This book has explored the current struggles over the progressive dilemma. As we've seen, the terms of this dilemma are themselves contested, with competing assertions of where the real fault lines in today's global politics lie. There are those on the Left for whom class remains the great dividing line and, less archaically, those who persist in the belief that the real dilemma is whether progressive politics aligns itself with redistribution or whether it allows recognition to obscure its mission.

This book has been unequivocal in its assessment of the challenges facing oppositional politics amid the various tussles for preeminence and priority. These challenges are the result of extensive and cumulative sociological shifts in democratic society that have global implications. The de-territorialisation of religion, mass demographic upheaval through immigration, redrawn political sovereignties and relentless urbanisation have made these shifts ubiquitous and analogous even if they are not directly comparable.

They have presaged the globalisation of the progressive dilemma. The challenge comes from the anxieties, fears and dislocations bred by these various sociological shifts. What's important to note is that these popular responses are not novel; they have and will continue to recur in the career of democratic society. What is novel is how these responses are framed. Through the democratic world (except perhaps homogenous societies like Norway) we are living in times that are not only characterised by cultural diversity but supposedly threatened by it too.