ABSTRACT
The last chapter sought to establish that the new republic required a common political identity for its citizens, and to discuss whether the nation remains the appropriate framework for citizenship in the contemporary world. With this chapter the focus shifts to ideas of difference rather than common identity. How can a political system, transformed from existing liberal-democracy, create institutions which recognise plurality in better ways than the present structure? And how can it do so without undermining the common civic identity discussed in the previous chapter? There is a dilemma here, long recognised and not limited to contemporary politics, though perhaps more acute now than previously. The problem is how to design and create institutions which recognise difference without deepening fragmentation to such an extent as to make impossible a concept of democratic community.
