Negotiating Diversity Culture, Deliberation, Trust

by Festenstein, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780745624051
• ISBN10: 0745624057
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-01-14
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

Debates about cultural diversity have become an important, controversial and inescapable feature of the politics of modern democracies. Negotiating Diversity offers a lucid and accessible analysis of the political theory of multiculturalism. It is an ideal text for students looking for an overview of the state of play in this area.The book explores the work of key political philosophers such as Kymlicka, Barry and Kukathas, and draws on a range of real-world examples to illustrate its arguments. It provides a critique of the tendency to reify cultural identity in political thinking, particularly through an examination of contemporary liberalism. In its place, the author develops a deliberative alternative, which views the politics of cultural diversity as a fallible process of negotiation, argument and compromise. He confronts objections that this alternative itself presupposes a homogenous political community, and that it offers an unrealistic or oppressive vision of politics.

Author Biography

Matthew Festenstein is Reader in Politics at the University of Sheffield.

Table of Contents

Dedication	vi
Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction	1	(6)
Approaches to Cultural Identification	7	(30)
Culture and Normativity	37	(29)
The Limits of Liberal Culturalism	66	(25)
The Way of the World: Two Forms of Negative Universalism	91	(28)
Cultural Accommodation and Political Dialogue	119	(18)
Deliberative Trust: Ethos, Identity and Institutions	137	(23)
Conclusion	160	(2)
Notes	162	(14)
References	176	(17)
Index	193