In this study I endeavor to shed light on issues that I feel are genuinely significant from the standpoint of (empirical) democratic theory and that also have great normative importance. Essentially, I attempt to reckon with matters of equality, particularly racial (in)equality, as considered and compared through the lenses of two theories that purport to explain some substantial part of equality in America. The racial diversity thesis, which focuses on race as tapped by the size of minority populations, and the general sense of “community,” as embodied in the concept and as a measure of social capital, are used to assess a range of social and political phenomena in the American states

As I try to make clear throughout, the goal is to carefully assess and juxtapose the two theoretical perspectives; it is not to undertake a critique of social capital as such. Readers may nonetheless view this book as (primarily) a critique of social capital, but that would be a misreading of this effort. Critiques tend to be thought of as a kind of “looking back at” and retrospective analysis of scholarly theories and assertions, as reactions against or responses to previously existing arguments. In the process of systematically considering analytical perspectives, some element of a critique of social capital is implicit and perhaps inevitable, but that is not the main thrust of my efforts.