Abstract
In contemporary multicultural Britain, the concept of social cohesion has been a pressing priority for not only politicians and sociologists but also for the various British ethnic minorities. Race riots like those of 2001 in Northern Britain and the events of 7/7 in London (2005) put into question the allegiances of different British ethnic populations. They equally shed light on the real or perceived lack of social and cultural communication between the established British host population and the British ethnic and immigrant communities. Hence, social cohesion came to the fore as the new jargon of governance in contemporary Britain.This article analyzes on the concept of social cohesion and its applicability within an officially declared multicultural community like that of Great Britain. The concept will be reviewed, defined and approached from different liberal political perspectives (Robert Dahl’s pluralist approach and Arend Lijphart’s consociationalism to the more recent Will Kymlicka’s group-differentiated citizenship) while paying special attention to the British context. Bhikhu Parekh’s conception of the different theoretical approaches to the issue of social cohesion that are pertinent to liberal capitalist societies in general and the British context, in particular, is investigated. The aim of this study is to highlight the complexity of the normative accounts of the political scientists regarding the challenges that face multicultural Britain in coming to terms with its endeavour of creating “unity within diversity”. The 2002 White Paper and security speech of David Cameron (2011) political discourses are analyzed and evaluated to decipher how they understood national identity in relation to cultural diversity and social cohesion. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3376484
Highlights
Social cohesion is one of the most fundamental concepts in sociology
As will be clarified later, the concept has been elusive or to use one commenter’s phrase a “quasi-concept” (Bernard, 2000: 3). It has been used with many different modifiers which stress the fact that it meant many things to many people; Is it social cohesion, community cohesion or even national cohesion?
Different political theorists and sociologists have defined the concept of social cohesion differently
Summary
Social cohesion is one of the most fundamental concepts in sociology. all sociologists dealt with this concept from their diverse and different perspectives. As will be clarified later, the concept has been elusive or to use one commenter’s phrase a “quasi-concept” (Bernard, 2000: 3) It has been used with many different modifiers which stress the fact that it meant many things to many people; Is it social cohesion, community cohesion or even national cohesion?. Class conflict was envisaged as the inevitable outcome of such a new utopian vision The victim of such conflicts would be social cohesion which was theoretically expounded as the need to share compatible and harmonious values and world views. I will review the various approaches to the concept of social cohesion from Robert Dahl’s pluralist approach, Arend Lijphart’s consociationalism to the more recent Will Kymlicka’s groupdifferentiated citizenship All those theories tried to normatively offer diagnoses and solutions to the problem of the lack of social cohesion. It is vital to define the concept in question so as to highlight its controversial and multi-dimensional aspects
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