The Diplomacy of Culture

The Role of UNESCO in Sustaining Cultural Diversity

I. Kozymka

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137366252
• eBook ISBN: 9781137366269
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política comparada

Cultural diversity, because it is perceived to have significant security, developmental, and social implications, is fast becoming one of the major political issues of the day. At the international level, it overlaps with the now extensive debates on multiculturalism within states. This work shows how cultural diversity challenges the understanding of international relations as relations between states and, by looking at the issue through the magnifying glass of an international organization, offers innovative insights into the interplay between various levels of international society. The book examines in particular the role of UNESCO, the only United Nations agency responsible for culture and the main forum for international diplomacy on the issue of cultural diversity.

Chapter 1

Theoretical Perspectives

The classical notion of cultural diplomacy entails using culture as a component of traditional diplomacy, and it has been mostly confined to the promotion of one nation’s culture abroad to strengthen relations with other nations, to enhance cooperation or to promote national interest.¹ This notion is progressively evolving, challenged by the growing global interconnectedness that fast-developing information and communication technologies facilitate and the resulting shift in cultural exchanges from the public to the private sphere. In parallel with this development, diplomats are increasingly engaging in the new activity of the diplomacy of culture, in which culture is a field of international relations in its own right as much as a tool of foreign policy: diplomacy for the purposes of culture rather than culture for the purposes of diplomacy. This understands culture not just as the arts, but in its broad definition, as reflected in the growing recognition of culture’s role in promoting human development, fostering intercommunity dialogue and understanding, building peace, broadening education, achieving environmental sustainability, and even combating HIV/AIDS. This broad notion of culture also underpins UNESCO’s mission on the international arena as the only UN agency with an official cultural mandate and therefore the key player in the field of the diplomacy of culture.

Cultural diplomacy in its traditional sense continues to be practiced at UNESCO: nations use the organization as a means of projecting soft power and a place for exhibiting national cultural richness. At the same time, UNESCO is the place where the international negotiations on those cultural matters that are considered of international public interest take place. Both platforms open new avenues for countries’ foreign policy: cultural diplomacy is used for the promotion of national cultural heritage and contemporary expressions in a multilateral setting, while the diplomacy of culture is practiced to shape international legal frameworks in the field of culture. Participation in these frameworks—the negotiation of cultural conventions, definition of their operational guidelines, follow-up on these instruments’ implementation, the various global heritage lists, participation in committees and meetings, the sharing of best practices, and so on—gives countries an opportunity not only to strengthen international cooperation, but also to reaffirm their cultural and international credentials. This is especially important for developing countries.

UNESCO is a diplomatic forum in which the international discussion on cultural diversity has been taking place over the past decades. This opening chapter aims, amongst others, to introduce the issue of cultural diversity and to set up a theoretical framework for studying UNESCO as an intergovernmental organization by looking into the factors that delineate how it functions—namely its structure, actors, and nature.

Definitions

It would seem necessary to begin this discussion by attempting to define culture in order to understand the notion of cultural diversity. This is where a great difficulty lies since culture is a concept of the highest order of generality and notoriously contested in its meanings. It is so encompassing that it can easily be taken to the extremes of defining it as a total way of life. As Clifford Geertz remarks, this leads to pot-au-feu theorizing—the throwing of anything and everything into the conceptual stew that is the complex whole of human existence.²

For the purpose of this book, which is not chiefly concerned with culture as an anthropological or social phenomenon, but rather with its diplomatic dimension, it would be reasonable to accept the definition of culture used by UNESCO. This will avoid embarking on a long theoretical debate on a largely epistemological issue that is outside of the scope of the present work. This definition, inspired by a broader anthropological understanding of culture, was first used at the World Conference on Cultural Policies held in Mexico City in 1982. UNESCO reaffirmed it in its Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, unanimously adopted by its General Conference on November 2, 2001, stating that “culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs.”³ How this comprehensive understanding of the concept of culture evolved throughout the organization’s history will be discussed in the following chapter.

Cultural diversity is the observation of the existence of different cultures, as contrary to cultural uniformity. The preservation and management of cultural diversity is a key concern for UNESCO as it is considered to be threatened by globalization processes. The organization affirms that “the processes of globalization and social transformation . . . give rise . . . to great threats of deterioration, disappearance and destruction of the intangible cultural heritage, in particular owing to a lack of resources for safeguarding such heritage.”⁴ It is important to note that in its discourse and its normative instruments, UNESCO does not make a clear distinction between cultural diversity between separate states and cultural diversity within them. Yet these are two distinct levels on which cultural diversity operates. On the one hand, there exists diversity at the global level, which may or may not be associated with the variety of states as it often cuts across state boundaries and which is subject to the homogenizing effects of globalization. On the other hand, there exists diversity within any given state, potentially on the rise due to increasing population movements and global and regional interconnectivity. These two levels interact and influence each other.

UNESCO’s nature as an intergovernmental organization would seem to suggest that it operates on the first level. Yet, it would be paradoxical if UNESCO admitted this, stating that it only cares about interstate diversity. Hence the organization’s ambition to operate on both levels simultaneously. The sovereignty principle, however, on which it and the United Nations as a whole are based, precludes any interference into states’ internal affairs. As a result, the UN cultural agency’s normative texts—for instance, the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, encompass two inherently irreconcilable principles—the principle of sovereignty and the principle of “equal dignity of and respect for all cultures . . . including the cultures of persons belonging to minorities and indigenous peoples.”⁵ The former precludes UNESCO from engaging with minorities directly in view of the limitations imposed by UN Charter Article 2. The latter, however, calls on Member States to apply the principle of respect for cultural diversity within their borders as much as globally. In trying to reconcile these two levels, the UNESCO Secretariat is caught in a balancing act. The deliberate avoidance of the distinction between these two levels of cultural diversity accounts for the fact that different interlocutors in the organization’s debates mean different things when they talk about cultural diversity. This will be highlighted throughout this work.

Lastly, it should be mentioned that even though the term “sustainability” is most commonly applied within ecological, social, and economic contexts, here it is most appropriate in that it signifies the capacity to maintain a certain order or state indefinitely. Cultural diversity is a condition, which has a constantly changing component—cultures—yet the degree of which can be evaluated as increasing or diminishing and is therefore subject to sustainability. UNESCO chiefly approaches sustaining cultural diversity through protection (mainly of the tangible cultural heritage) and promotion (both its tangible and intangible components).

UNESCO: Structure and Agency

A conceptual inquiry into what UNESCO is and how it operates is a necessary prerequisite to the empirical investigation of the main questions this work attempts to tackle. It is hoped that such an ontological description will preempt any epistemological debates and conclusions based on differing theories of international relations, which do not reflect the important features of the actors and processes at stake when studying UNESCO. The lack of literature on the organization in general and on its role in the cultural field in particular is another warning against invalid generalizations. Yet a certain degree of generalization is unavoidable and sensible. Even though every social act or event is different from every other, they are nevertheless possible only within a certain structural context and hardly any act is the outcome of a truly unique set of causal factors. Thus starting this discussion from a structural and theoretical standpoint before moving to empirical enquiry will later help to identify key outcomes and their potential causes.

1. Legal Basis and Institutional Structure

The Constitution of UNESCO, adopted on November 16, 1945, and subsequently amended by the General Conference at various sessions, defines the purposes and functions of the organization and the conditions of membership. It outlines the three main organs of UNESCO—the General Conference, the Executive Board, and the Secretariat—and includes articles concerning national cooperating bodies, reports by Member States, the budget, relations with the United Nations and other Specialized Agencies, and the legal status of the organization.⁶ UNESCO’s main purpose, as outlined in Article I of its Constitution, is “to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for human rights and fundamental freedoms.” The goals for which the organization was established are still considered to be relevant and, consequently, its Constitution remains largely unchanged. Understandably, at the end of the Second World War the main preoccupation of international relations was the maintenance of peace and security. Today, UNESCO’s mission has somewhat expanded, to include “the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue” by the means of education, the sciences, culture, and communication.⁷ These four phenomena are therefore both ends in themselves and means to achieve broader developmental and peace-building goals.

The General Conference is composed of representatives of all UNESCO Member States. They meet in regular session every two years to determine the policies and main lines of the organization’s work.⁸ It takes decisions on the program and budget. Its other functions include the submission for adoption by Member States of international conventions and recommendations, the election of members of the Executive Board, and, on the recommendation of the Executive Board, the appointment of the Director-General of UNESCO. Membership in UNESCO has grown from the initial 37 countries that founded the organization in 1945 to 195 as of start-2014, thus making it even more universal than the United Nations General Assembly with its 193 Member States.⁹

The Executive Board consists of 58 Member States elected by the General Conference. Representatives appointed by Member States meet in regular sessions at least twice a year. The principal functions of this body are to ensure the execution of the program adopted by the General Conference, to examine the organization’s draft program and budget and to submit that draft, with its own recommendations, to the General Conference. It also recommends to the General Conference the admission of new members and submits to it a nomination for the post of Director-General, among other functions. By working in close collaboration with the Director-General, it thus serves as a bridge between the policy-determining plenary body of the General Conference and the policy-executing Secretariat.

The Secretariat consists of the Director-General and his/her staff and is responsible for the day-to-day running of the organization. The General Conference elects the Director-General, who serves as the public face of UNESCO, for a renewable four-year term. The staff currently numbers around two thousand, of whom more than half are based at the headquarters in Paris, the others working in UNESCO’s 66 field offices and institutes around the world. The Secretariat is divided into different administrative offices and five program sectors that reflect the organization’s major areas of focus—education, the natural sciences, the social and human sciences, culture, and communication and information.

2. Functions

Like other international organizations, UNESCO was established primarily to provide a permanent framework for negotiation among the governments of participating states in its fields of competence, namely education, the sciences, and culture. It is both a forum organization, providing a stage for negotiation and decision-making among its actors, and a service organization, conducting activities and providing common and individual services to its Member States. For example, it served as a forum for states to negotiate and adopt the 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, and since then it has been providing technical assistance to safeguard the sites inscribed on the World Heritage List. It should also be mentioned that states have often used UNESCO as a platform for ideological propaganda and political accusation, especially during the Cold War.

The core functions of the organization and the ways in which they are pursued have evolved in response to changing circumstances. Basically, after its founding in 1945, UNESCO was stymied by a Cold War environment that made it virtually impossible ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• Chapter 1  Theoretical Perspectives
• Chapter 2  UNESCO’s Responses, Past and Present
• Chapter 3  France: Cultural Diversity or Cultural Exception?
• Chapter 4  The United States: A Laissez-Faire Approach
• Chapter 5  Cambodia: Cultural Diversity from a National Point of View
• Chapter 6  Brazil: Challenges in Sustaining and Managing Cultural Diversity
• Chapter 7  UNESCO’s Difficulties in Handling Cultural Diversity
• Chapter 8  Conclusion
• Appendix: Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index