2 These are the fundamental problems for which a framework of liberal constitutional democracy has to be developed, which can be accepted by all citizens who are to live within it. See Rawls, John, Political Liberalism, paperback edn, New York, Columbia University Press, 1996, p, xxvii; pp. 3–4 Google Scholar.

3 See also Seligman, A. B., The Idea of Civil Society, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1992, p. 205;Google Scholar Seligman, A. B., ‘The Fragile Ethical Vision of Civil Society’, in Turner, B. S. (ed.), Citizenship and Social Theory, London, Sage Publications, 1993, pp. 139–61; 158–9.Google Scholar

4 Bryant, C. G. A., ‘Social Self‐organization, Civility and Sociology: A Comment on Kumar’s “Civil Society”’, British Journal of Sociology, 44:3 (09 1993), pp. 397–410; 396 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Bryant, , ‘Civil Nation, Civil Society, Civil Religion’, in Hall, John A. (ed.), Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1995, pp. 136–57;Google Scholar Giner, S., ‘Civil Society and its Future’, in Hall, ibid., pp. 301–25; 304;Google Scholar Shils, E., ‘The Virtue of Civil Society’, Government and Opposition, 26:1 (1991), pp. 3–20; 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Seligman, , The Idea of Civil Society, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

5 See for these and the following remarks on the idea of civil society especially: Barber, Benjamin, ‘An American Civic Forum: Civil Society Between Market Individualism and the Political Community’, Social Philosophy and Policy, 1:1 (1996), pp. 269–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar and his Jihad vs. Mc World: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World, New York, Ballantine Books, 1996, pp. 277–92.

6 See Walzer, M., ‘The Civil Society Argument’, in Beiner, R. (ed.), Theorizing Citizenship, Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1995, pp. 153–74; 163.Google Scholar

7 Giner, ‘Civil Society’, p. 306.

8 Rawls, J., A Theory of justice, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1971, pp. 221–43.Google Scholar

9 A prime example of a contemporary liberal political theory is, of course, the one formulated by John Rawls, Political Liberalism.

10 Dahl, R., ‘Federalism and the Democratic Process’, in Pennock, J. R. and Chapman, J. (eds), Liberal Democracy, New York and London, New York University Press, 1983, pp. 95–108; 107.Google Scholar

11 Larmore, Charles, The Morals of Modernity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996; pp. 121–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 See Lehning, Percy B., ‘Pluralism, Contractarianism and European Union’, in Lehning, Percy B. and Weale, A. (eds), Citizenship Democracy and justice in the New Europe, London and New York, Routledge, 1997, pp. 107–24.Google Scholar

13 This is the consequence of the fact that political liberalism is not a comprehensive doctrine, and is sharply different from and rejects Enlightenment Liberalism, which is a comprehensive doctrine. See Rawls, Political Liberalism, op. cit., p. xl.

14 Rawls, , Political Liberalism, p. 151, note 16.Google Scholar

15 See also Cohen, J., ‘Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy’, in Benhabib, S. (ed.), Democracy and Difference: Contesting Boundaries of the Political, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1996, pp. 95–119.Google Scholar

16 Przeworski, A. et al., Sustainable Democracy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 See for this discussion of ‘neutrality’ and ‘political liberalism’, Rawls, Political Liberalism, pp. 190–200; 193.

18 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 195.

19 See Rawls, , Political Liberalism, p. 199.Google Scholar See also for this role of education the empirical study of Nie, N. H., Junn, J. and Stehlik‐Barry, K., Education and Democratic Citizenship in America, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1996.Google Scholar

20 See also Galeotti, A., ‘Citizenship and Equality: The Place for Toleration’, Political Theory, 21:4 (1993), pp. 585–605; 598–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 See also Levinson, M., ‘Liberalism versus Democracy? Schooling Private Citizens in the Public Square’, British Journal of Political Science, 27:3 (07 1997), pp. 333–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This article analyses the policy of neutrality, represented by the American and French school systems. Both countries consciously establish the school as a public space by adopting a policy of public non‐identification with private conceptions of the good. The general conclusion is that no single model, when the question is to balance all the demands set forth by political liberalism, is satisfactory. For political liberalism ‘it means that its liberal and democratic commitments are possibly irreconcilable on a practical level, and therefore that the theory is subject to an irremediable internal tension’. (p. 359). See also Gutmann, A., ‘Introduction’, in Gutmann, Amy (ed.), Multiculturalism and the ‘Politics of Recognition’, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 3–24; 11.Google Scholar According to Amy Gutmann, education policy in America, far from requiring neutrality, encourages local communities to shape schools partly in their particular image, so long as they do not violate basic rights, such as freedom of conscience or the separation of church and state.

22 See Callan, E., ‘Political Liberalism and Political Education’, The Review of Polities, 58:1 (Winter 1996), pp. 5–33; 25.Google Scholar Focusing on Rawls’s political liberalism, and analysing the implications of Rawls’s theory for political education, Callan argues that Rawls cannot uphold his claim that there is a difference between his ‘political liberalism’ and ‘ethical liberalism’. In fact, according to Callan, Rawls’s political liberalism is a partially comprehensive doctrine of ethical autonomy. See also Callan’s, Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy, New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997,CrossRefGoogle Scholar esp. ch. 2. (See for a similar argument that, because of the fact that Rawls’s political liberalism takes autonomy to be of great importance, the theory should be seen as at least a partially comprehensive theory: Dagger, R., Civic Virtues, New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 188–92.Google Scholar) Callan stipulates that this interpretation of Rawls’s liberal political theory as being partially comprehensive is not to say that Rawls’s educational agenda that entails the shared benefits of an autonomy‐based political education, should not be endorsed, even at the cost of some ethical diversity. See for example, on the other hand, for a claim that the public interest in education is modest, W. Galston, ‘Civic Education, in the Liberal State’, in Rosenblum, N. L. (ed.), Liberalism and Moral Life, Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1989, pp. 89–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 See Taylor, C., ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Gutmann, Multiculturalism and the ‘Politics of Recognition’, pp. 25–73.Google Scholar Galeotti, ‘Citizenship and Equality’, p. 595.

24 There are at least three forms of group‐specific measures for accommodating national and ethnic differences: polyethnic rights (or ‘recognition rights’), special group representation rights, and self‐government rights. See for an extensive defence of this idea of group‐differentiated rights: Kymlicka, W., Multicultural Citizenship, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995.Google Scholar See also the collection of articles on the subject of rights of minority cultures in Kymlicka, W. (ed.), The Rights of Minority Cultures, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995.Google Scholar See, for the label ‘recognition rights’ and a more general discussion of Kymlicka’s distinction between three kinds of group‐differentiated rights, Carens, J., ‘Liberalism and Culture’, Constellations, 4:1 (1997), pp. 35–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kymlicka presently prefers the term ‘accommodation rights’: Kymlicka, W., ‘Do We Need a Liberal Theory of Minority Rights? Reply to Carens, Young, Parekh and Frost’, Constellations, 4:1 (04 1997), pp. 72–87; 73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 See Kymlicka, , Multicultural Citizenship, p. 194.Google Scholar

26 The third form of group‐differentiated rights, mentioned in note 24, the self‐government rights, concern the delegation of power to national minorities, often through some form of federalism. It should be added, however, that it is not clear that those rights would support solidarity and cohesiveness in liberal society. They rather seem to open the door for separation and secession, and do not have an integrative function. See on these aspects of separation and secession also: Kymlicka, W., ‘Is Federalism a Viable Alternative to Secession?’, in Lehning, Percy B. (ed.), Theories of Secession, London and New York, Routledge, 1998, pp. 111–50.Google Scholar

27 As Dallmayr has noted, none of these devices is free of problems or possible abuses; hence, all need to be carefully screened and calibrated to ensure the democratic character of multiculturalism. F. Dallmayr, ‘Democracy and Multiculturalism’, in Benhabib, S. (ed.), Democracy and Difference, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1996, pp. 278–94; 289.Google Scholar

28 See for instance Dahl, R., Democracy and its Critics, New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 1989.Google Scholar

29 Przeworski, et al., Sustainable Democracy, p. 62.Google Scholar See for a review of the literature also Diamond, L., ‘Economic Development and Democracy Reconsidered’, in Marks, G. and Diamond, L. (eds), Reexamining Democracy: Essays in Honour of Seymour Lipset, Newbury Park, Sage Publications, 1992.Google Scholar

30 See Putnam, R., Making Democracy Work Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1993;Google Scholar Putnam, , ‘Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital’, journal of Democracy, 6:1 (1995), pp. 65–78;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Putnam, , ‘Turning In, Turning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America’, PS: Political Science and Politics, 28:4 (1995), pp. 664–83.Google Scholar Fukuyama links economic performance with trust: the ‘art of association’. Trust cannot be delivered by the economic contract alone: there is a non‐contractual element in all contracts. Fukuyama, F., Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, New York, The Free Press, 1995.Google Scholar In these studies trust is seen as essentially a form of social solidarity.

31 See for an analysis of those ‘habits of the heart’, Bellah, R. et al., Habits of the Heart, Berkeley, Cal., University of California Press, 1985.Google Scholar

32 ‘Oppositional’ is not, of course, the same as ‘adversary’. ‘Oppositional’ voluntary associations share the framework of the liberal democratic society. ‘Adversary’ voluntary associations do not.

33 See Diamond, L., ‘Three Paradoxes of Democracy’, in Diamond, L. and Plattner, M. F. (eds), The Global Resurgence of Democracy, Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins Press, 1993, pp. 95–107.Google Scholar

34 See Putnam, , ‘Bowling Alone’; ‘Turning In, Turning Out’.Google Scholar

35 We follow with this description Putnam, Making Democracy Work. Putnam, in his turn, bases the concept of ‘social capital’ on Coleman. See Coleman, J. S., ‘Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital’, American Journal of Sociology, (Supplement), 94 (1988), pp. S95–S120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Seligman, , The Idea of Civil Society, p. 194.Google Scholar

37 See Benhabib, S., Critique, Norm and Utopia, New York, Columbia University Press, 1986, pp. 340–3.Google Scholar

38 One also could interpret this as the antagonism of communitarian political theorizing versus the theory of political liberalism. See for a recent communitarian perspective on these problems: Etzioni, A., The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a Democratic Society, New York, Basic Books, 1996.Google Scholar

39 Seligman, , The Idea of Civil Society, p. 196.Google Scholar See also Seligman, A. B., The Problem of Trust, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1997, esp. ch. 3: ‘Trust and Generalized Exchange’, pp. 75–100.Google Scholar

40 According to Fukuyama, social capital ‘is like a ratchet that is more easily turned in one direction than another; it can be dissipated by the actions of governments much more readily than those governments can build it up again’. (Fukuyama, Trust, p. 326.) Although indeed government policies can and do affect the level of social capital, the careful design of governmental institutions may be able to reverse the ratchet that Fukuyama believes has only driven social capital out. See M. Schneider, Mintrum, M. and Roch, C., ‘Institutional Arrangements and the Creation of Social Capital: The Effects of Public School Choice’, American Political Science Review, 91:1 (1997), pp. 82–93; 91.Google Scholar

41 See for critique on Putnam’s empirical conclusions: Levi, M., ‘Social and Unsocial Capital: A Review Essay of Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work’, Politics and Society, 24:1 (1996), pp. 45–55;Google Scholar Norris, P., ‘Does Television Erode Social Capital? A Reply to Putnam’, PS: Political Science and Politics, 29:3 (1996), pp. 474–80;Google Scholar Skocpol, T., ‘Unravelling From Above’, The American Prospect, 25 (March-April) 1996, pp. 20–5;Google Scholar Tarrow, S., ‘Making Social Science Work Across Space and Time: A Critical Reflection on Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work’, American Political Science Review, 90:2 (1996), pp. 389–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Fukuyama, in discussing the debate on the empirical validity of Putnam’s claim that American social capital has been declining, suggests an alternative method of estimating a nation’s stock of social capital: measure the absence of social capital through traditional measures of social deviance, such as crime rates, family breakdown, drug use, litigation, suicide, tax evasion and the like. (F. Fukuyama, The End of Order, London, The Social Market Foundation, 1997.)

42 See for instance the critique of Theda Skocpol, ‘Unravelling from Above’, on Putnam’s ‘The Prosperous Community; Social Capital and Public Life’, The American Prospect, 13 (Spring 1993), pp. 35–42.

43 In fact we can say, following Skocpol, in ‘Unravelling from Above’, that it is wrong to imagine that popular voluntary associations and the welfare state are contradictory opposites: historically they have operated in close symbiosis. Voluntary civil federations have both pressed for the creation of public social programmes, and worked in partnership with government to administer and expand such programmes after they were established. Organized civil society, for instance in the United States and in the Netherlands, never flourished apart from active government and inclusive democratic politics.

44 In this perspective Michael Walzer sees as an antidote to a rampant individualism that is producing dissociated individuals’, a task for state‐sponsored association. In fact in the United States at least, he believes conditions have deteriorated to the extent that ‘it makes sense to call the state to the rescue of civil society’. M. Walzer, ‘Constitutional Rights and the Shape of Civil Society’, in Robert E. Calvert (ed.), The Constitution of the People: Reflections on Citizens and Civil Society, Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 1991, pp. 113–26; 125. See also M. Walzer, On Toleration, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1997, pp. 111–12.

45 Putnam, for example, identifies education as having a strong relationship with his measure of civic engagement. Putnam, ‘Turning In, Turning Out’, p. 667. See also the study of Schneider, Mintrom and Roch, ‘Institutional Arrangements and the Creation of Social Capital’, for identifying the effects of institutional arrangements governing the delivery of education by local governments on the formation of social capital.

46 See also: Putnam, R., ‘Robert Putnam Responds’, The American Prospect, 25 (March‐April 1996), pp. 26–8Google Scholar. According to Dahrendorf, ‘both are needed, civil society and the state, but they each have their own raison d’être and their own autonomous reality’. Dahrendorf, R., Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, London, Chatto & Windus, 1990, p. 96.Google Scholar

47 The aim would be progressively to equalize the power and, thereby, the capacity of men and women to act in the key realm of political and social life, in other words, to acquire full liberal democratic citizenship. Held, D., ‘Democracy: From City‐States to a Cosmopolitan Order?’, in Held, David (ed.), Prospects for Democracy, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1993, pp. 13–52; 24.Google Scholar