Taking Pluralism Seriously: The US and the EU as Multicultural Democracies

Abstract

In the following a detailed study of the multicultural democracy model shall be presented. The structure of this chapter will be as follows. First, the theoretical concept of 'multicultural democracy,' as presented in the Human Development Report 2004 will be examined. Next, we will illustrate the realization of the model in the Netherlands, which can be considered - at least it could be considered until recently - a near-perfect multicultural democracy in practice. Moreover, Lijphart's theory of consociational democracy was developed on the very basis of the Dutch case, that is in his groundbreaking work The Politics of Accommodation. Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (1968). Then, we will look at the extent in which the concept applies to the US and the EU, respectively.