The Multicultural State: Hypothesis for Framing a Concept

The contribution focuses on framings of the concept of the multicultural state. Only in recent times have certain questions prompted a re-thinking of previous definitions of the dogmatic category of state. The difficulty of tracing practical aspects back to theoretical models has led to seeing the multicultural state as an advanced and emancipated form when compared to other concepts of state. Beyond the self-qualification as a multicultural state, specific national experiences have been assumed as models for the determination of constituent phenomena based on multiculturalism. The essay thus examines a few prototypes of genetically multicultural states. On the one hand, India, whose distinctiveness lies in a non-Western anticipatory multicultural constitutionalism. On the other hand, it will be analyzed those legal orders that share a common historical experience (Commonwealth of Nations), whose Western colonial heritage has remained the constitutive basis of the post-colonial experience; namely, Canada, the United States of America, Australia, and New Zealand.