ABSTRACT
This article considers the emergence of multiculturalism as a key concept in Western liberal democratic societies, both as a description of actual demographic conditions and a prescription for how diverse groups ought to coexist. It examines how this idea developed in traditional countries of immigration (the US and Canada), as well as in societies that have become heterogeneous more recently (Britain, Germany, and France). It traces the crisis of multiculturalism in Western Europe, starting in the late 1980s, and assesses this backlash in relation to a newly resurgent illiberal ideology. It highlights the fundamental tension between critics of multiculturalism, many of whom are liberals seeking to protect individual freedom, and champions of illiberalism, who repudiate immigration for introducing unwanted diversity into putatively homogeneous societies.
