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A guiding contention of this book has been that deliberative principles provide the most suitable framework for the expansion of relations of solidarity. In this chapter, I reflect on and defend this position in response to assertions that deliberative democracy is incompatible with solidarity due to its emphasis on the attainment of consensus.

Deliberative democracy, as we have noted, is a normative theory that provides criteria for collective action based on the generation of mutual convictions. It is easy to see how this focus on the attainment of mutually acceptable solutions can be both an expression and violation of solidarity. It can be an expression of solidarity insofar as decision making through mutual assent is an embodiment of collective freedom: by aspiring to win others’ support for a decision, one is respecting their autonomy, seeking to rule with them and not over them. But consensus can be a violation of solidarity insofar as the pursuit of consensus risks imposing unjust conformity pressures. Disputed values, beliefs and preferences can clash so intractably that they defy reconciliation under a single horizon of agreement. Parties pressured to arrive at a common position under such circumstances are parties pressured to give ground on their deepest commitments. This leads deliberations astray of solidarity's normative imperative that attentiveness is shown to the needs and interests of people different to us.

Some theorists have responded to the tension between consensus and democracy's pluralist aspirations with the conclusion that the former needs to be dispensed with in order to guarantee the latter. The most thorough articulation of this viewpoint in recent times has come from agonists. In their view, democracies need to uphold conflict as an end in itself, rather than strive for the closure of a consensus, as a domain of interaction devoid of an expectation of agreement best nurtures the open-endedness in human relations necessary to secure freedom and the integrity of diverse actors (see, for example, Mouffe 2000; Little 2003; Tully 2004; Schaap 2006). This perspective has emerged as highly influential. As Simone Chambers (2003: 321) concludes in a survey article, even deliberative theory, with its origins in an ideal of consensus, ‘has moved away from a consensus-centred teleology– contestation and indeed the agonistic side of democracy now have their place’.

We have noted so far that politics guided by deliberative tenets represents the most faithful practical embodiment of solidarity, as preferences under this framework must be justified to a socially interconnected constituency in order to count as legitimate. We also noted that if deliberative behaviour is to stand any chance of becoming patterned under conditions of inequality and disrespect, democratic practice requires the incorporation of group entitlements, as the institutional presence they guarantee for the disadvantaged motivates others to take their claims seriously.

This, however, remains an incomplete picture as far as the institutionalisation of solidarity is concerned, as it still leaves untouched the issue of how such reforms can be promoted when those small in numbers and strength must mobilise from a starting point of democratic marginalisation. To turn to deliberative theory for answers is to risk descending into the circular logic outlined in Chapter 2, as deliberation under conditions of inequality and disrespect can replicate the status quo, rather than bring about the reforms necessary for an expansion of relations of mutual responsibility. Put differently, we may know what reforms are required to deepen democracy and cultivate mutual answerability. But the presence of injustices means we cannot rely on democratic channels to implement these reforms, as the powerful will be in a structural position to withstand political pressure for change that threatens their status of privilege.

This chapter explores how actors in positions of strength can be influenced to adopt proposals that move society in the direction of solidarity by actors in positions of weakness. It is argued that democratic channels can be plausible routes for the disruption of circuits of domination, but that they require a combination of external influence and strategic action in order to be effective.

Strategic action, in the context intended here, refers to behaviour guided by a cost-benefit calculation, which, ideally, brings those in power to perceive intransigence on demands for reform as costly and responsiveness as beneficial. External influence refers to the involvement of parties beyond the nation-state where the struggle for reform is ensuing, which, owing to their superior material and discursive capabilities, have the capacity to amplify pressure for just institutional change already coming from within.

This chapter continues with the task of laying down the conceptual foundations of the book. While the previous chapter concerned itself with the nature of solidarity, the current one focuses on models of coexistence that best embody it.

I consider three commonly advanced ideals of social and political organisation for diverse societies– liberal multiculturalism, consociationalism and deliberative democracy– and assess the extent to which they can serve as a basis for mutual attentiveness across difference. While I analyse these models separately, they are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, a deliberative framework can inform the overall design of consociations by showing how group elites can engage in a manner that increases the likelihood of favourable conflict transformation, if not resolution (O'Flynn 2009), while the elite centrism of consociations can function as a backdrop for deliberations whenever open and unconstrained dialogue at the grass roots risks inflaming hostilities. Similarly, liberal multiculturalism provides philosophical grist to the empty proceduralism of deliberative practice by specifying which cultural rights are consistent with individual autonomy and which are not, while the inclusive and uncoerced dialogue of deliberative practice is how disagreements over the institutionalisation of cultural rights claims come to be managed fairly (Ercan 2011).

Nevertheless, each of these models contains its own overriding logic for the accommodation of difference, and this logic will approach standards of solidarity to lesser or greater degrees. As such, it matters a great deal which model is favoured as a guide for structuring group interactions. I contend that a society reflecting a norm of solidarity is one that is fashioned along deliberative tenets. Through its emphasis on public reason-giving and critical reflection in the pursuit of preferences, a deliberative approach tends towards a notion of collective organisation that best reflects the spirit of mutual obligation and reciprocity inherent to a relation of solidarity.

However, this is an idealised picture of deliberation. It says nothing of what we can expect from the practice when it is put to the task of guiding behaviour in the gritty and uncompromising settings of the empirical world. In the final part of the chapter, I address some of the issues deliberation encounters in contexts of deep inequality and ethnic antagonism.

In this chapter, I take up the challenge of moving beyond a monist approach to solidarity. The notion that diverse citizens become obligated towards one another only through sharing national commonalities is a deeply influential one. It pervades everyday perceptions of the social world, witnessed through, on the one hand, the growing expectation in public discourses and naturalisation tests that immigrants internalise national values, and on the other hand, the public backlash in Western democracies towards multicultural policies deemed to encourage social fragmentation. It has, moreover, gained a respectable following in philosophical circles, where nationally defined principles of justice, values and cultures are extolled for their supposed indispensability in cultivating bonds between diverse strangers.

I argue such monist insights need to be rejected, as they are founded on mistaken assumptions about the nature of collective identity and imply a programme of national socialisation that is both normatively unsustainable and lacks practicality in contexts of deep diversity. What monists identify as common national culture, values, principles, traditions, and so on, are, on closer inspection, not so common at all, but artefacts of dominant actors whose position of privilege allow them to present these artefacts as normal and matter of fact aspects of social life. Moreover, monists complacently assume that the promotion of these artefacts is a benign process of simply putting aside supposedly ‘selfish’ or ‘sectarian’ interests in the name of converging around a common national good. In doing so, monists are blind to the structures of domination their programme sanctifies and naive about the potential of their programme's promise to bring about cooperation and fellow-feeling, rather than hostility and division.

In the place of the essentialism of monist theories, I develop a concept of solidarity that avoids dependence on shared cultural attributes. Solidarity, I propose, is what differently situated actors experience when they are prepared to respect each other's stated desires for self-determination, recognition and distribution.

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.

What should be the nature of bonds between ethnically diverse citizens, and what kinds of interventions serve to bind divided populations are pressing questions that will always produce open answers rather than complete theoretical closure. Pinning down an ironclad formula for the expansion of solidarity is next to impossible, given the empirical variability in conditions that give rise to conflict and call for contextual variability in institutional responses. Moreover, to the extent that solidarity's core demands of answerability and autonomy sit together in tension, normative definitions of the phenomenon can only ever court controversy. Different individuals will pass different value judgements on the extent to which one constituent element of solidarity can legitimately encroach on the other, ensuring solidarity remains a topic of lively debate within academic and policy circles.

Nevertheless, this book has approached the study of solidarity with the view that certain generalisations can be made about the kinds of institutional arrangements conducive to cooperative and respectful relations, despite the empirical world's unwieldy nature. It has also taken it as given that universally valid suppositions can be made around the meaning of solidarity, even though trade-offs often arise between the demands of answerability to others on the one hand and autonomy over oneself on the other.

I have argued it is mistaken to assume the promotion of solidarity is dependent on the identification of supposedly inclusive national essences, and the expectation that ethnically diverse and divided populations bring their identities in line with those essences. Such a proposal offers an easy to grasp route to solidarity, and for this reason, is favoured by politicians in their rhetorical appeals for unity to a popular audience. Yet while offering a level prescriptive certainty that might be comforting to some, the notion that the internalisation of common national values and cultural traits is what brings diverse people to treat each other justly is simplistic and normatively spurious. Not only is such a programme of solidarity promotion inconsistent with respect for the integrity of individuals; it functions to intensify, rather than allay, antagonisms and divisions.

If any generalisations can be made around the nature and conditions of solidarity, it is that the phenomenon is dependent on the treatment of citizens as free, respected and materially secure.

Having outlined the conditions under which solidarity is constrained, we are now ready to explore the conditions under which it is expanded. A task of this kind calls for two types of questions. The first is remedial. Here we want to establish what kinds of corrective measures ought to be advanced to enhance the ability of the disadvantaged to influence deliberative outcomes. This involves an investigation into the political institutional arrangements required to ameliorate the exclusionary and assimilatory practices outlined in Chapter 2. It also involves an inquiry into the ways such changes are likely to create tensions between the various goals of deliberation and how these tensions can be eased. The second question is operational. How can the measures put forward to counter practices of oppression be implemented, given that the more powerful groups are likely to resist such changes?

In this chapter, I shall explore the remedial measures. In the chapter thereafter, I will turn specifically to questions of implementation, considering some of the obstacles parity-enhancing reforms encounter when attempts are made to institutionalise them, along with possible strategies that might be drawn on to overcome these obstacles.

There is general agreement among deliberative democrats that free and equal participation is best achieved through the elimination of structural inequalities that feed asymmetries in power. Yet, despite being united on this more general aspect of institutional reform, deliberative democrats diverge significantly on how it ought to be achieved. The main dividing line between them is drawn over the issue of whether taking explicit measures to include marginalised groups in the institutions of the state is the most appropriate way to rectify deliberative inequalities. On the one hand, those deliberative democrats who argue against group oriented measures, or at least advocate only a nominal role for them, take the view that such a remedy– while certainly empowering recipient groups to further their own ends next to the majority– can be self-defeating insofar as it does not lead to full participation and, over all, works to inhibit rather than enhance deliberative principles (Bohman 1996: 122; Benhabib 2002: 149; James 2004: 49). In view of this, they contend that groups should seek to influence political decisions from within the public sphere.