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.