Multiculturalism has been a central concept in conflicts over race/ethnic relations for more than a decade, yet the debates that it ignited offer little systematic understanding of its origins and meaning. This research seeks to clarify those issues through an analysis of multiculturalism, and cultural diversity more broadly, from a symbolic and historical perspective. Symbolic analysis of multiculturalism focuses on its multivalence—an essential property of political symbols that facilitates the synchronization of diverse interests. Historical analysis focuses on the shifting balance of interests, and political struggles over cultural diversity through the course of the century, which provides the layers of meanings from which multiculturalism draws. Of particular importance is the interplay between movements seeking greater equity in race/ethnic relations and market-based interests that find elective affinities with specific symbolic expressions of those relations—particularly the affinity between cultural diversity and economic competitiveness that developed in the context of economic globalization.
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