If not multiculturalism, then what? Normative contestation and competing approaches to the governance of immigrant diversity in Canada and the Netherlands

This thesis explores two main questions. First, it asks whether there has been a shift away from multiculturalism, and its underlying norms, as an approach to governing diversity. I will use a multilevel governance analysis to explore this question, examining the national, sub-state and supra-state levels in Canada and the Netherlands. This question is important because migration, and the ethnocultural diversity that results from it, are challenges that all states must deal with, and multiculturalism is not only a prominent model for how liberal democracies should approach this challenge, but it is also a model that is based on human rights norms. This leads to the second question: if there has been a shift away from multiculturalism, then what is being advanced as a replacement for it? What role will alternate approaches reserve for the norms underlying the multicultural approach, which include the protection of human rights to culture and freedom from discrimination?;I argue that there has been a retreat from the multicultural approach to governing immigrant diversity – and its underlying norms – but only at the national level. At other levels of governance, instead of a retreat from multiculturalism there are efforts to revive and further develop multiculturalism by improving on its perceived weaknesses and building upon the norms that underpin the multicultural approach. The cities of Mississauga (Canada) and Utrecht (the Netherlands) will be used to demonstrate this, as well as supra-state bodies associated with each country such as the UN, COE, EU and OAS.;Based on this empirical finding, I will argue that the alternatives to multiculturalism that are being advanced suggest some important insights for scholarly literature on multilevel governance, norm diffusion, cultural rights, and of course, multiculturalism. I argue that there are two competing approaches being advanced: one, which I will call the social cohesion approach, that emerges from the national level of governance, and the second, which I will call the intercultural approach, that emerges from the sub- and supra-state levels. The social cohesion approach involves a shift away from the norms of multiculturalism and a renewed emphasis on the protection of social cohesion based on the dominant group's values. The intercultural approach involves an attempt to improve upon the multicultural approach by building on some of the norms that it is based on. As such, the intercultural approach advocates immigrant integration that includes cultural sensitivity, the mutual adaptation of both immigrants and the receiving society, and the fostering of intercultural understanding. I will argue that these different approaches to the governance of immigrant diversity, and the different responses to challenges to the multicultural approach demonstrate that there is normative contestation between different levels of governance in these two countries.;This contestation has implications for constructivist literature on norm diffusion, because it highlights not only the usefulness of a multilevel governance analysis, but also points to some insights into the process of norm diffusion that can add to existing constructivist literature. This literature is dominated by studies of the diffusion of new norms, but these cases show how existing norms are being contested and reimagined (as opposed to simply being displaced by new norms), and they suggest that normative change may not be as state-led as the literature tends to assume. Instead, other levels of governance appear to play an important role.