Charles Taylor's initial inquiry, which considers whether the institutions of liberal democratic government make room - or should make room - for recognizing the worth of distinctive cultural traditions, remains the centerpiece of this discussion. It is now joined by Jurgen Habermas's extensive essay on the issues of recognition and the democratic constitutional state and by K. Anthony Appiah's commentary on the tensions between personal and collective identities, such as those shaped by religion, gender, ethnicity, race, and sexuality, and the dangerous tendency of multicultural politics to gloss over such tensions.
