Trust, Democracy, and Multicultural Challenges

Chapter 5: Trust and Ethnocultural Diversity in Multicultural Democracies

5 trust and ethnocultural diversity in multicultural democracies Since democracy relies on vibrant, robust trust relations, we have cause to worry if the presence of ethnocultural diversity erodes them, and impractical as it is fosters distrust instead. The debate, which is prominent in contemporary academic and political discussions, is most often framed in terms of immigration, in particular in terms of the rate of immigration. Perhaps, suggest some thinkers, if rates of immigration are high, especially if rates of immigration from nondemocratic countries are high, our social cohesion may suffer. In particular we may witness increased hostility toward, and discrimination against, new immigrants—a discrimination and hostility that discouragestheirsocialandpoliticalintegration —aswellasalesseffectivedemocratic system and, especially worrisome for egalitarians, a decreased commitment to material redistribution among citizens. This chapter explores these claims; it focuses on the struggles presented by ethnocultural diversity (and therefore may appear to have an unduly pessimistic tone), an understanding of which we need if we are to develop effective strategies by which to secure trust in ethnoculturally diverse political communities. I will explore these strategies in chapter 7. As we saw in chapter 4, the public culture is composed of norms and principles , some of which describe ways of behaving in shared social space, and others of which describe the principles we hold and the ways of behaving in specifically political environments. This complex of norms combines to describe a unique public culture that newcomers meet on arrival and learn, and often adapt and modify, over time. This chapter’s first objective is to evaluate whether ethnocultural diversity poses challenges to the trust that is 96 || trust, democracy, and multicultural challenges central to the ongoing support of democratic institutions. As I have stressed, widespread trust is an essential ingredient of a successful, robust democracy. Absent this trust, a political community will suffer in a range of ways, in particular from a decreased willingness to contribute to the public goods that often define successful, robust democracies. As I will describe, we may sometimes observe a continuum from the weakened trust relations generated simply from the presence of ethnocultural diversity, to a further weakening of these relations as a result of the politicization of ethnicity, and ultimately to something that looks more like the distrust that motivates and accompanies the adoption of policies that encourage isolation and separation rather than integration across difference. In the second section of this chapter, I consider one possible casualty of increased diversity, namely, support for redistributive policies to which egalitarian democrats are committed; since redistributive policies demand robust trust relations in both social and political environments, there is cause to worry for their stability in the presence of strained trust relations. Some scholars have responded to this accusation by suggesting that the stress on support for redistributive policies derives from multicultural policies rather than ethnocultural diversity per se; on this view, multicultural policies suggest and emphasize the differences between citizens, and thereby weaken the basis for trust relations among citizens. For these critics, the solution is to abandon multicultural policies. I reject this solution, in part by citing research suggesting that there is no necessary connection between the adoption of multicultural policies and the retreat from redistributive policies (although, as I do suggest, there are cases in which apparently multicultural policies do exacerbate the challenges citizens face in developing and sustaining trust relations ). I suggest, however, that we have reasons to expect that ethnocultural diversity, rather than multicultural policies per se, will correlate with decreased support for redistributive policies, and that we must be, as trust builders, attentive to these reasons. The conclusions to be drawn from these discussions require that we recognize that although there is no inherent connection between ethnocultural diversity and weakened trust relations, ethnic diversity can in some instances weaken trust relations between citizens in multicultural democracies. The reason for this connection, I suggest, is that too often an individual’s ethnic or cultural category is mistakenly taken to signal a commitment to values that are incompatible with those that define the public culture.1 In general, an understanding of why ethnocultural diversity can have a negative effect on trust relations is essential to laying the trust and ethnocultural diversity || 97 groundwork for the final chapter of the book, in which I identify the principles that should underpin trust-building strategies in diverse communities. Ethnocultural Diversity and Trust This section offers an account of the struggles faced by trust...