ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the debate on community in recent political theory and social philosophy. The position that may be designated 'liberal communitarianism' emerged as a modification of liberal political theory. Liberal communitarianism has been limited by an implicit concern with justifying a certain kind of patriotism. Radical pluralism does not dispense with community, understood here as ties of belonging and identity. Civic republicanism, which may also be termed 'civic communitarianism', has often been traced back to the political thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract of 1762, where he argues for a radical conception of citizenship as popular participation in the polity. 'Community' is almost invariably another word for citizenship, but an aspect of citizenship that stresses the entitled citizen less than the dutiful citizen that is a characteristic of governmental communitarianism. The general picture of community in communitarian thought is that culture is divisive and that contemporary societies are being torn apart by cultural conflicts.
