSA CRISP Prize in 2018. His research is in political theory and is primarily focussed on the principles for diversity, including respect, toleration, neutrality, and social cohesion. He is regularly asked to consult government on issues of migration, multiculturalism, and citizenship.Patti Tamara Lenard is Professor of Applied Ethics in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa.. She is the author of Trust, Democracy and Multicultural Challenges (Penn State, 2012) and How Should Democracies Fight Terrorism? (Polity, 2020). She is active in the fields of political theory of migration, counter-terrorism, and democracy more generally. In Ottawa, she runs a small community organization called Rainbow Haven, whichsponsors, settles and advocates for LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers.

• Introduction: Multiculturalism and Minority RightsPeter Balint & Patti Tamara Lenard PART I: Pro MulticulturalismPatti Tamara LenardChapter 1: Introduction to Part IChapter 2: What is Culture? Why Political Inclusion?Chapter 3: Cultural Claims and Political InclusionChapter 4: Cultural Preservation and Multicultural AccommodationChapter 5: Non-Interference and Political InclusionChapter 6: Shared Public Culture in Diverse States PART II: Against Multicultural Minority RightsPeter BalintChapter 7: Introduction to Part IIChapter 8: We are All Neutralists Now! Chapter 9: Neutrality without Minority RightsChapter 10: National Minorities, Indigenous Peoples, and Historical InjusticeChapter 11: Multiculturalism and the Demands on CitizensChapter 12: Conclusion to Part II Part III: ResponsesChapter 13: Response to BalintCulture not Colanders: Why Neutralism Fails to Respond Effectively to the Challenges of Cultural DiversityPatti Tamara LenardChapter 14: Response to Lenard Multiculturalism without Minority (or Majority) Rights Peter Balint

To this reader at least, this lively debate volume shows very clearly that traditional liberalism, with its core principles of public neutrality and toleration, requires multiculturalism—the position laid out here by Peter Balint. Others will find in Patti Lenard`s 'political inclusion' model a new way of defending a more orthodox multiculturalism of minority rights. But the perhaps most powerful message of this book is the narrow range of disagreement on the necessity of multiculturalism in liberal-democratic societies.