Abstract
The United States prides itself on being the most culturally diverse country in the world. American identity is indeed multiracial, multiethnic, and multireligious—a melting pot of historically ever changing people and a constantly evolving self-perception. At face value, the US opposition to the UNESCO Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions is surprising. How could anyone be against culture and diversity, especially in a country where discourses on cultural diversity as a policy ideal have had a strong purchase since the mass immigration of the late nineteenth century and further advanced during the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s?
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Stefan A. Halper and Jonathan Clarke (2007), The Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy Is Failing (New York: Basic Books).
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Amounting to between 5 and 10 percent of GDP, depending on the way of measuring. Cowen, Symbolic Goods, p. 3. Andy C. Pratt gives the number of 7.8 percent of GDP. Andy C. Pratt (2008), “Locating the Cultural Economy,” in Helmut K. Anheier et al. (eds.), The Cultural Economy (London: SAGE), p. 45.
Stuart Cunningham defines four models of such relations: the welfare model, the competitive model, the growth model, and the innovation/creative economy model. Stuart Cunningham, John Banks, and Jason Potts (2008), “Cultural Economy: The Shape of the Field,” in Helmut K. Anheier et al. (eds.), The Cultural Economy (London: SAGE), pp. 16–17.
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See Tyler Cowen (1998b), In Praise of Commercial Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press);
Tyler Cowen (2002), Creative Destruction (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press);
and Tyler Cowen (2006), Good and Plenty: The Creative Successes of American Arts Funding (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Cowen(2002), Creative Destruction, p. 15.
David M. Kennedy (1997), “Culture Wars: The Sources and Uses of Enmity in American History,” in Ragnhild Fiebig-von Hase and Ursula Lehmkuhl (eds.), Enemy Images in American History (Providence, RI; Oxford: Berghahn), p. 355.
Louise V. Oliver (2005a), Explanation of Vote of the United States on the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. General Conference of UNESCO, 33rd session, October 20, 2005 (Paris).
UNESCO (2005), Draft Resolution Submitted by the United States of America. Document 33 C/COM.IV/DR.4. General Conference of UNESCO, 33rd session, October 13, 2005 (Paris).
Oliver (2005a), Explanation of Vote of the United States.
Louise V. Oliver (2005b), U.S. Intervention at the 172nd Session of the Executive Board of UNESCO. Executive Board of UNESCO, 172nd session, September 20, 2005 (Paris).
Joseph Yai (2005), Address by Mr Joseph Yai, Ambassador, Permanent Delegate of Benin to UNESCO. General Conference of UNESCO, 33rd session, October 19, 2005 (Paris).
Louise V. Oliver (2008), U.S. Statement. Forum on “Cultural Diversity: Encounters between the European Union and the United States,” December 2, 2008 (European Parliament, Brussels).
Oliver (2005a), Explanation of Vote of the United States.
Oliver (2005a), Explanation of Vote of the United States.
A leading WTO lawyer, Lorand Bartels, states that from the WTO point, this Convention is irrelevant. Lorand Bartels (University Lecturer in International Law, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge). Interview, November 16, 2009, Cambridge. Other commentators concur. See, for example, Rostam J. Neuwirth (2012), “The Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions: A Critical Analysis of the Provisions,” in Toshiyuki Kono and Steven Van Uytsel (eds.), The UNESCO Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions: A Tale of Fragmentation in International Law, pp. 45–69 (Cambridge, Antwerp, Portland: Intersentia).
Oliver (2005a), Explanation of Vote of the United States.
Oliver (2008), U.S. Statement.
Oliver (2005b), U.S. Intervention at the 172nd Session.
Bush (2003), Remarks by First Lady Laura Bush.
Oliver (2008), U.S. Statement.
Stanley Hoffmann and Council on Foreign Relations (1968), Gulliver’s Troubles; or The Setting of American Foreign Policy (New York; London: McGraw-Hill), p. 347.
Reinhold Niebuhr (2008), The Irony of American History (Chicago, IL; London: University of Chicago Press), p. 88.
Edward C. Luck (1999), Mixed Messages: American Politics and International Organization, 1919–1999 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press), p. 7.
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© 2014 Irena Kozymka
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Kozymka, I. (2014). The United States: a Laissez-Faire Approach. In: The Diplomacy of Culture. Culture and Religion in International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137366269_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137366269_5
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