Identity, causality and social cohesion.

According to the Identity Thesis, sharing an identity tends to promote social cohesion. The article focuses on two aspects of social cohesion, namely trust and solidarity. It distinguishes between different versions of the Identity Thesis that differ regarding the causal efficacy attributed to specific values and the sharing of values, and with respect to the value sets that may be fed into the thesis (relying on work in political theory on nationalism, liberalism and multiculturalism). Having established the existence of different versions of the thesis, four different accounts of why shared identities could be expected to promote social cohesion are considered and assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]