西方政治的新现实——族群宗教多元主义与西方自由民主政体的挑战

A New Reality of Western Politics: Ethnic-Religious Pluralism as a Challenge to Western Liberal Democracies

如今,西方国家出现了选民政治分歧加大、右翼与极右翼政治力量崛起、政党体制稳定性下降的现象。这种西方政治的新现实,主要驱动力量是国内人口结构多样化的提高与族群宗教多元主义的崛起。人口族群宗教多样性的提高,可能导致西方国家内部政治分歧的加深和潜在政治冲突的增加。实际上,族群宗教多元主义与西方自由民主政体之间存在着一种政治上的不对称结构。这里的悖论在于,西方自由民主政体秉承的自由原则与平等观念导致了文化多元主义的兴起,但如果部分少数族群宗教群体和部分移民群体不能对西方国家形成政治认同,不能对现有宪法体制与政治秩序提供政治支持,就可能反过来削弱西方的自由民主政体。为了有效应对族群宗教多元主义带来的挑战,西方国家在移民、边境、族群、宗教等内外政策上很可能会转向更加保守主义、民族主义和现实主义的立场。

In Western countries,there have been increasing political cleavages among their voters,the rise of right-wing or far-right political forces and the decreasing stability of their party system in the recent several years.This new political reality in the Western is driven by the diversification of their population and the rise of ethnic-religious pluralism.The increasing demographic diversity is more likely to lead to more political cleavages and potential political conflicts within Western countries.In fact,there is an asymmetrical political structure between ethnic-religious pluralism and liberal democratic systems.Paradoxically,the principle of liberty and the idea of equality in Western liberal democracies led to the emergence of cultural pluralism,but cultural pluralism might undermine Western liberal democracies unless a great number of minority ethnic citizens or immigrant citizens could form their national identity and support the existing constitutional systems and political order in the Western countries where they moved in.This article argues that Western countries will probably shift to more conservative,nationalistic and realist positions on the internal and external policies of immigration,border,ethnicity and religion issues in order to deal with the challenges of ethnic-religious pluralism effectively.