Assessing Multiculturalism in Global Comparative Perspective : A New Politics of Diversity for the 21st Century?

In Assessing Multiculturalism in Global Comparative Perspective, a group of leading scholars come together in a multidisciplinary collection to assess multiculturalism through an international comparative perspective.

Multiculturalism today faces challenges like never before, through the concurrent rise of populism and white supremacist groups, and contemporary social movements mobilizing around alternative ideas of decolonization, anti-racism and national self-determination Taking these challenges head on, and with the backdrop that the term multiculturalism originated in Canada before going global, this collection of chapters presents a global comparative view of multiculturalism, through both empirical and normative perspectives, with the overarching aim of comprehending multiculturalism’s promise, limitations, contemporary challenges, trajectory and possible futures. Collectively, the chapters provide the basis for a critical assessment of multiculturalism’s first 50 years, as well as vital insight into whether multiculturalism is best equipped to meet the distinct challenges characterizing this juncture of the 21st century.

With coverage including the Americas, Europe, Oceania, Africa and Asia, and thematic coverage of citizenship, religion, security, gender, Black Lives Matter and the post-pandemic order, Assessing Multiculturalism in Global Comparative Perspective presents a comprehensively global collection that is indispensable reading for scholars and students of diversity in the 21st century.

Yasmeen Abu-Laban is Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in the Politics of Citizenship and Human Rights at the University of Alberta. She is also a Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Her published research addresses themes relating to ethnic and gender politics; nationalism, globalization and processes of racialization; immigration policies and politics; surveillance and border control; and multiculturalism and anti-racism. Her most recent book, with Ethel Tungohan and Christina Gabriel is Containing Diversity: Canada and the Politics of Immigration in the 21st Century (2023). She has served as President of the Canadian Political Science Association, and as Vice-President of the International Political Science Association.

Alain-G Gagnon is the Founding Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Diversity and Democracy (CRIDAQ), and Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Quebec and Canadian Studies. He is the author of The Legitimacy Clash: Challenges to Democracy in Multinational States (2023). He is president of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2020, he received the Mildred A Schwartz Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association.

Arjun Tremblay is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan. He specializes in the field of comparative politics. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto, Ontario, in 2017 and was a Postdoctoral Fellow (2017–2018) at the Canada Research Chair in Québec and Canadian Studies (CREQC) at the Université du Québec à Montréal. His publications include Diversity in Decline? The Rise of the Political Right and the Fate of Multiculturalism (2019) and as co-editor, Federalism and National Diversity in the 21st Century (2020).