Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Reasearch position paper 2tics about ethnic participation, and scepticism about the hidden political agendabehind the choice of policy instruments.Inadequate existing informationOn a technical level, a persistent problem for the evaluation of cultural diversityinstruments is inadequate existing information and the need for extensive primarydata gathering and data-set construction. This is especially true for the intersectionof cultural policies and programmes supporting cultural diversity. Kaple and colleagues(1998) note that cultural policy makers, unlike those in other fields, mustmake decisions without the assistance of reliable information systems. Up to now,making even basic broad estimates of the parameters of the cultural sector and itsrelation to cultural diversity (for example, minorities employed, composition ofaudiences served) is precarious and requires stitching together data from numeroussources to form a picture that is usually incomplete.Overview of the evaluation of cultural diversity policy instrumentsGovernments use policy instruments to ensure support for public policies andeffect social change. Policy instruments are the operational forms of interventionthat indicate the way policy is being interpreted in concrete action. Evaluation is atool used to inform policy makers in the optimal choice of policy instruments.Vedung (1998) summarises the purposes and the approaches used to evaluate thethree major categories of policy instruments: i. economic means: “carrots”; ii. regulations:“sticks”; and iii. information: “sermons”. All three types of policy instrumentshave been used to further cultural diversity policies.Economic policy instrumentsEconomic policy instruments (“carrots”) are the interventions used most often bygovernments to promote cultural diversity. They involve distributing or withholdingmaterial resources, often in the form of direct support, subsidies, grants, or taxcredits. The role of evaluation is to provide empirical information about the management,distribution, goals, costs, and effects of economic policy instrumentsmainly through ex-ante, process, and ex-post evaluations. For example, in Francepolicy analysts have documented the percent of the overall budget devoted to i. artsand culture programmes generally and ii. arts programmes focused specifically oncultural diversity, that is, programmes related to those policies identified by theMinister of Culture to democratise culture, reintegrate excluded segments of thepopulation, and revitalise ghetto areas (Marmer, 1996). Evaluation may be used todocument the intended policies, track the specific agenda and policy instrumentsused to implement those policies, and assess the results of those interventions.Regulatory policy instrumentsRegulations (“sticks”) are the traditional policy instruments of government,although deregulation now attempts to reduce the economic burden of complex95