So far, I have focused on the formal institutional arrangements that best meet the demands of solidarity. In this chapter, I turn specifically to matters of behavioural and attitudinal change at the everyday level, offering routes for fostering mutual answerability whenever misconceptions, disparaging stereotypes or a history of violence leave groups harbouring dehumanising images of one another. This shift in the analysis is driven by a concern that formal arrangements of accommodating diversity stand little chance of enduring unless active measures are taken to foster an expansion of relations of obligation in the informal spheres of association. Indeed, many societies that have undergone post-conflict reconstruction reflect the lack of impact institutional renovation within the state can have on improving interethnic relations throughout society. In places like Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Lebanon and Macedonia, power-sharing has made democratic politics possible where formerly violence was the chief medium through which competing goals were pursued. Nevertheless, relations between groups at the everyday level and within civil society have largely remained in stasis, mirroring the social divisions and bad blood present at the time power-sharing agreements were conceived.

The response to the challenge of fostering solidarity that I wish to develop and defend in this chapter is somewhat unusual, for it draws on practice that is looked upon with a level of disdain by democrats. In contrast to the normally advocated path of seeking to build relationships through deliberation across group boundaries, I posit this goal can be plausibly achieved through a focus on deliberations within groups, among socially like members.

Across-group deliberations are preferred by democrats on the grounds that they break down stereotypes and provide opportunities for commonalities to emerge, while in-group deliberations are discouraged on the grounds that they intensify adherence to viewpoints that stoke hostilities and preclude the possibility of sociability between groups. I agree with these theorists that heterogeneous and porous public spheres are a precondition for healthy group relations, and that institutional architects ought to continue thinking of how integrated notions of coexistence can be fostered where deep social cleavages divide citizens.