Multiculturalism is not a la mode nowadays. It is attacked by both right-wing populists and mainstream politicians and leaders of liberal democracies. Indeed, conflicts surrounding cultural diversity and recognition are among the most salient issues in contemporary societies. Should liberal democracies recognise specific cultural rights of minorities? If so, should they grant rights only to indigenous national minorities or also to immigrants? Is such a recognition compatible with the basic liberal principle of state neutrality? Practical questions of this kind are in quest of sound theoretical foundations. Alan Patten's approach to multiculturalism, developed in Equal Recognition (2014), is the most recent and prominent example of such an effort. Considered "the most important contribution to the philosophy of cultural diversity since Will Kymlicka's Multicultural Citizenship", Patten's work elaborates new and original conceptions of culture and liberal neutrality. It reasserts the case in favour of liberal multiculturalism and applies its theoretical framework to concrete contemporary issues, such as language rights, federalism, secession, and immigrant integration. This collection presents a critical review of Patten's approach to cultural plurality. The critics question the overall normative strategy of Equal Recognition, its account of neutrality, especially with regards to language rights, its assumptions about democracy and, finally, its relevance to public policy debates. It will be of interest to political scientists, philosophers, and legal theorists, and will inspire students and politicians alike. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.

Multiculturalism is not a la mode nowadays. It is attacked by both right-wing populists and mainstream politicians and leaders of liberal democracies. Indeed, conflicts surrounding cultural diversity and recognition are among the most salient issues in contemporary societies. Should liberal democracies recognise specific cultural rights of minorities? If so, should they grant rights only to indigenous national minorities or also to immigrants? Is such a recognition compatible with the basic liberal principle of state neutrality? Practical questions of this kind are in quest of sound theoretical foundations. Alan Patten's approach to multiculturalism, developed in Equal Recognition (2014), is the most recent and prominent example of such an effort. Considered "the most important contribution to the philosophy of cultural diversity since Will Kymlicka's Multicultural Citizenship", Patten's work elaborates new and original conceptions of culture and liberal neutrality. It reasserts the case in favour of liberal multiculturalism and applies its theoretical framework to concrete contemporary issues, such as language rights, federalism, secession, and immigrant integration. This collection presents a critical review of Patten's approach to cultural plurality. The critics question the overall normative strategy of Equal Recognition, its account of neutrality, especially with regards to language rights, its assumptions about democracy and, finally, its relevance to public policy debates. It will be of interest to political scientists, philosophers, and legal theorists, and will inspire students and politicians alike. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.

The twentieth century has seen the emergence of new states shaped on the classic nation-state model. What have been the implications for minorities in these new nation-states? How have minorities responded to nationalising processes generated by the state's self-definition? In order to answer these two questions the book offers an innovative perspective on the complex interactions between national minorities and newly established nation-states. Starting with a novel discussion by Rogers Brubaker of his concept of nationalising state, the authors of the book further discuss this model by using a large array of diverse cases such as Moldova, Ukraine, Turkey, Malaysia and Israel. These contributions shed light on common trends in relation to state-building processes, citizenship, rights of national minorities and their mobilisation. The original theoretical framework, combined with a comparative approach, challenges our understanding of these crucial issues. "A group of young scholars, under the intellectual patronage of Rogers Brubaker, have undertaken the challenging task of disentangling the complex relationships between newly nationalising states and their national minorities, mainly in Eastern and Central Europe, but also beyond (Malaysia, Israel, Turkey...). The result is a well researched book, theoretically informed, which sheds refreshing light on state-building processes, minorities' mobilisation and inter-group relations." Alain Dieckhoff, Senior Research Fellow, CNRS, Sciences Po Paris "This volume brings together well researched case studies which explain when and how nationalism begins to matter. Nationalism and group belonging are not taken for granted, but explored as political processes that display similarities from Southeast Asia to Poland. The contribution of this volume is to explore the relationship between nation-states and minorities as dynamic process." Florian Bieber Professor of Southeast European Studies, University of Graz

The twentieth century has seen the emergence of new states shaped on the classic nation-state model. What have been the implications for minorities in these new nation-states? How have minorities responded to nationalising processes generated by the state's self-definition? In order to answer these two questions the book offers an innovative perspective on the complex interactions between national minorities and newly established nation-states. Starting with a novel discussion by Rogers Brubaker of his concept of nationalising state, the authors of the book further discuss this model by using a large array of diverse cases such as Moldova, Ukraine, Turkey, Malaysia and Israel. These contributions shed light on common trends in relation to state-building processes, citizenship, rights of national minorities and their mobilisation. The original theoretical framework, combined with a comparative approach, challenges our understanding of these crucial issues. "A group of young scholars, under the intellectual patronage of Rogers Brubaker, have undertaken the challenging task of disentangling the complex relationships between newly nationalising states and their national minorities, mainly in Eastern and Central Europe, but also beyond (Malaysia, Israel, Turkey...). The result is a well researched book, theoretically informed, which sheds refreshing light on state-building processes, minorities' mobilisation and inter-group relations." Alain Dieckhoff, Senior Research Fellow, CNRS, Sciences Po Paris "This volume brings together well researched case studies which explain when and how nationalism begins to matter. Nationalism and group belonging are not taken for granted, but explored as political processes that display similarities from Southeast Asia to Poland. The contribution of this volume is to explore the relationship between nation-states and minorities as dynamic process." Florian Bieber Professor of Southeast European Studies, University of Graz

Most experts on divided societies and institutional design broadly agree that it is more difficult to establish and maintain a stable, functioning democracy in a country with multiple languages and linguistically fragmented public spheres than in more homogeneous countries. Multilingual countries such as Canada and Belgium have been experiencing considerable difficulties in past decades (see the almost successful 1995 referendum on sovereignty in Quebec or the institutional deadlock and the rise of Flemish nationalism in Belgium since the 1970s). The challenge of multilingualism has been on the rise in the United States, too, considering an ever-increasing number of Spanish speakers who are not fluent in English and the emergence of Spanish-only media in some parts of the country. The prospects for the EU to become a viable democracy are even more haunted by multilingualism, considering that it has 24 official languages and no lingua franca. Switzerland, however, is also a multilingual country without a lingua franca, fragmented into 26 largely mono-lingual cantons and four linguistically distinct public spheres (German, French, Italian, Romansh). And yet it is widely seen as one of the most stable and successful democracies in the contemporary world. This book offers a different institutional explanation that accounts for the success of Swiss multilingual democracy. The author argues that in mainstream literature important Swiss institutions - in particular direct democracy, Parliament and the federal executive - have not been properly understood.