Concerning some reasons for the failure of the policy of multiculturalism

The article analyzes a number of factors that have played an essential role in the failure of the policy of multiculturalism but which have not received sufficient attention in the scientific literature. Firstly, this is the predominance of the “procedural” issues over the conceptual ones in the theory of multiculturalism. It is emphasized that the multicultural theory focuses on procedural mechanisms while the ultimate goal is ambiguous. The authors explain this state of affairs by the desire to avoid the negative consequences of attempts to implement historicist ideologies in the last century, on the one hand, and the influence of postmodernist provisions on the absence of any objective criteria for assessing culture, the domination of the “philosophy of difference” over the “identity philosophy”, on the other hand. Secondly, contrary to the declarative provisions, there is no principal novelty in the theory and policy of multiculturalism, because the evolution of this policy shows that it is finally transformed into a “soft” form of assimilation.