University of Warwick Institutional Repository: a Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Phd at The
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University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/36362 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. 2L( COMPANIES OF CLOUDS THE DEVELOPMENT OF MULTILATERAL CULTURAL COOPERATION IN WESTERN EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS JOY PARRY B.A., M.A. (WALES) THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF CULTURAL POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE STUDIES APRIL 2000 Disclaimer Page references to published works are supplied. However, in the case of meeting papers, some short working documents and archived material where such references are not available, the reference supplied is to the document or the archive number where the paper is to be found. CONTENTS Page Chapter One: Introduction 1 Chapter Two: Cultural diplomacy up to 25 World War I Chapter Three: The growth of bilateral 53 cultural relations 1914-1929 Chapter Four: The League of Nations — 73 the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation Chapter Five: Developments in cultural 109 cooperation after World War II— (I) UNESCO Chapter Six: Developments in cultural 124 cooperation after World War II— (II) European international systems after 1945 Chapter Seven: The Council of Europe — 161 background and structure Chapter Eight: Cultural cooperation in 186 the Council of Europe — the CDCC and its programme Chapter Nine: Types and changes in 225 cultural cooperation in the Council of Europe Chapter Ten: Cultural cooperation in the 256 European Community Conclusion 319 Bibliography Annexes: Chronology; European Cultural Convention; Article 151 of Treaty of Amsterdam SUMMARY COMPANIES OF CLOUDS: THE DEVELOPMENT OF MULTILATERAL CULTURAL COOPERATION IN WESTERN EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS. This thesis traces the development of styles and theories of cultural cooperation from the pre-World War II models developed by France and Britain in particular, through the post-WWII international cooperation structures which included cultural cooperation as part of their structures. Organisations considered include the International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation, the Brussels Treaty Organisation, the Council of Europe and the European Union, focusing primarily on the non-educational or scientific aspects of cultural cooperation. Sources used include documentation of the two latter bodies and the public records of the UK Foreign Office and Ministry of Education. Intellectual cooperation was launched under the auspices of the League of Nations as a separate entity from the bilateral cultural relations of governments. Its tradition continues to be powerfully felt in the activity of the Council of Europe, after WWII the fulcrum of multilateral cultural cooperation. The thesis shows how it moved away from acting as a counterpoint to political developments towards the creation of a programme based on sociological study, which contained a strong element of federalist ideology, developing its own orthodoxy of "cultural policy", until partly "repossessed" in the 1990s by political imperatives. The contrast with the tightly regulated European Union is marked, and shows in certain respects a return to earlier experiments in cultural cooperation, which developed most of its theory and practice in the pre-1992 era when the Community Treaty did not provide for action in the field of culture. The thesis argues that the EU's cultural programme is not a manifestation of a "Europeanisation" of cultural policy, although policies elsewhere in the organisation may well have that effect, but of multilateral cultural cooperation. COMPANIES OF CLOUDS: THE DEVELOPMENT OF MULTILATERAL CULTURAL COOPERATION IN WESTERN EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS "...la compagnie internationale des nuages....." (Gonzague de Reynold, referring to the more idealistic members of the International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation, Mes Memoires, 1963). "...il venait ...en Europe...comme a la source de la plus haute activite spirituelle; ce qu'il cherchait en Europe, c'est la beaute que creent les hommes dans la mesure et l'harmonie..." (Julien Luchaire, of a Latin American member of the ICIC, Confession d'un francais moyen, 1965) ".....to vote large budgets and then quickly adjourn to leave the secretariat unhampered in its pursuit of such objectives as the compilation of an international catalog of recorded music or the investigation of 'how the artist lives" (mnis L. Claude, on the role of governments as seen by international organisations, Swords into Plowshares, 1965) "...pour sauver, en face de la terre des masses et de la terre des machines,...une Europe qui denzeure la terre des hommes..." (Jacques Freymond, on the task of intellectuals in Europe after WWII as seen by Denis de Rougemont, Denis de Rougemont, L'imagination et le courage au service d'un vocation, 1995) ....its belief in the power of words... .aggravated by a return to a sociological dialectic founded on a vision of the world in total contradiction to the ideas that stimulated politicians in most member states." (view of unnamed delegate to the Council of Europe as to what constituted the Council of Cultural Cooperation's major failing, 1982) "Culture.... Is but a diffracting prism of the religious sense upon those activities of ours called creative..." (Denis de Rougemont, Man's Western Quest: the Principles of Civilization, trans. Montgomery Belgion, 1957) "I hate the Intellectual Cooperation" (de Reynold, op. cit., attributed to an Irish secretary in the League of Nations). 1 CHAPTER ONE Introduction Cultural cooperation is an "assumed" feature of international relations, not very important in itself, a footnote in the study of pre-war and post-war Europe, oil for the wheels which turn to produce more important things. If asked what European cultural cooperation was about, most people would probably mention pupil exchanges and town twinnings, two widely familiar and popular activities intended to provide ordinary citizens with a taste of the daily life of other countries and to create transnational friendships. Such activity is in practice only one part of what is undertaken as "cultural cooperation" and in fact has almost nothing to do with the cultural cooperation undertaken between governments either bilaterally or through the international institutions which exist to encourage and support this kind of cooperation. Furthermore, the range and purpose of the activity carried out is so diverse and so difficult to agree on that it calls into question whether this "low-level policy" is as straightforward as it is assumed to be. This thesis attempts to establish what happens in cultural cooperation: to identify its relationship to diplomacy and international relations on the one hand and to the cultural polices formulated and practised by European states on the other. What is cultural cooperation for, and why do governments agree to spend money on it? If it is so emollient why is it so difficult to make it work effectively? What role does it fill as 2 public policy? Is it supposed to encourage a sense of common ownership in the project of European integration, and if so is it really well suited for this task? Or is it linked to fears about loss of national diversity in the face of Europeanisation or Americanisation? Is there such a thing as a "European cultural policy" and is cultural cooperation a stage towards creating it? Or is it a reflection of competing notions of cultural policy within Europe? The method chosen to try and arrive at some answers to these questions is to follow and analyse the century's efforts to create a multilateral cultural cooperation through formal institutions which require, normally, governmental participation and thus a level of political engagement which will help to determine what value is placed on the process and its results. The value for an artist in experiencing other cultures or making connections with artists from other cultures is reasonably evident; the value for a national administration in investing public money in that artist's experience less so. It should also be noted that "cultural cooperation" is not simply about the "high arts". Indeed, nothing is more frequently emphasised than that "culture" is about as fluid a category of public policy as it is possible to find (the lines are far less clearly drawn than in "health", "employment" or "defence", for example). Much ink has been expended on trying to draw up a workable definition of culture, but no-one has ever succeeded in producing one that everybody accepts. What is clear, however, is that in terms of intergovernmental cooperation, the fields covered by the term tend to define themselves. No government or international body can seriously claim to have policy responsibility for the spiritual dimension of mankind. What takes place within cultural cooperation is mostly a generally worded commitment in a founding statute to 3 promote, respect or otherwise have concern for "culture", "cultures" and/or "the common heritage". The ways in which this obligation is to be fulfilled are left wide open. The methods vary; the subject matter quickly refines itself down to a few specific areas of public policy in which most, if not all, governments have an interest and are authorised to intervene. The subject matter of culture may be as broad as you will; the subject matter of cultural cooperation is not defined by theoretical considerations but by what is introduced onto the agenda. It can be summarised, despite regular protestations to the contrary, as, on the one hand, what concerns the wellbeing of the international intelligentsia' and, on the other, the "matter" of Europe's past and present as it is reflected back to the populace. Cultural cooperation invites its participants to consider themselves and their society within a context of political change.