International recognition regimes and the projection of France

Abstract

The recent turn to substantial theories of ‘recognition’ in international relations is of considerable interest for the study of international cultural relations. France provides a revealing case study due to the historical importance of culture as such in its foreign policies. Its ‘diplomacies of influence’ can be understood as forms of recognition-seeking across shifting international ‘regimes of recognition’ (Ringmar). France once played a leading role in shaping the global templates for cultural recognition between states. In recent decades, it has had to adapt to the terms of new recognition templates established elsewhere, either via forms of institutional imitation, or by seeking to inflect these new templates (notably in a self-ascribed role as global champion of cultural diversity). These dynamics can be traced in a series of official reports on France’s external cultural policies, notably across the sectors of language policy, arts diplomacy, higher education mobility and global news projection. The reports’ deliberation on these processes opens a space for critical discussion concerning the contemporary operation of international regimes of recognition.

Keywords:

• Recognition
• international cultural relations
• France
• cultural diplomacy

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the two anonymous referees for their helpful and constructive criticisms.

Notes

1. On legal recognition, see Kelsen 1941; for the distinction between thin and thick recognition, see Wendt 2003, 511–512; for overviews of the turn to recognition in the study of international relations, see the edited collections by Agné et al. (2013), Daase et al. (2015), and Lindemann and Ringmar (2016).

2. Alternative terms for approaching the structural dimension of recognition practices are Axel Honneth’s ‘recognition orders’ (Anerkennungsordnungen) (e.g. Fraser and Honneth 2003, 135–160), though Honneth does not apply this specifically to interstate relations, or Ringmar’s own ‘recognition game’ (2002).

3. I borrow and adapt the terms of ‘restricted’ and ‘extended’ modernities from Wagner (1994).

4. See e.g. Lane 2016 or 2013.

5. On culture as a ‘fourth dimension’ of foreign policy, see Coombs (1964).

6. See e.g. Vaïsse 2009; ch.9; Martin 2010; and also note 12 below.

7. On hysteresis, see Bourdieu (1979, 158).

8. On the hypercomplex linguistic landscape of Africa and its relations to French (often an official, vehicular or educational language due to its bridging capacity within or across fragmented and overlapping linguistic patchworks), see Calvet (2010).

9. For a long historical perspective, see Charle (2009).

10. For an extensive overview of competition and imitation among the capitals of the world, see Therborn (2017).

11. France has traditionally invested significant sums in its cultural diplomacy network, with Bry noting a thirteen-fold real-terms increase between 1950 and 1990 in the overall budget for the Foreign Ministry’s cultural department (to 5 billion francs) (Bry 1999, 251–254). More recently, the budget effectively available for the network itself has come under duress given generalised constraints on public spending, although its precise evolution is not straightforward to track. There is a separate programme (P185) for ‘cultural diplomacy’ within the new national accounting system introduced in 2006, which was originally designed to hold all related expenditure headings (in practice, some significant cognate items feature in other budget programmes related to actions for international development, research or, most substantially, audiovisual policy, which will be discussed below). The sums available for this programme can appear at first view to have remained relatively buoyant between 2006 and 2018, moving from 519 million euros in 2006 to 595 in 2010, 759 in 2011, 749 in 2013 and 718 in 2018 (figures taken from the Loi de Finances Initiale budget breakdowns available at https://www.performance-publique.budget.gouv.fr/). However, more than half of this sum is devoted to France’s network of schools abroad, and detailed commentaries show how the constant overall levels mask declines in funding at ground level, as significant proportions of the budget following 2010 were taken up with the structural reforms associated with the major reforms of that year, while Programme 185 has more recently started to include credits attributed to tourism policy (Cour des Comptes 2013; 27–33; Duvernois 2015, 10). Nonetheless, overall credits attributed to cultural diplomacy and projection remain high by international standards, with the Cour des Comptes estimating that these amounted, when taking all relevant headings including media into account, to 1.339 billion euros in 2013, compared to 0.48 billion for the UK and 1.6 billion for Germany (when central and federal contributions were aggregated for the latter) (2013, 29).

12. The effect of this law was to transfer practical responsibility for sectors of outward-facing culture policies to dedicated ‘operators’ (the Institut Français, CampusFrance, and France Expertise), to which one might add previously existing distinct operators for areas such as schooling abroad or external media. The Foreign Affairs ministry retains responsibility for overall strategy and nearly all funding, though a number of other ministries, notably the Ministry for Culture and Communication, are also involved to a lesser degree in the funding and co-direction of specific sectors and actions (for a tabular breakdown, see Cour des Comptes 2013, 28). A recent further instance of turf wars between Foreign and Culture ministries concerned responsibility for international dimensions of ‘commercial’ cultural industries, which were finally withheld from the responsibilities of the Institut Français in favour of the Ministry of Culture (Cour des Comptes, 22).

13. For an analysis using the neo-institutionalist terms of ‘mimetic’, ‘normative’ and ‘coercitive’ isomorphism, see Musselin (2017).

14. Spending on external audiovisual provision progressed relatively steadily from 286 million euros in 2007 to 319 million euros in 2012 and 342 million euros in 2018 (figures taken from budget breakdowns for each year’s loi de finances initiale, available at https://www.performance-publique.budget.gouv.fr/). The figures include funding for RFI, TV5 Monde and France 24, and have to be aggregated from streams in different ‘programmes’, though this operation has become easier since 2015 when dedicated programmes (844 and 847) were assigned to France Médias Monde (a holding organisation whose principal components are RFI and France 24) and TV5 Monde. This improved internal visibility of contributions to international audiovisual programmes is itself a sign of their higher profile.