Strategic Studies Quarterly

Abstract At the world level and in general trends regarding attention to ethnic affairs, two general courses can be identified. The first is a course that pay attention to the  cultural diversity and supports it and the second is a course to which the idea of a single state, a single nation and a single language is still attractive. Previous ideas and notions to the effect that diversities will fade out in the process of industrialization and modernization were refuted and even in some  cases the demographic proportion of minority groups increased. The conjunction of the aforementioned trends along with postmodern thoughts that have questioned the foundations of the modern thinking and its meta-narratives such as nationhood led to the rise of the idea of cultural rights of minorities and ethnicities. However, in the Third World countries and such regions as Eastern Europe, certain factors have caused the negation of such rights and violent treatment of advocates of cultural diversity rights. These factors include the persistent attractiveness of a coherent and homogenous nation, the prevalence of conspiracy theory, regional problems, and a misperception of the globalization process.

Abstract This article tests two hypotheses, using the Canadian society as the case study, both of which view multiculturalism in contradiction with social trust.   Emphasizing the conflictual nature of multiculturalism, the first hypothesis regards it as a set of political strategies which fragment the society. This hypothesis ignores the fact that multicultural policies have integrated the cultural minorities into the main current of the majority culture within the Canadian society.   The second hypothesis is a normative critique of multiculturalism and maintains that the radical types of such policies give rise to the spread of political dissent in the society, thus they should not be evaluated as a factor creating trust.   The first part of the article is allocated to the extrapolation of the causes of the tense relationship between trust and multiculturalism. In the second part of the article, it is indicated that multicultural policies in Canada have increased the chances for mutual relations and have helped the cultures to develop common understanding and allegiance. The third part of the article points to multicultural methods and the likelihood of the threat to social cohesion arising from them which results in the dissent of cultural activists. As the author argues, none of them even in their extreme cases justifies the rejection of multiculturalism.