ABSTRACT
Due to growing negative perceptions about relations between historically entrenched, dominant populations and various minority groups, issues relating to the need to better manage cultural and religious diversity have been intensifying in many countries. These negative perceptions have recently led to a significant increase in popular support for right and extreme right nationalist discourses, and have created so much public tension that national governments have had no choice but to respond. In the last two decades, in several Western contexts in particular, the issues raised by such combined challenges have culminated in the creation of government-initiated or private national commissions.
This book presents the results of a multidisciplinary analysis, from a broader framework that includes the national public commissions which have addressed the challenges of managing cultural and religious diversity in Belgium, Britain, Canada (Quebec), France, Morocco and Norway (including also other cases of public management in Australia and Singapore). It includes in-depth studies of the issues and controversies examined by each of the commissions, such as the ways they perceived the issues, their results and impact, the key political players involved, the media debates and reception surrounding each commission, the communication strategies and difficulties their leaders encountered, as well as the legal aspects each commission has raised. The reports represent a rich body of work charting the fundamental questions nations face about their nature, history and future while the impact on peoples’ lives tells us much about different approaches to the issues of cultural identity between countries.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |16 pages
Introduction: national commissions on diversity
part I|124 pages
Britain, France, Quebec and Belgium
chapter 1|15 pages
National commissions on collective identity and diversity
chapter 2|13 pages
‘Stories are the secret reservoirs of values’
chapter 3|22 pages
Assumptions of power subverted
chapter 4|11 pages
From Stasi (2003) to the Machelon Commission (2006)
chapter 6|22 pages
The Bouchard–Taylor Commission in Quebec and reasonable accommodations
chapter 7|21 pages
Debating intercultural integration in Belgium
part II|74 pages
Comparative and theoretical perspectives
chapter 9|15 pages
Control, instrumentalization and co-operation
chapter 10|21 pages
Globalizations of a common discourse
part III|86 pages
Other national public initiatives