Diversity in Decline?

: The Rise of the

Political Right and the Fate of
Multiculturalism Arjun Tremblay
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/diversity-in-decline-the-rise-of-the-political-right-and-t
he-fate-of-multiculturalism-arjun-tremblay/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

The Rise of Neo-liberalism and the Decline of Freedom

Birsen Filip

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-rise-of-neo-liberalism-and-
the-decline-of-freedom-birsen-filip/

Shrinking the Earth: The Rise and Decline of American

Abundance 1st Edition Donald Worster

https://textbookfull.com/product/shrinking-the-earth-the-rise-
and-decline-of-american-abundance-1st-edition-donald-worster/

Dayton The Rise Decline and Transition of an Industrial

City Adam A. Millsap

https://textbookfull.com/product/dayton-the-rise-decline-and-
transition-of-an-industrial-city-adam-a-millsap/

Life Hereafter: The Rise and Decline of a Tradition 1st

Edition Paul Crittenden

https://textbookfull.com/product/life-hereafter-the-rise-and-
decline-of-a-tradition-1st-edition-paul-crittenden/
The Rise and Decline of the American Empire Power and
its Limits in Comparative Perspective 1st Edition Geir
Lundestad

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-rise-and-decline-of-the-
american-empire-power-and-its-limits-in-comparative-
perspective-1st-edition-geir-lundestad/

The Rise of Empires: The Political Economy of

Innovation Sangaralingam Ramesh

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-rise-of-empires-the-
political-economy-of-innovation-sangaralingam-ramesh/

Visualizing Fascism The Twentieth Century Rise Of The

Global Right Geoff Eley

https://textbookfull.com/product/visualizing-fascism-the-
twentieth-century-rise-of-the-global-right-geoff-eley/

Death Dust The Rise Decline and Future of Radiological

Weapons Programs 1st Edition Potter

https://textbookfull.com/product/death-dust-the-rise-decline-and-
future-of-radiological-weapons-programs-1st-edition-potter/

The Rise of Hybrid Political Islam in Turkey: Origins

and Consolidation of the JDP Sevinç Bermek

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-rise-of-hybrid-political-
islam-in-turkey-origins-and-consolidation-of-the-jdp-sevinc-
bermek/
 PALGRAVE POLITICS OF IDENTITY & CITIZENSHIP SERIES
Diversity in Decline?
The Rise of the Political Right
and the Fate of Multiculturalism

Arjun Tremblay
Palgrave Politics of Identity
and Citizenship Series

Series Editors
Varun Uberoi
Brunel University London
London, UK

Nasar Meer
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, UK

Tariq Modood
University of Bristol
Bristol, UK
The politics of identity and citizenship has assumed increasing impor-
tance as our polities have become significantly more culturally, eth-
nically and religiously diverse. Different types of scholars, including
philosophers, sociologists, political scientists and historians make con-
tributions to this field and this series showcases a variety of innovative
contributions to it. Focusing on a range of different countries, and uti-
lizing the insights of different disciplines, the series helps to illuminate
an increasingly controversial area of research and titles in it will be of
interest to a number of audiences including scholars, students and other
interested individuals.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14670
 Arjun Tremblay

Diversity in Decline?
The Rise of the Political Right
and the Fate of Multiculturalism
Arjun Tremblay
University of Regina
Regina, SK, Canada

Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series

ISBN 978-3-030-02298-3 ISBN 978-3-030-02299-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02299-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018959243

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein
or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover image: © YAY Media AS/Alamy Stock Vector

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For Mike and Reeta
 Acknowledgements

This book, which is based on my doctoral thesis (successfully defended

in 2017 in the Department of Political Science at the University of
Toronto), would never have gotten underway, continued and reached
completion without the assistance of many people. My thanks go to
Dr. Jacques Bertrand, my doctoral supervisor, for his great advice, his
constant encouragement and, most of all, for sitting me down after my
defense and for laying out the next steps for me. My thanks also go to
Dr. Neil Nevitte, Dr. Randall Hansen, and Dr. Erin Tolley from the
Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto and to
Dr. Yasmeen Abu-Laban from the Department of Political Science at the
University of Alberta for their constructive feedback, great comments
and recommendations. I also wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Richard
Iton, who provided me with great advice during the initial stages of my
doctoral research, and who sadly passed away before I could show him
both my completed dissertation and the book in which it has resulted.
Je tiens à remercier Dr. Alain-G. Gagnon, Professeur titulaire au
Département de science politique à l’Université du Québec à Montrèal
(UQAM). Je vous suis profondément reconnaissant de m’avoir accue-
illi à la Chaire de Recherche du Canada en études québécoises et

vii
viii   Acknowledgements

canadiennes (CRÉQC) et surtout pour votre soutien à travers les années

et pour ce projet de livre. Je tiens aussi à remercier tous mes collègues
à l’UQAM de m’avoir donné un si fort et utile coup d’épaule, dont:
Dr. Valérie Vézina, Dr. Paul May, Dr. Catrin Wyn Edwards, Olivier
de Champlain, Dr. Jean-Charles Saint-Louis, Mathieu Champoux,
Dr. Étienne Schmidt, Félix Mathieu, Bachir Sirois-Moumni, Benjamin
Pillet, Olivier Ritchie, Guillaume Lamy, Jérémy Elmerich et Catherine
Viens.
My thanks also go to Dr. Csaba Nikolenyi and to all the faculty and
staff in the department of Political Science at Concordia University for
providing a home for me for three years and for being a constant source
of support during the early stages of this project. I wish in particular
to thank Dr. Daniel Salée, Dr. Jim Kelly, Dr. Francesca Scala, Dr. Tina
Hilgers, Dr. Jean-François Mayer, as well as Dr. Kimberley Manning,
Dr. Jason Ferrell, Dr. Harold Chorney, and Dr. Rick Bisaillon for
their words of encouragement over the years. My thanks go to Dr. Jim
Farney, Dr. Tom McIntosh, and Dr. Simon Granovsky-Larsen from the
Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of
Regina for their support during the final stages of writing.
I wish to also thank all my friends at the University of Toronto
and at Massey College for providing a spirit of friendly competition
and for being a sounding-board for me over the years. Thank you:
Dr. Karlo Basta, Dr. Patricia Grieve, Dr. Sanjay Jeram, Marcin
Kedzior, Dr. Nicolas Riegel, Geoffrey Little, Cliff van der Linden,
Dr. Dubi Kanengisser, Dr. Melissa Levin, Mike Painter-Main,
Dr. Rebecca Sanders, Dr. Alanna Krolikowski, Dr. David Houle,
Dr. Anthony Sealey, Dr. Seung Hyok Lee, Dr. Luc Turgeon, Dr. Jennifer
Wallner, Dr. Gabriel Eidelman, Dr. Chris Cochrane, Dr. Steve White,
Dr. Reuven Sholzberg, and Merom Kalie. My most heartfelt thanks go
out to the outstanding staff at the Department of Political Science at
the University of Toronto past and present: Louis Tentsos, Carolynn
Branton, Joan Kallis, Sari Sherman, Elizabeth Jagdeo, and Mary-Alice
Bailey.
My thanks to Massey College at the University of Toronto, the
Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development (Ontario,
Canada), the Thomas and Beverly Simpson Ontario Graduate
 Acknowledgements   ix

Scholarship (OGS), the Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Project

(EDG), and la Chaire de Recherche du Canada en études québécoises
et canadiennes (CRÉQC) for funding my research at different stages. I
also wish to thank Dr. Tariq Modood, Dr. Nasar Meer, and Dr. Varun
Uberoi, the editors of the Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship
Series, as well as Sharla Plant and Poppy Hull at Palgrave Macmillan,
Jayanthy Mohanasundaram at Springer Nature, and Hemapriya
Eswanth at Scientific Publishing Services.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the following people for their unwavering
support and for being the best of friends to me: Antranik Tovmassian,
Gaetano Liberatore, Dr. Anat Rosenthal, Huy-Du Nguyen, Dr. Deb
Thompson, Yonathan Kellerman, Dr. Nina Valiquette-Moreau, Luke
Moreau, and Dr. Joshua Ben David Nichols. Finally, I could not have
completed this book without the help and love of my parents, Dr. Reeta
Tremblay and Michel Tremblay. Thank you mom and dad for being a
constant source of support, encouragement and tolerance. I love you
both, I am proud to be your son and I am forever grateful that you are
my parents.
My debt of gratitude is wide as well as deep and I apologize for the
undoubted omissions in this abbreviated list.
 Praise for Diversity in Decline?

“In this compelling examination of the widespread belief that the a­ pparent
retreat of liberal democracies from policies favoring diversity and the
accommodation of ethnocultural difference signals the end of multicultur-
alism, Arjun Tremblay shows that there is more to it than meets the eye.
Diversity in Decline? is a balanced, methodologically sound and significant
contribution to the literature on multiculturalism policies—and a refresh-
ing alternative to its problematic penchant for normative pronouncements.”
—Daniel Salée, Professor of Political Science, Concordia University,
Canada

“In this book, Arjun Tremblay tackles an extremely important topic: the
future of integration policies towards immigrants and ethno cultural
minorities in Western democracies. Using an innovative methodology,
Tremblay compares Canada, the United States and Great Britain and
brings to light the conditions under which policies of recognition and
accommodation may yet survive the rise of right-wing governments.
Clearly written and widely referenced, this book is essential reading for
anyone interested in multiculturalism and immigration.”
—Paul May, Lecturer in Political Science, Harvard University, USA

xi
 Contents

1 Introduction: Can Multiculturalism Survive the Rise

of the Political Right? 1
The Rising Threat of the Political Right 2
Multiculturalism’s Fate 7
Chapter Overview 8
References 12

2 The Multiculturalism Research Programme:

Established and Emerging Concerns 15
The Normative-Critical Category 16
The Empirical-Retreat Category 22
The Unlikely Survival Category 28
The Theoretical Category 35
Conclusion 43
References 43

3 Developing a Hypothesis of Multicultural Outcomes:

Theory, Case Selection, Methodology and Clarifications 55
A Hypothesis of Multiculturalism’s Survival in Three Steps 55

xiii
xiv   Contents

Case Selection and Methodology 61

Operationalizing Multiculturalism 64
Clarifications on Research Design 67
Conclusion 76
References 76

4 Canadian Multiculturalism During the Harper

Governments (2006–2015): Diachronic Variance and the
Importance of Electoral Outcomes 81
A New Conservative Party Governs (2006–2015) 84
Multicultural Discourse: “We Favour Multiculturalism” 87
Canada’s Official Multiculturalism Policy 89
Official Multiculturalism: Implementation
and Redeployment 100
Public Expenditures on the Multiculturalism Program:
Increases and Decline 103
A More Overt Retreat from Multiculturalism: 2011–2015 107
The Ishaq Case: The Federal Court of Appeal as Veto Player 110
The 2015 Federal Elections: Issues, Outcome, and Policy
Changes 111
Three Preliminary Theoretical Propositions 118
References 121

5 British Multiculturalism During the Cameron and May

Majority Governments (2010–2017): Retreat, Survival
and the Effects of Policy Design 129
From the “Center and Center-Left Politics” of New
Labour (1997–2010) to the Two Cameron Governments
(2010–2016) and the First May Government (2016–2017):
A Brief Overview 132
Institutionalizing Multiculturalism: A Failed Opportunity 135
An Alternative Conception of British Society: The Cohesive
Community 136
From Local Multicultural Education to Multiculturalism
in the National Curriculum 140
 Contents   xv

The 2010 Equality Act 144

Multiculturalism in Public Broadcasting 147
Celebrating Diversity in the City of London 150
The Bifurcation of British Multiculturalism
in Britain Between 2010 and 2017 152
Refining the Hypothesis: The Difference in Policy Design 159
References 162

6 American Multiculturalism During a Majority

Republican Congress and a Unified Republican
Government (1995–2007): Unprotected Policies
and the Actions of Critical Veto Players 169
From Republican Control of Congress to a “Unified”
Republican Government (1995–2007) 172
The Language of the Federal Government 173
The Spread of Official English at the Subnational Level 176
The Role of Veto Players: Orrin Hatch, the Senate Judiciary
Committee and the Failure of the Bill Emerson English
Language Empowerment Act 182
The Reauthorization of Language Assistance in Voting 189
Language Accommodation in the Administration
of Public Services 192
Federal Spending on Bilingual Education 199
An Assimilationist Turn: The End of the Bilingual
Education Act 204
Refining the Hypothesis: Veto Players and Their Possible
Motivations 207
References 210

7 Conclusion: Scholarly Contributions and Potential

Application to Theory-Building and Multicultural
Policy Design 215
Scholarly Contributions 216
Extending the Argument 221
xvi   Contents

Multicultural Policy Design in the Age of the Political Right 222

References 225

Bibliography 229

Index 269
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Immigrant, national minority and indigenous MCPs 32

Table 2.2 Points of disagreement and convergence
in the multiculturalism research programme 42
Table 4.1 Reform Party of Canada’s position on multiculturalism 85
Table 4.2 Canadian Alliance’s position on affirmative action 85
Table 4.3 Multiculturalism within a bilingual framework 90
Table 4.4 Preservation and enhancement of multicultural heritage 92
Table 4.5 Changes to official multiculturalism: duties of federal
government, federal institutions, and federal ministers 94
Table 4.6 Annual reports on the operation of the Canadian
Multiculturalism Act: 1989–2015 101
Table 4.7 Federal public expenditures on multiculturalism 104
Table 4.8 “Multiculturalism policies” (MCPs) in Canada
(1980, 1990, 2000, 2010) 108
Table 4.9 Reporting “barbaric cultural practices” 116
Table 5.1 Multicultural references and community cohesion
references (2001–2002 to 2009–2010 parliamentary
session) (MC = multicultural; CC = community cohesion) 139
Table 5.2 Representing the UK, its nations, regions,
and communities (section 9, The BBC’s public purposes) 150

xvii
xviii   List of Tables

Table 6.1 Congressional sponsorship of monolingual bills

(1980–2010) 170
Table 6.2 Serrano English Plus resolutions 174
Table 6.3 McCain English Plus resolutions 175
Table 6.4 Domenici Plus resolutions 175
Table 6.5 Official English and non-official English states 181
Table 6.6 Federal appropriations for the design and implementation
of bilingual education programs 202
 1
Introduction:
Can Multiculturalism Survive
the Rise of the Political Right?

This book answers three questions: (1) is there any hope that multicul-
turalism will survive as the ideological pendulum continues to shift to
the right across democracies? (2) Are there conditions under which mul-
ticulturalism is more likely survive an ideological shift to the right in
government? (3) How can multicultural policies be designed to survive
in an ideological environment that continues to veer to the right?
While the term “multiculturalism” has different meanings (e.g. a
demographic phenomenon, an ideology, a public discourse), this book
uses it to describe aggregates of public policies that are distinct and
characteristic phenomena of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries or,
in other words, of the most recent stage of the “age of migration”.1 By
design, these policies recognize the cultures, religions and/or languages
of minorities borne out of individual and familial immigration. In most
cases, these policies also require public institutions to lower barriers for

1In The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World, Fifth Edition
(2013, 5), Castles et al. use the “age of migration” to capture a period in time beginning roughly
in the sixteenth century with the large scale process of European expansion and leading to and
including the past few decades, a period in time during which “[migration] has gained increasing
political salience.”

© The Author(s) 2019 1

A. Tremblay, Diversity in Decline?, Palgrave Politics of Identity
and Citizenship Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02299-0_1
2   A. Tremblay

members of minority communities to participate in social, political,

and/or economic arenas; that is to say they require public institutions to
“accommodate” minorities.
This book situates itself within an emerging and important research
programme that focuses on minority recognition, minority accommo-
dation, and immigrant integration. In recent years, contributors to this
new endeavour have set out not only to assess multiculturalism’s nor-
mative value but also to evaluate and explain the fate of minority recog-
nition and minority accommodation in liberal democracies. Although
this research programme tends to focus on understanding (what has
come to be known as) multiculturalism’s “retreat” it is now starting to
theorize on multiculturalism’s persistence or “survival” under adverse
conditions.

The Rising Threat of the Political Right

For a number of reasons, the clearest threat to multiculturalism’s sur-
vival are governments of the political right. For one, the political right
(including the far-right and the centre-right) is the main source of
anti-immigration rhetoric (Diamond 1996) and of a mono-national
discourse (Betz and Immerfall 1998), neither of which values recog-
nizing and accommodating diversity. There are also significant logical
inconsistencies between the ideological positions of the far-right and
centre-right, on the one hand, and the recognition and accommodation
of diversity, on the other. Five of these logical inconsistencies are elabo-
rated upon below:

• Firstly, the most extreme of right-wing ideological positions are both

holistic and “historicist” (Popper 1945) in that they envision an
idealized version of society and seek means to preserve this ideal by
excluding (or exterminating) difference. Consequently, these extrem-
ist ideological positions are a priori inconsistent with a political pro-
ject that is based on the assumption that societies should be open to
immigration and also mutable in their conception of nationhood and
belonging;
 1 Introduction: Can Multiculturalism Survive …    
3

• Secondly, classical conservatism is biased in favour of maintaining the

status quo (Sweet 1996) and is therefore more likely to be incompat-
ible with the implementation of a policy project—such as multicul-
turalism—that must entail a radical shift away from past practices of
cultural assimilation and cultural exclusion and towards the recogni-
tion and accommodation of diversity;
• Thirdly, classical liberalism and its emphasis on “negative freedom”
is also inconsistent with multiculturalism. From a classical liberal
perspective, freedom is defined as “freedom from state interference”
(Tremblay et al. 2003, 82). By contrast, multiculturalism, particu-
larly when it takes the form of employment equality policies, is dis-
tinctly rooted in the notion of “positive freedom,” a reform liberal
ideal that requires state intervention to remedy socio-economic dis-
parities (82–83);
• Fourthly, neo-conservatism’s hyper-individualistic conception of soci-
ety (ibid., 87) stands in clear contradistinction to the multicultural
conception of society that views the individual as belonging to a par-
ticular group with a distinct “societal culture” (Kymlicka 1996);
• And, fifthly, the conservative ideal of “small government” (see
Rudolph and Evans 2005, 662, footnote 1) is inconsistent with
multiculturalism given that the recognition and accommodation of
diversity often requires government spending in areas such as cultural
activities and programs, minority language assistance programs, and
bilingual or mother-tongue instruction programs.

In addition to these logical inconsistencies and incompatibilities, there

is very little historical precedent of the political right implementing
a shift towards multiculturalism. In fact, the first experiments with
multiculturalism were undertaken in long-standing liberal democra-
cies during the latter half of the twentieth century and, more specifi-
cally, at a time when voters put their support squarely behind parties
of the political left. The initial variants of “official multiculturalism”
policies adopted in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and the
Netherlands were designed and implemented by centre-left govern-
ments. The only real exception to this pattern took place in Canada
during the late 1980s when the Mulroney Conservative government
4   A. Tremblay

implemented the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988; but even

this was 17 years after the left-leaning Trudeau Liberals interpreted the
findings of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism
1963–1971 (i.e. the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission or the “Bi and
Bi” Commission) to mean that Canada’s federal government should
implement a policy of “multiculturalism within a bilingual framework.”
Although the “master narrative” of multiculturalism holds that some
former leftists have recently decried the recognition and accommoda-
tion of cultural minorities (Kymlicka 2010, 46), opposition to multicul-
turalism has come and continues to come primarily from the right-hand
side of the ideological spectrum.2 In Murder in Amsterdam: The Death
of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance (2006), an in-depth look
into conditions surrounding the “backlash” against immigrant minori-
ties in the Netherlands and the populist outcry against the Dutch “mul-
ticultural tragedy”, author Ian Buruma succinctly describes the political
left’s embrace of multiculturalism as well as an ideological dichotomy
between support of and opposition to the recognition and accommoda-
tion of minorities:

The Left was on the side of universalism, scientific socialism, and the
like, while the Right believed in culture, in the sense of “our culture,”
“our traditions.” During the multicultural age of the 1970s and 1980s,
this debate began to shift. It was now the Left that stood for culture
and tradition, especially “their” cultures and traditions, that is, those of
the immigrants, while the Right argued for the universal values of the
Enlightenment. (Buruma 2006, 30)

2Vocal opposition to multiculturalism from the political left is rare. To be sure, there are excep-

tions. For example, Trevor Phillips, former full-time chairman of the Commission for Racial
Equality and its successor the Commission for Equality and Human Rights during the Blair
and Brown Labour governments, has derided multiculturalism as a “failed policy” (Barrett,
The Telegraph, April 11, 2016). And, in Canada, Pauline Marois, former leader of the Parti
Québécois, a social democratic political party in the province of Québec, critiqued the policy
of multiculturalism in announcing her party’s plan to institute a ‘charter of values’ stating that
“In England, they whack each other on the mouth and send bombs because it’s multiculturalism
and nobody can find a place for himself anymore in that society” (translated from the French by
Wells, Maclean’s, September 6, 2003).
 1 Introduction: Can Multiculturalism Survive …    
5

Just as multiculturalism was compatible with the policy agendas of

the left in the late stages of the twentieth century, the recognition and
accommodation of cultural minorities remains, to this day, a project
that is inherently consistent with the social democratic and reform
liberal ideals of left-wing and centre-left political parties. This should
come as little surprise given that the decision to lower barriers for
ethnocultural participation in educational, economic and/or politi-
cal realms strongly resonates with the reform liberal ideal of ensuring
equality of opportunity along class lines (Tremblay et al. 2003, 82–83).
Additionally, multiculturalism is compatible with social democratic
conceptions of the social order and the process of change. Given their
belief that one of the main objectives of government is to ensure equal-
ity (ibid., 101) social democrats should be infinitely more receptive
than their counterparts on the right to a governmental approach that,
in seeking to integrate ethnocultural minorities, acknowledges that an
imbalance in power exists between the national majority and ethno-
cultural minorities. Furthermore, social democrats are open to radical
change through democratic means and direct governmental interven-
tion (ibid.,); therefore, they should logically be receptive to designing
and implementing public policies, such as multicultural public policies,
intended to enhance the citizenship rights or “citizenization” (Kymlicka
2010) of immigrant minorities in order to fulfil the true promise of lib-
eral democracy.
If governments of the political left of the 1970s and 1980s still gov-
erned today, the issue of multiculturalism’s survival would probably be
moot. However, times have changed. Since the early 1980s, there has
been a proliferation of far-right parties across Eastern and Western
Europe, several of which (e.g. the Freedom Party of Austria, France’s
Front National, the Danish People’s Party, Greece’s Golden Dawn,
the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom, and the Sweden Democrats) have
recently increased their share of the popular vote and made unprec-
edented inroads into mainstream politics. For example, in Greece, the
Golden Dawn, an extremist right-wing party that uses Nazi iconog-
raphy in its logo, rode a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to capture
21 seats in the Hellenic parliament at the 2012 elections. In 2014,
the Front National had mayoral candidates elected in 12 French
6   A. Tremblay

municipalities, obtained nearly 5 million votes in the 2014 European

Parliament election and, in 2015, placed first in 6 of 13 regions during
the first round of French regional elections. In Britain, the ultranation-
alist British National Party made inroads into mainstream politics in the
early 2000s when it had several representatives elected at the municipal
level as well as in the late 2000s when Nick Griffin was elected as the
European Parliament representative for North West England. And, as
but another example of the success of an anti-diversity discourse, the
far-right Danish People’s Party has consistently increased its share of the
popular vote in Denmark during the last two decades with a policy plat-
form that promises decreases in immigration and the aggressive cultural
assimilation of newcomers.
Concomitantly, observers point to the precipitous decline of
European centre-left and social democratic parties (see Spiegel Online,
September 22, 2017; Berman, The New York Times, October 2, 2017;
Lloyd, Reuters, November 17, 2017; O’Sullivan, The National Review,
March 15, 2018) and to evidence of a “contagion from the right” (see
Young 1995; Goodwin 2011; Engelhart, Maclean’s, November 30,
2013) which has seen centrist political factions normally amenable to
immigrants and minorities move closer to the far-right in taking hostile
positions towards migration and the politics of diversity. A clear exam-
ple of this is Mark Rutte’s open letter to Dutch voters in the run-up to
the 2017 general election in the Netherlands wherein he delivered the
message that immigrants should “[act] normal or go away.” This mes-
sage was viewed in the press (e.g. Taylor, The Washington Post, January
23, 2017; Walker, The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2017; Henley, The
Guardian, January 23, 2017) as a last-ditch attempt to sway voters away
from the far-right anti-immigration Party for Freedom and towards
Rutte’s centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.
We have also recently seen the inclusion far-right political factions
in governing coalitions, as the majority partner in Italy and as the
minority partner in Austria.3 And to avoid any confusion that the shift

3The far-right anti-immigrant Lega Nord currently leads a coalition government in Italy that it

formed with the Movimento 5 Stelle following the 2018 general election; the Kurz government in
Austria, formed in 2017, includes the far-right Freedom Party of Austria as a junior partner.
 1 Introduction: Can Multiculturalism Survive …    
7

to the right in national-level politics is a uniquely European phenom-

enon, one need only look at the American political climate following
Donald Trump’s election to the Presidency in 2016. To be sure, sev-
eral of the Trump administration’s economic policies are “arguably
located on the Populist Left, far away from the economic philosophy of
neo-conservatives” (Inglehart and Norris, August 2016, 8), nevertheless
the “Trump/Bannon project” is evocative of the American “New Right”
(Kilgore, New York Magazine, October 25, 2017) and President Trump’s
base within the Republican party “lies on its right, not its left” (Chait,
New York Magazine, February 23, 2018). In brief, as the ideological
pendulum continues to shift to the right in across liberal democracies
the conditions that once existed in these countries for multiculturalism
to take root and to survive are rapidly disappearing. Is multiculturalism
therefore doomed to retreat in this new environment?

Multiculturalism’s Fate
This book argues that while the threat to multiculturalism is real there
still is hope it will survive even if the ideological pendulum continues
to swing to the right. One of the main goals of this book is to bring to
light evidence of a variance in multicultural outcomes following shifts
to the right in national-level politics, entailing both multiculturalism’s
retreat and, more surprisingly, its survival. In bringing this paradoxi-
cal evidence to light, this book develops a hypothesis that explains the
conditions under which multiculturalism is likely to retreat and, more
importantly, the conditions under which it is more likely to survive an
ideological shift to the right in national-level politics.
In brief, this book argues that there are three conditions under
which multiculturalism is more likely to survive an ideological shift to
the right. First and foremost, it argues that multiculturalism is likelier
to survive an ideological shift to the right when parties of the politi-
cal right fail to secure enough votes to form a majority or unified gov-
ernment (i.e. when they fail to form a minimum winning coalition).
This does not mean that multiculturalism is doomed to retreat under
majority or unified right-wing governments; what matters here is how
8   A. Tremblay

multicultural policies were first implemented. This book argues, sec-

ondly, that multiculturalism can still survive under these conditions
if multicultural policies were “institutionalized” (i.e. written into the
formal rules), if they have multiple stakeholders, and/or if they were
temporally “closed” and are thus immune to the vagaries of electoral
competition. Thirdly, this book argues that multiculturalism can also
survive under conditions of majority or unified right-wing government
and at that where multicultural policies are “de-institutionalized,” have
a single stakeholder, and/or are “open” to re-examination. At this point
though, the survival of multiculturalism will most likely depend on the
actions of critical veto players who intercede on their behalf despite
strong partisan opposition to the recognition and accommodation of
cultural, religious, and/or linguistic diversity.
The hypothesis developed in this book is arrived at through a “step-
by-step” comparison of three case—Canada, Britain and the United
States—each of which shows evidence of multiculturalism’s retreat as
well as its (surprising) survival following a recent ideological shift to the
right. In developing the hypothesis, this book concludes that the fate of
minority rights in liberal democracies is far from sealed and that it may
still be possible to further protect the rights of immigrants as well as
those of other minority groups in the years to come. Based on evidence
from the three cases studies, this book argues that this may require a
fundamental change in strategy. Proponents of diversity politics may
need to reconceptualize multiculturalism and other minority rights
along instrumental lines as a means to fulfil policy objectives above and
beyond the recognition and accommodation of immigrant minorities.

Chapter Overview
Chapter 2 outlines this book’s research context. In so doing, the chapter
provides an overview of the four major categories (i.e. “normative-
critical,” “empirical-retreat,” “unlikely survival,” and “theoretical”) of a
developing multiculturalism research programme which includes the
normative debate on the recognition and accommodation of diversity,
differing perspectives on multiculturalism’s current state of affairs, and
 1 Introduction: Can Multiculturalism Survive …    
9

an emerging theoretical discussion on multicultural outcomes. In brief,

Chapter 2 shows that researchers have developed a number of possible
explanations of multicultural outcomes, several of which are derived
from comparisons of cross-national trajectories of multicultural policies
that identify Canada as an outlier to global trends.
Chapter 3 elaborates on main theoretical underpinnings of the
hypothesis of multiculturalism’s survival developed in this book.
Additionally, Chapter 3 expands on the book’s choice of methodologi-
cal approach, that is to say hypothesis-developing through case studies
combined with hypothesis-checking conducted through a “step-by-step”
comparison. The chapter also elaborates on the way in which the book
operationalizes multiculturalism and clarifies decisions that were made
in the selection of the Canadian, British, and American cases.
Chapter 4 takes the first step in developing the book’s hypothesis. It
examines the Canadian case and highlights multicultural policy devel-
opments that took place between 2006 and 2015, a period of time dur-
ing which the Conservative Party of Canada formed three successive
governments under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
It points out the paradox that the first (2006–2008) and second (2008–
2011) Harper governments continued to implement multiculturalism
and even maintained previous levels on public expenditures on Canada’s
multiculturalism programme. Shows that Canada began to experience
a real and overt retreat from multiculturalism under the third Harper
government (2011–2015), which suggests that multiculturalism is more
likely to retreat under a majority right-wing government but that it may
well survive when the political right fails to form a minimum winning
coalition. Based on the evidence, the chapter draws preliminary theoret-
ical propositions about electoral results and multicultural outcomes as
well on the role of veto players and policy design as additional impedi-
ments to multicultural retreat.
Chapter 5 takes the second step in developing the book’s hypothe-
sis of multicultural outcomes. It examines the British case and high-
lights multicultural policy developments that took place under the
Cameron-Clegg Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition govern-
ment (2010–2015) and the subsequent majority Conservative gov-
ernment (2015–2017), which was headed by first by Prime Minister
10   A. Tremblay

David Cameron and then by Prime Minister Theresa May. The chapter
shows that, during this time, multiculturalism receded in two impor-
tant ways. First, the government promoted a policy of “muscular liberal-
ism” as an alternative to “state multiculturalism.” Second, the country’s
national curriculum was modified to include an assimilationist compo-
nent on “British values.” By contrast, the chapter points out the paradox
that multifaith policy reforms in the realm of public broadcasting, pub-
lic funding and in positive action, implemented in the late 1990s and
during the first decade of the twenty-first century, actually survived a
shift to the right, albeit in different ways and to varying degrees. Based
on this evidence, the chapter draws the conclusion that it was the design
of British multicultural policies that determined their fate under consec-
utive majority right-wing governments. More generally, evidence from
the British case suggests that minority rights may be more likely to sur-
vive under a majority (i.e. minimum winning coalition) right-wing gov-
ernment if they are written into formal rules, temporally “closed” and
thus immune to the vagaries of political competition, and/or are under
the control of multiple stakeholders.
Chapter 6 takes the final step in developing the hypothesis. Looking at
a longer time period than in the Canadian and British cases, this chapter
brings to light multicultural developments in the United States that took
place from the late 1960s to the end of the first decade of the twenty-
first century. It shows that the federal government implemented major
language accommodation policies for immigrants from the late 1960s
to the early 1980s. The chapter points out the paradox that, with one
notable exception, language accommodation for immigrants persisted
from the late 1990s and during the first decade of the twenty-first cen-
tury, a period of time during which the Republicans first gained major-
ity control of Congress and subsequently of both the legislative and
executive branches of government. In brief, the American case demon-
strates that multicultural policies were de-institutionalized, “open” for
re-examination, and/or under the control of a single stakeholder yet, for
the most part, they survived an ideological shift to the right and at that
under a majority right-wing government. The American case brings to
light the importance of critical veto players in determining multicul-
tural outcomes and it provides initial insight into the possible conditions
 1 Introduction: Can Multiculturalism Survive …    
11

under which veto players may be more or less likely to support the rec-
ognition and accommodation of immigrant minorities. This chapter also
offers preliminary insight into the possible motivations of veto players
who may decide to intercede on behalf of multiculturalism.
The Conclusion outlines the book’s contributions to the multicul-
turalism research programme as well as to the developing literature on
the resurgent political right and to the nascent link between the study
of multiculturalism and the new institutionalism. The conclusion also
briefly discusses the possibility of extending the hypothesis of multi-
culturalism’s survival to other policy realms that may be at risk under
right-wing governments. Finally, the conclusion makes two main spec-
ulations, based on the evidence presented over the course of the book,
about how multiculturalism should be designed to endure in the age
of the political right. More precisely, it speculates that: (1) when the
opportunity avails itself, minority rights should not only be written into
formal rules but also be designed in such a way that they multiply the
number of policy stakeholders and (2) proponents of diversity politics
may have an incentive to define the recognition and accommodation of
cultural diversity as a means and not as an end in and of itself.
Getting a handle on multiculturalism’s near and longer-term pros-
pects is critically important for historical reasons. In the late stages of
the twentieth century, it would not have been a reach to believe that
the consolidation of democracy and the expansion of democratic insti-
tutions across the globe would in and of itself provide the fertile ground
for the recognition and accommodation of diversity to grow and hold
root. Recent developments not only challenge this belief, they also
threaten that the revolutionary work undertaken by two generations of
social scientists, philosophers, and policy-makers to reconcile unity and
diversity under the banner of liberal democracy.
What is perhaps most unsettling when evaluating multicultural-
ism’s prospects is that the ideological climate under which multicul-
turalism first emerged no longer exists; past precedent and common
sense tell us that if the ideological pendulum continues to swing to
the right multiculturalism should be increasingly at risk. Will govern-
ments continue to implement multiculturalism in an ideological envi-
ronment that is becoming increasingly inhospitable to the recognition
12   A. Tremblay

and accommodation of cultural diversity? Our answer to this timely

and important question will undoubtedly become clearer as the study of
multiculturalism continues to hone its observational tools and to refine
its causal explanations. The object of this book is to aid in this process
through a step-by-step comparison of recent multicultural policy devel-
opments in three immigrant-receiving countries.

References
Barrett, David. 2016. British Muslims Becoming a Nation Within a Nation,
Trevor Phillips Warns. The Telegraph, April 11. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
news/2016/04/10/uk-muslim-ghettoes-warning/. Accessed October 6, 2016.
Berman, Sheri. 2017. The Disastrous Decline of the European Center-Left.
The New York Times, October 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/
opinion/europe-center-left-.html. Accessed August 10, 2018.
Betz, Hans-Georg, and Stefan Immerfall. 1998. The New Politics of the Right
Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies. New York:
Macmillan.
Buruma, Ian. 2006. Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits
of Tolerance. London: Penguin Books.
Castles, Stephen, Hein de Haas, and Mark J. Miller. 2013. The Age of
Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chait, Jonathan. 2018. Donald Trump Is the Most Pure Conservative
President Ever. New York Magazine, Daily Intelligencer, February 23. http://
nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/donald-trump-is-the-most-pure-
conservative-president-ever.html. Accessed August 10, 2018.
Diamond, Sara. 1996. Right-Wing Politics and the Anti-Immigration Cause.
Social Justice 23 (3): 154–168.
Engelhart, Katie. 2013. The Rise of the Far Right in Europe. Maclean’s,
November 30. http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/rise-of-the-far-right-in-
europe/. Accessed October 6, 2016.
Goodwin, Matthew. 2011. Right Response: Understanding and Countering
Populist Extremism in Europe. London: The Royal Institute of International
Affairs.
 1 Introduction: Can Multiculturalism Survive …    
13

Henley, Jon. 2017. Netherlands PM Says Those Who Don’t Respect Customs
Should Leave. The Guardian, January 23. https://www.theguardian.com/
world/2017/jan/23/netherlands-pm-mark-rutte-dutch-citizens-open-letter-
pvv. Accessed August 10, 2018.
Inglehart, Ronald, and Pippa Norris. 2016. Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of
Populism. Paper Presented at 2016 Meeting of the American Political
Science Assocation.
Kilgore, Ed. 2017. Bannon’s Populist ‘New Right’ Pretty Similar to the 1970s
New Right. New York Magazine, Daily Intelligencer, October 25. http://
nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/bannons-populist-new-right-simi-
lar-to-the-1970s-new-right.html. Accessed August 10, 2018.
Kymlicka, Will. 1996. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority
Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kymlicka, Will. 2010. The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism? New Debates on
Inclusion and Accommodation in Diverse Societies. In The Multiculturalism
Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices, ed. Steven Vertovec and
Susanne Wessendorf. London: Routledge.
Lloyd, John. 2017. Commentary: Why Social Democrats Have Become
Irrelevant. Reuters, November 17. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lloyd-
politics-commentary/commentary-why-social-democrats-have-become-ir-
relevant-idUSKBN1DH27O. Accessed August 10, 2018.
O’Sullivan, John. 2018. Europe’s Left Collapses—Or Does It? National Review,
March 15. https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/04/02/europe-
an-social-democrats-decline-reshapes-european-politics/. Accessed August 10,
2018.
Popper, Karl. 1945. The Open Soceity and Its Enemies, vol. 1. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Rudolph, Thomas J., and Jillian Evans. 2005. Political Trust, Ideology, and
Public Support for Government Spending. American Journal of Political
Science 49 (3): 660–671.
Spiegel Staff. 2017. End of an Era? The Slow Death of Europe’s Social
Democrats. Spiegel, September. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/
the-demise-of-social-democracy-in-europe-a-1168670.html. Accessed August
10, 2018.
Sweet, William. 1996. Is Later British Idealist Political Theory Fundamentally
Conservative? The European Legacy 1 (1): 403–408.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 of the cord in acute spinal myelitis,

812

in spinal hemorrhage and embolism,

809

810

Somnambulism,

371

Artificial,

373

Somnolence, morbid,

344

in tubercular meningitis,
726

727

Spasm and twitching of muscles in tumors of spinal cord,

1091

1094

characters and seat in writers' cramp,

515

Painless facial,

462

Spasms, general, in hysteria,

236
 in neuritis,

1192

in tetanus, characters,

549

550

Local, in hysteria,

244

in tumors of the brain,

1038

Varieties, in nervous diseases,

44-47

Spastic spinal paralysis,

861
Specific poisons, insanity from,

175

Speech, development of,

566

PEECH

,D

ISORDERS OF

566

Classification,

568
 Alalia,

569

Treatment,

570

Dyslalia, or stuttering,

572

Treatment,

572

Paralalia, or stammering,

571

Treatment,

571

Speech, disorders of, in amyotrophic lateral spinal sclerosis,

875

876

in Bell's palsy,

1203

in cerebral hemorrhage and apoplexy,

941

in chorea,

445

448

in disseminated (cerebro-spinal) sclerosis,

875

876
 in hemiplegia,

957-960

in labio-glosso-laryngeal paralysis,

1171

in paralysis agitans,

455

in the opium habit,

655

658

in tumors of the brain,

1038

Physiology of,

567
S

PINA

IFIDA

757

Definition, etiology, history, and synonyms,

757

Diagnosis,

760

Pathology and morbid anatomy,

759

Prognosis,

761
 Symptoms,

758

Treatment,

761

Excision and ligation,

762

Injection of iodine,

762

Paracentesis,

761

Spinal anæmia,

805

Treatment,
808

cord, affections of, chronic, inflammatory, and degenerative,

825

and its envelopes, tumors of,

1090

Disease of one lateral half of,

1165

Definition,

1166

Diagnosis,

1168

Prognosis,

1168
 Symptoms,

1166

Anæsthesia,

1166

1167

Paralysis, seat,

1166

1167

Synonyms,

1165

Treatment,

1168

Diseases of membranes of,

703

746

Embolism, thrombosis, hemorrhage, and abscess of,

808

Etiology,

809

Morbid anatomy of,

809

810

Symptoms of,

809

Treatment,

809
 Localization of lesions in,

69

Lesions of, in alcoholism,

622

in tabes dorsalis,

840

in tetanus,

549

disorders in alcoholism,

619

dura mater, acute inflammation of,

747

Diagnosis and prognosis,

748

Morbid anatomy, symptoms, and treatment,

748

Chronic inflammation of,

748

exhaustion,

802

hyperæmia,

801

inflammation,

802

Irritation,

802
 Etiology,

802

Hysterical,

252

Passive,

802

Symptomatology,

802

Treatment,

804

Ergotin,

805

Local bloodletting,

805
 Rest,

804

membranes, congestion of,

746

Etiology,

746

Symptoms, morbid anatomy, and treatment,

747

Inflammation and hemorrhage of,

746

meningeal hemorrhage,

754

Diagnosis and prognosis,

755

Pathological anatomy,

755

Synonyms, etiology, and symptoms,

754

Treatment,

756

meningitis, acute,

749

Diagnosis and prognosis,

751

Etiology and synonyms,

749
 Morbid anatomy and symptoms,

750

Treatment,

751

Chronic,

752

Diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment,

753

Symptoms and synonyms,

752

Myelitis, acute,

810

Paralysis, spastic,

861
 Sclerosis, posterior,

826

Syphilis (see

Syphilitic Affections of the Nerve-centres

).

Spine, concussion of,

912

Diagnosis,

916

Prognosis,

916

Symptoms,

915
 Treatment,

916

Spirits, characters of intoxication from,

591

Spleen, changes in, in chronic alcoholism,

607

Springs, Hot, value of, in spinal sclerosis,

900

Staggering, significance, in nervous diseases,

49