Arjun Tremblay

Democratic resilience must, if it is to mean anything, that democracy and the politics of diversity endure. During the latter half of the 20^th century, decision-makers, politicians and academics rightfully abandoned the notion that successful democracies needed to be homogenous.  Apace with this change in perspective a wave of democratic states instituted new and unprecedented negative and positive rights for minorities and, in some cases, even undertook radical policy experiments resulting in the public recognition of linguistic, religious, and cultural diversity.  These decisions were groundbreaking: not only did they signal a rupture from seemingly enduring legacies of prejudice and discrimination, but they also portended the dawning of a brighter day for ethnic minorities within and across liberal democracies. It seemed like there would be no better time in human history then the 21^st century for politics of diversity to flourish, for our societies to implement deeper and more substantive forms of minority rights, and for us to fully embrace a destiny based on the twin pillars of democracy and diversity. 

Things are clearly headed in the opposite direction.  What we have been witnessing for a few years is the return of mono-cultural and mono-national political projects and the mainstreaming of a reactionary anti-diversity, and retrograde racist discourse. Added to this is the cross-national backlash against immigrants and ethnic minorities and against the promotion in the private and public sectors of diversity, equity, and inclusion. What is also happening is that many of the politics of diversity that were established in the late 20^th century and that held much promise for the future of democracy, are now either being hollowed out or left to languish and, in some more extreme cases, they are even being dismantled and replaced with new forms of assimilation.  

But the existential threat to the politics of diversity remains the ‘troubling trends’ that constitute the latest ‘reverse wave’ of democracy and that are taking place on much larger scale than one could have ever imagined.  In brief, we are now observing the degradation of democratic norms, the redeployment of democratic institutions to serve non-democratic purposes, and the rise and success of ethno-populism on a global scale and, what is more disturbing, in states where democracy was once thought to be consolidated.  What this also means is that the democratic institutional foundations (both formal and informal) for new politics of diversity are eroding and that established politics of diversity must somehow blossom in an increasingly inhospitable environment.  Is there any hope for deeply diverse democracies?

Select Grants

2025 to present: (Principal Investigator) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Development Grant. “Democratic Decline and Multinational Federalism: What can diversity-oriented federal models tell us about the permutations, causes, and checks against the end of democracy?” (CO-Inv) Alain-G. Gagnon (UQAM).

Select Publications

Articles

Tremblay, Arjun. 2026. “Shared Rule in the Scholarship on Federalism and Diversity: What Does It Look Like, and Does It Matter? “, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, https://academic.oup.com/publius/advance-article/doi/10.1093/publius/pjag021/8740601

Tremblay, Arjun. 2026. “ Assessing multiculturalism’s cross-national fate with greater accuracy: Why we need a BSM index “. Ethnicities, 26(4), 671-697. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14687968261453259

“Tremblay, Arjun. 2025. “How 20 years of key contributions to the journal provide us with a timely and important research strategy”. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 20(3–4), 234–244. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17447143.2026.2624076

Tremblay, Arjun. 2023. “Is the COVID-19 pandemic a critical juncture? Insight from the Study of ‘new’ Multilingual Governance Techniques’ in multilingual governance?” Canadian Journal of Law and Society 38(3): 391–409.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-law-and-society-la-revue-canadienne-droit-et-societe/article/is-the-covid19-pandemic-a-critical-juncture-insight-from-the-study-of-new-multilingual-governance-techniques/8C2F051CBDD52F37DF57785E8BEC3318

Books

Gagnon, Alain-G. et Arjun Tremblay. 2026. Introduction au fédéralisme et aux fédérations. (Traduction française de Advanced Introduction to Federalism). Presses de l'Université Laval. ISBN : 9782766311170 https://www.pulaval.com/livres/introduction-au-federalisme-et-aux-federations

Gagnon, Alain-G. and Arjun Tremblay 2024. Advanced Introduction to Federalism. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN: 9781800374133 https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/advanced-introduction-to-federalism-9781800374133.html

Arjun Tremblay and Paul May 2024. Multiculturalism on the Mend? The Political Left and Ethnic Minorities in Liberal Democracies. Palgrave Cham, Suisse: Palgrave Macmillan. Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series. ISBN: 978-3-031-71718-5 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-71719-2

Tremblay, Arjun 2019. Diversity in Decline? The Rise of the Political Right and the Fate of Multiculturalism. Cham, Suisse: Palgrave Macmillan. Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series. ISBN: 9783030022990 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-02299-0