5. The Integration Paradox: Culturalizing Belonging at the End of the “Multiculturalist Era”

This chapter expands on previous arguments by analyzing discourses on the alleged failure of multiculturalism in Europe and the increasing culturalization of mainstream politics. It argues that this not only presents an integration paradox but, in a much more fundamental sense, also entails a redefinition of the basis of European liberal democracy. In a sustained theoretical reflection, the chapter argues against conceptions of liberalism that aim to invisibilize problems of cultural accommodation within a sanitized discourse of individual rights. Its core purpose thus concerns—on a theoretical level—a way of turning the experiences of pervasive pluralism and large-scale immigration into emancipatory sources of liberal democracy rather than into driving forces of its erosion.