If this analysis is correct, it has important implications for the future of multiculturalism in
the West. On the one hand, despite all the talk about the retreat from multiculturalism, it
suggests that multiculturalism, in general, has a bright future. There are powerful forces at
work in modern Western societies driving toward public recognition and accommodation of
ethnocultural diversity. Public values and constitutional norms of tolerance, equality, and
individual freedom — underpinned by the human rights revolution — all push in the
direction of multiculturalism, particularly when viewed against the backdrop of a history of
ethnic and racial hierarchies. These factors explain the ongoing trend toward the
recognition of the rights of substate national groups and indigenous peoples. Older ideas of
undifferentiated citizenship and neutral public spheres have collapsed in the face of these
trends, and no one today seriously proposes that minority rights and differentiated
citizenship for historic minorities should be abandoned or reversed. That minority rights,
liberal democracy, and human rights can comfortably coexist is now a fixed point in both
domestic constitutions and international law. There is no credible alternative to
multiculturalism in these contexts.