Master’s Programme of September 2005-August 2006 European Political Sociology Dalarna University College, Falun, Sweden. Multiculturalism and Policymaking. A comparative study of Danish and Swedish cultural policies since 1969 Dissertation in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree of European political sociology Adviser: Philipp Kuntz By: Tawat Mahama
[email protected] ©Author The use of this thesis– in part or wholly – is forbidden without the author’s authorization. 1 Abstract This master’s thesis deals with the cultural diversity policies of Denmark and Sweden within the cultural sector. It attempts at explaining why these two “most-similar” scandinavian countries having in common the same cultural model, “the architect model”, opted for different policies when it came to cultural diversity: Assimilationism for Denmark and multiculturalism for Sweden. I show that though institutional and power-interest factors had an impact, ideas as “programmatic beliefs” (Sheri E. Berman 2001) or “frames” (Erik Bleich 2003) played the ultimate role. I evaluate their relative importance by analyzing the anthropological dimension of the countries cultural policies since 1969. The study confirms that at least in the cultural sector, Danish policies have been assimilationist and Swedish ones multiculturalist and proposes a new classification of terms. By investigating immigrants cultures, it fills a gap left by previous researchers working on a common Nordic cultural model. (Total characters including blanks: 146,422) Keywords : Assimilationism, Culture, comparative policy, Denmark, integration, multiculturalism, public policymaking, Sweden, Scandinavia, Nordic, immigration. 2 To Karin, Felix and in the memory of Alex Haley. 3 Preface Writing this dissertation was an exciting but arduous task and without external help it would have been almost impossible to complete it.