Multiculturalism as a political and legal concept

Globalisation, which to some extent can contribute to the erosion of ethno-cultural identity, generally does not destroy the ethnic factor, does not lead to a complete unification of the socio-cultural sphere. One of the possible promising options for ensuring intercultural dialogue, resolving legal contradictions and achieving mutual understanding in conditions of forced  Journal of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, Vol. 26, No. 4, 2019 120 coexistence of different ethnic and cultural mentality is the idea and political and legal concept of multiculturalism. The purpose of the article is the philosophical-legal and general theoretical analysis of the nature and varieties of multiculturalism through the prism of the ideological dichotomy of liberalism and communitarianism. The important practical point is the general orientation of communitarianism to the protection of the rights of ethnic, confessional and other minorities, which is to a certain extent brought together by communitarianism with multiculturalism. At the same time, the evolution of the position of some liberals from the rejection of the approval of the legal policy of multiculturalism is the result of the influence of the communitarian paradigm and a vivid proof of the synthesis and convergence of both philosophical trends and the emergence of a new conceptually modified political and legal “hybrid” – the so-called liberal communitarianism. It is stressed that, by analogy with the “family of liberalism”, it is possible to talk about the “family of multiculturalisms”, implying the impossibility (and, probably, and inexpediency) of creating a single concept for multiculturalism for the whole global society. Both diachronic and geographically-social differences can be very significant. Multiculturalism as a political and legal concept and as a legal policy can only be effective in relation to a particular state in concrete historical conditions. In this regard, the question of choosing a particular model, or even a unique local variant of multiculturalism, is extremely important