Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Differing diversitiesfreedom in a democratic society to identify and reconstruct the culture of origin,including its world-view and prevailing religio-moral norms. In the absence of aclear definition, evaluation is often forced to become descriptive rather than analytical– to document and reproblemise the cultural diversity process as it is beingconstructed and negotiated by the various actors.Political dimensionSince policy instruments are linked directly to the use of political power, this politicaldimension can lead to mistrust of the true purpose of the evaluation or to misuseof the evaluation results. For those who want to abolish, challenge or changecurrent policies, evaluation has the potential to reveal programme flaws or administrativefailings. For those who want to expand or preserve programs, evaluationcan provide persuasive evidence of effectiveness and justify current goals. To usethe example of recent migration in Britain and Germany, Koopmans and Statham(1999) state that in the absence of clear policies and empirical data, opponents offurther migration emphasise the strong cultural differences of recent, non-Europeanmigrants and the strain placed on the migrants’ own adaptive abilities and the hostsociety’s integrative capacities. Advocates of multicultural citizenship, in contrast,emphasise discrimination or biases against migrants’ cultural differences and thesystematic denial of migrants’ fundamental social and political citizenship rights.Vague and conflicting policy goalsGiven the definitional and political problems surrounding cultural diversity policies,it is not surprising that evaluators face the challenge of vague and often contradictorypolicy goals, and uncertainty about the logical relationship betweenintended outcomes and policy instruments. Evaluation of cultural diversity policyinstruments is also difficult because their intended effects can be subjective anddifficult to measure (for example, increased sense of security, greater social cohesion).Even so, there is general agreement that evaluation has the potential formaking transparent the logic behind policy instruments, increasing the dialogueabout choice of instruments, and improving understanding about policy outcomesand how they are measured.Dissent over the effectiveness of cultural policy instrumentsSome supporters and detractors of cultural diversity have raised objections aboutthe current range of policy instruments being used to promote cultural diversity,(Chavez, 1996; Kreyche, 1995; Salins, 1997; Sowell, 1997), primarily on thegrounds that there is no concrete proof that these policy instruments are effective.Further, there is the concern that the policy instruments are producing unintendedeffects which undermine the values and principles of a democratic society, encourageracial or ethnic preferences, and foster strife. The roots of these objectionsappear to be the absence of credible evaluative data about the effectiveness of thepolicy instruments, political and technical difficulties in collecting accurate statis-94