Debating binationalism and multiculturalism in Canada: Toward a sociology of ethnic pluralism

This dissertation seeks to develop a neo-Weberian interpretative sociology of pluralism. This objective is pursued initially through a critical review of existing research and theory, leading to the development of a framework for the understanding of ethnic relations and pluralist nation-building. The framework is used to examine the constitution of Canadian multiculturalism, and to interpret findings from a limited empirical case study of opinion discourses in The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail, between 1992 and 2001.;The empirical case study provides strong support for the framework and generates new insights. It underscores the particularization of the Canadian majority ("English Canadians") due to an external confrontation with American continentalism. It also highlights the relationship between binationalism and multiculturalism within Canada. French/English dualism provides an ideological matrix into which multiculturalism can be inserted as an extension of dualism (rather than as a break with tradition). Uncovering different types of discourse and a web of shifting alliances and oppositions among ethnocultural actors, the empirical study reveals that, during the 1990s, otherwise divergent discourses converge in a collective opposition to Quebecois separatism.;The research in this dissertation transcends both theories that use the nation-state as a naturally given frame for analysis, and methodologies that focus on us/them relations. It underscores the relationship between different types of minority rights/recognition, and helps to understand the consolidation of multiculturalism as a Canadian national imaginary. Further research must examine to what extent different minority groups are still demanding group-based accommodation, and whether internal hierarchies among minorities operate in favour of liberal-individualist conceptions of multiculturalism.;The framework developed in the dissertation argues that ethnic pluralism is shaped in inter- and intra-national relations of power and meaning. It is most likely to occur when the national majority is particularized. Pluralism describes the non-assimilative compromise between at least two co-habiting ethnic groups that are confronted with (real or imagined) outsiders. As a normative order, pluralism can only last if people believe in its legitimate existence. Furthermore, historically established forms of pluralism shape the horizon of possibilities for newcomer integration.