Political Science Social Services & Welfare
Multiculturalism and the Welfare State
Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Initial publish date
- Dec 2006
- Category
- Social Services & Welfare
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780199289189
- Publish Date
- Dec 2006
- List Price
- $99.00
Add it to your shelf
Where to buy it
Description
In many Western democracies, ethnic and racial minorities have demanded, and sometimes achieved, greater recognition and accommodation of their identities. This is reflected in the adoption of multiculturalism policies for immigrant groups, the acceptance of territorial autonomy and language rights for national minorities, and the recognition of land claims and self-government rights for indigenous peoples. These claims for recognition have been controversial, in part because of fears that they make it more difficult to sustain a robust welfare state by eroding the interpersonal trust, social solidarity and political coalitions that sustain redistribution. Are these fears of a conflict between a "politics of recognition" and a "politics of redistribution" valid? This volume is the first systematic attempt to empirically test this question, using both cross-national statistical analyses of the relationships among diversity policies, public attitudes and the welfare state, and case studies of the recognition/ redistribution linkage in the political coalitions in particular countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, and in Latin America. These studies suggest that that there is no general or inherent tendency for recognition to undermine redistribution, and that the relationship between these two forms of politics can be supportive as well as competitive, depending on the context. These findings shed important light, not only on the nature and effects of multiculturalism, but also on wider debates about the social and political foundations of the welfare state, and indeed about our most basic concepts of citizenship and national identity. As a ground-breaking attempt to connect the literatures on multiculturalism and the welfare state, this volume will be of great interest to a wide range of scholars and practitioners who work on issues of ethnocultural diversity and social policy.
About the authors
Keith G. Banting is the Queen's Research Chair in Public Policy and a professor in the School of Policy Studies and the Department of Political Studies.
Will Kymlicka is the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University. He is the author of seven books published by Oxford University Press, most recently Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (2011), co-authored with Sue Donaldson. His previous books include Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (1995) and Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity (2007). In 2013, he delivered the HLA Hart Memorial Lecture at the University of Oxford on Animals and the Frontiers of Citizenship.
Other titles by
The Strains of Commitment
The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies
The Global Promise of Federalism
Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics
Making EI Work
Research from the Mowat Centre Employment Insurance Task Force
Belonging? Diversity, Recognition and Shared Citizenship in Canada
Belonging? Diversity, Recognition and Shared Citizenship in Canada
The Review of Economic Performance and Social Progress, 2002
Towards a Social Understanding of Productivity
Welfare State and Canadian Federalism
Other titles by
Animal Labour
A New Frontier of Interspecies Justice?
The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought: From Machiavelli to Nietzsche
The Strains of Commitment
The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies
Representation and Citizenship
International Approaches to Governing Ethnic Diversity
Criminal Law and Cultural Diversity
Multiculturalism and Minority Rights in the Arab World
Rooted Cosmopolitanism
Canada and the World
The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought: Essential Readings
Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary Texts
Zoopolis
A Political Theory of Animal Rights