**Concept Paper**

Johan Lundberg, in "The Return of the Clan in Sweden", for the most part, draws from and refers to the Swedish experience, but the issues which he discusses may be applicable to many national and international contexts. He argues that Sweden, and by extension other western liberal states, exhibits a blinkered approach to cultural, social, and legal differences which arise from state-based and clan-based conceptions of the individual, society, and morality. This causes extreme tensions in areas including legal practice and family relations. In part, this blind spot arises from a taken-for-granted assumption of the normality and general acceptability of the post-enlightenment State, which has existed for hundreds of years, but has been exacerbated by the rise of particular approaches to multiculturalism and (post) colonialism which make it very difficult even to raise such ideas and issues. As a result, internal contradictions tend not to be openly addressed, and international understanding is hindered. How can the ability to raise issues which offend particular world views be protected? How fervently should western liberal democracies defend and impose the philosophical and legal principles on which they have long been based? How can tensions between divergent conceptions of the individual and their relationship to larger social entities be dealt with in multicultural societies?
