Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Culture, government and diversity:policy contextsIt is clear from these brief summaries that there are multiple and manifold differencesbetween the countries studied in relation to both the forms of diversity thatdefine them and how they have – or have not – responded to the challenges thesepresent. How, in moving now to consider general tendencies, can we best identifythe factors which influence the form that cultural policy approaches to diversitytake in different jurisdictions? It will be helpful, in answering this question, to distinguishbetween two different levels of government activity that need to be takeninto account when assessing the relations between cultural policies and culturaldiversity. The first of these concerns the specific policy instruments through whicharts and cultural ministries and related agencies seek to promote specific forms ofdiversity through, for example, particular kinds of arts funding, employment policiesfor cultural institutions, or regulations for the activities of broadcasters. Thiswill be considered in the section on cultural policies and cultural diversity. Thesecond, our focus here, has to do with the more general policy contexts withinwhich cultural policy approaches to diversity are developed. Although these areoften more remote from the immediate practicalities of cultural policy developmentand implementation, they have a profound influence in determining the limitsof what is practicable and defining the conditions in which arts and culturalministries must operate. We distinguish five such contexts here: the civic, theadministrative, the social, the economic, and the conceptual.Civic contextsQuestions concerning the relations between cultural diversity and cultural democracyinevitably bring into focus issues concerning the distribution of citizenshiprights and entitlements across the different groups falling under the jurisdiction ofa national polity. It will prove difficult to make much headway with these issuesunless it is recognised that, historically, citizenship is a discriminatory form developedby modern nation-states in the divisions they establish between citizens andforeigners. Citizenship is, in this regard, as Barry Hindess puts it (2000: 1490), “aconspiracy against foreigners” in the respect that while all modern democraticregimes express a commitment to the idea of universal human rights, “they frequentlydeny those rights to the non-citizens in their midst and at their borders.”Citizenship is also, Hindess argues, particularistic in character in the sense thatentitlement to civic rights is associated with involvement in the distinctive cultureor way of life that characterises the national society in question. “It is”, he continues,“the impact of this presumption that is at issue in contemporary debates45