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Banning minarets by referendum in Switzerland, publicly burning Korans in the United States, prohibiting kirpans in public spaces in Canada-these are all examples of the rising backlash against diversity that is spreading across multicultural societies. Trust has always been precarious, and never more so than as a result of increased immigration. The number of religions, races, ethnicities, and cultures living together in democratic communities and governed by shared political institutions is rising. The failure to construct public policy to cope with this diversity-to ensure that trust can withstand the pressure that diversity can pose-is a failure of democracy. The threat to trust originates in the perception that the values and norms that should underpin a public culture are no longer truly shared. Therefore, societies must focus on building trust through a revitalized public culture. In Trust, Democracy, and Multicultural Challenges, Patti Tamara Lenard plots a course for this revitalization. She argues that trust is at the center of effective democratic politics, that increasing ethnocultural diversity as a result of immigration may generate distrust, and therefore that democratic communities must work to generate the conditions under which trust between newcomers and "native" citizens can be built, so that the quality of democracy is sustained.
List of contents
"Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Trust, Democracy, and Multicultural Challenges
1 Trust Defined
2 Trust as a Foundational Democratic Value
3 Distrust, Mistrust, and Democracy
4 Public Culture and Trust
5 Trust and Ethnocultural Diversity in Multicultural Democracies
6 Severely Divided Societies, Trust, and the Struggle for Democracy
7 Guiding Trust Building in Democracies
Conclusion: The Challenges of Multiculturalism?
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Patti Tamara Lenard is Assistant Professor of Ethics at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
Summary
Examines the potential for distrust in an environment of ethnocultural diversity arising from increasing rates of immigration, and its implications for a democratic society. Incorporates democratic theory, multiculturalism theory, and migration theory.
