Multiculturalism: The Culturalisation of What is Social and Political

Abstract

This paper is critically engaged in the elaboration of the ideology of multiculturalism in the European context, which is currently constrained by the securitisation and stigmatisation of migration and Islam. In western nation-states migration has recently been framed as a source of fear and instability in a way that constructs 'communities of fear'. This article claims that both securitisation and Islamophobia have recently been employed by the neo-liberal states as a form of governmentality in order to control the masses in ethno-culturally and religiously diverse societies at the expense of deepening the already existing cleavages between majority societies and minorities with Muslim background. The article will also discuss the other side of the coin by referring to the revitalisation of the rhetoric of tolerance and multiculturalism by the Justice and Development Party rule in Turkey, the origins of which date back to Ottoman times.