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In this chapter we engage with some recent authors who believe that an alternative to multiculturalism must be sought in order to understand and live with diversity. These authors are not anti-diversity, on the contrary, but they share the view that multiculturalism is no longer a persuasive intellectual or policy approach. For example, the Council of Europe’s White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue (2008) included the finding that the majority of practitioners and NGOs across Europe had come to the conclusion that multiculturalism was no longer fit for purpose, and needed to be replaced by a form of interculturalism. Similar views were expressed in the UNESCO World Report, Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue (2008). More recently still, Ted Cantle (2012: 2) has described interculturalism ‘as an opportunity to replace multiculturalism as a conceptual and policy framework’, while Maxwell et al (2012: 429) maintain that ‘Interculturalism represents a gain over Multiculturalism while pursuing the same set of most uncontroversial political ends…’. These statements therefore invite the question: in what ways – if at all - is interculturalism different, substantively or otherwise, from multiculturalism?

Through offering a normative conceptualisation of a national case, Britain, I ask what is the relationship between the post-immigration normative project of accommodating citizens-marked-by-origin and the managing of current flows of migrations and mobilities? While multiculturalism requires reconceiving citizenship and shared identities, it has assumed that a collectivity of citizens in the form of a state/polity has the right and the capacity to control immigration and that migrants want to be and should be accepted as citizens. But what if the nature of immigration (and other relevant circumstances) change such that difference is no longer so salient an issue, citizenship no longer seems to be so normatively prized by migrants; and immigration is less amenable to control? Does multiculturalism still have traction in these new circumstances? British multiculturalism was developed in a context of immigration control and does not challenge the right of the state to control immigration, while insisting that it must not be exercised in ways that are discriminatory or stigmatising in relation to the composite and overlapping criteria of race, ethnicity and religion that are at the heart of post-immigration British multiculturalism. While a cosmopolitan version of multiculturalism is also present in Britain and is largely compatible with a more political, communitarian national multiculturalism, the two seem to have incompatible views on national identity concerns and so on immigration control. This is seriously problematic for progressive politics today but a solution is not clear.

This book explores the topics of interculturalism and multiculturalism, including their relationships to each other and to public philosophies more broadly. In many respects it is a timely and perhaps overdue intervention that locates the debate about interculturalism and multiculturalism in amongst a series of sociological and political developments. It is widely accepted that the significant movement and settlement of people outside their country of birth ‘is now structurally embedded in the economies and societies of most countries’ (Pécoud and de Guchteneire argue, 2007: 5). The prevailing context is that the majority of the world’s population resides in one hundred and seventy five poorer countries relative to the wealth that is disproportionately concentrated in around twenty. With levels of migration fluctuating but anxieties constant, it is common to hear governments and other agencies favour ‘managed migration’ and strategies for ‘integration’ which, though meaning different things in different places, registers migration and post-migration settlement as an intractable feature of contemporary society.

This work proposes a common European intellectual framework to evaluate recent developments in European multiculturalism. The heightened security awareness in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the London and Madrid bombings has resulted in a 'crisis of multiculturalism'. Now is the time to look at the renewed challenges that multiculturalism faces today. Each chapter in this interdisciplinary book reviews the actual state of affairs in several countries in relation to the theories behind immigrant minority claims. With a special focus on Muslim immigrants, the contributors look at the value issues entrenched in multiculturalism and the policy challenges and measures adopted to address them. The book focuses on 7 European countries - Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece and Spain giving an overview of different approaches to multiculturalism and looks at issues of citizenship, diversity, civic recognition, gender, religious diversity & education, integration, anti-discrimination policies and social policy. The core objectives are 1) to chart the legal, political and educational challenges posed by migration-related religious, ethnic and cultural diversity in European countries, 2) to reflect theoretically on those challenges and the value systems involved 3) to assess the policy solutions adopted in different countries, 4) to compare between different policies/ models and the ways they are implemented, and 5) to discuss whether all solutions are bound in their national contexts or whether they are relevant across Europe. This publication stems out of the EMILIE project (http://emilie.eliamep.gr) 'A European approach to multicultural citizenship: Legal, political and educational challenges' funded by the European Commission, Directorate General for Research, Sixth Framework Programme during the period 2006-2009. 1 Introduction: Diversity, Integration, Secularism and Multiculturalism 1 Anna Triandafyllidou, Tariq Modood and Nasar Meer PART I - Theoretical Developments in a Comparative European Perspective 2 Framing Contemporary Citizenship and Diversity in Europe 33 Tariq Modood and Nasar Meer 3 The Multicultural States We’re In 61 Nasar Meer and Tariq Modood 4 Beyond Post-national Citizenship: Access, Consequence, Conditionality 88 Per Mouritsen 5 Islamic Difference and the Return of Feminist Universalism 116 Nilüfer Göle and Julie Billaud PART II - Cultural Diversity and Policy Responses in the European Union 6 Religious Diversity and Education: Intercultural and Multicultural Concepts and Policies 145 Anna Triandafyllidou and Ruby Gropas 7 Active Immigrants in Multicultural Contexts: Democratic Challenges in Europe 167 Ricard Zapata-Barrero and Ruby Gropas 8 Not a One-way Road? Integration as a Concept and as a Policy 192 Frauke Miera 9 Ethnic Statistics in Europe: The Paradox of Colourblindness 213 Angéline Escafré-Dublet and Patrick Simon Index 239