Multiculturalism, laïcité, unity, and diversity: conceptualizing difference management within China's integration policy

Terrorist incidents call for renewed attention to difference management. While countries adopt different integration policies, they share concerns about maintaining the political unity of the secular state in increasingly polarized societies in the post-9/11 context. This paper draws on the discussions of multiculturalism and laïcité to conceptualize the states’ approaches to difference management, with reference to the “diversity within unity” paradigm in China. It argues that China’s integration policy can be understood better within the framework of difference management and benefit from, and pluralize, the rich literature on this topic that focuses largely on Western experience.