Engaging with Extremism in a Multicultural Society: A Deliberative Democratic Approach

Abstract

This paper seeks to critically assess the contemporary approaches to radicalisation and violent extremism in culturally diverse societies, and suggests an alternative approach drawing on the insights provided by two streams of contemporary democratic theory: deliberative democracy and agonistic pluralism. This approach puts the inevitability of conflict rather than the goal of consensus at the heart of democratic communication and offers a constructive way of dealing with such conflict in the face of deep disagreements. The paper focuses particularly on the example of Australia as a multicultural society facing the challenge of religious extremism and identifies the conditions under which the deliberative approach can address this form of extremism constructively and effectively.

Keywords:

• Australia
• agonism
• extremism
• deliberative democracy
• social cohesion
• multiculturalism

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Nicole Curato, Sean Downes, John Dryzek, David Marsh, Mary Hope Schwoebel and the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions on the previous versions of this paper.

Notes

1 The shift of focus from multiculturalism to social cohesion in Australia is reflected most notably in removal of the word ‘multiculturalism’ from the renamed ‘Department of Immigration and Citizenship’ in 2007. The same department was renamed again in 2013 as the ‘Department of Immigration and Border Protection’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Selen A. Ercan

SELEN A. ERCAN is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, located at the University of Canberra. Her work examines the prospects for deliberation in particularly difficult contexts that are characterised by deep value conflicts. Ercan’s recent publications appeared in International Political Science Review, Politics and Policy, Journal of Sociology, American Behavioral Scientist, Critical Policy Studies, Policy Studies, and Democratic Theory.