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Abstract
Apolitical social marketing communications, however intendedly neutral, acquire political capabilities when metropolitan states in search of legitimacy use them to market multiculturalism. European metropoles are under pressure to reconcile their colonial histories with the contemporary need to engage minority ethnic citizens. Yet, in the communication of cultural belonging, antiracist state redress must also enlist the consent of majority ethnic citizens. Official antiracism defines ‘racism’ according to this dual need. Our focus is One Scotland, Many Cultures – the devolved Scottish polity's ₤1-million antiracist social marketing campaign launched in 2002 under the Blair government's UK-wide race strategy. Interviews with key actors responsible for the initial campaign, and content analysis of campaign advertisements, reveal that official antiracism attempts to engage disaffected multiethnic constituencies. The proposed political sociology of ethnicity and communication which informs this analysis alerts us to a significant and salient feature of metropolitan state legitimation – affective multiethnic governance.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Rodolfo Torres, Aaron Winter, Stuart Waiton, Fernando Mendez and William Takamatsu Thompson for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this manuscript. I would also like to thank the Editors of EJCPS and the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments. Interview material cited in this paper is drawn from work originally funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, reference PTA-030-2002-01352. I would like to acknowledge and thank Satnam Virdee for his supervision of the original study. Although it has been over 10 years since these interviews were conducted, it is a testament to each interviewee's contribution to OSMC that we are still able to learn from their words. I would like to extend my gratitude to them for giving so graciously of their time, without which this study would not have been possible.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. The legitimacy/migration/antiracism nexus has been previously examined with reference to the administrations of Blair (Kyriakides, Citation2008), Clinton (Kyriakides, Citation2012), Bush and Obama (Kyriakides & Torres, Citation2015). Here we consider Scotland, not in order to draw particular attention to Scottish specificities, but because OSMC was launched by a new institution of the British metropolitan state, providing a case study of legitimacy in-the-making and its consequent impact on state-sponsored behaviour modification vis-à-vis ‘race’.
2. The 1997 UK general election turnout, at 71%, was the lowest since 1935. New Labour was elected by 32% of qualified voters, compared with 29% who abstained. In 2001, turnout was 59% – the lowest since 1918. New Labour was elected by approximately 25% of the electorate – 41% abstained. The right to abstain should not be undervalued. Here we follow Gilley's study of legitimacy where,
the act of voting … seems to reflect an array of sentiments, in particular as an expression of popular preferences directed at elites and a desire for social esteem and common feelings. What seems to join together these meanings is a belief that existing political structures provide the appropriate location for political life. To vote is to reaffirm this tenet. (Citation2006, p. 509)
3. Ruling relations ‘direct people's conduct across and beyond local sites of everyday experience, such as bureaucracy, management practices, mass media, and political institutions’ (Smith, Citation2002, p. 45).
4. All interviewees were solicited through written correspondence and interviews took place, by prior appointment, at the interviewee's place of work. Research aims/objectives were explained prior to interview. All interviewees were made aware that extracts from the interview would be used for academic purposes such as publication in journals, books and conference presentations. All interviewees agreed to the interview being voice-recorded. All interviewees were given the option of anonymity; none chose this option.
5. Inverted commas are placed around ‘racism’, not as a means of denying that racism exists objectively, but to signal analytically that its definition is subjectively contested.
6. Miles and colleagues noted long ago that the ‘race relations’ policy focus on numbers shifted emphasis away from racism. While racism was active regardless of numbers, the lower number of migrants in Scotland was interpreted as an absent ‘race relations problem’ thus silencing the experience of racism. An indicative Scotland-England comparison of migrant settlement: In 2011 approximately 91% of the UK's foreign-born population lived in England with around 50% in London (37%) and the South East (13%) whereas only 4.9% lived in Scotland (Cinzia & Vargas-Silva, Citation2012). For an earlier overview see Bailey, Bowes, and Sim (Citation1997).
7. The Scotland Act 1998 upholds Westminster's absolute parliamentary sovereignty while devolving responsibility to the Scottish Parliament in key policy areas such as housing, education, health and social care, transport and local government.
8. Yvonne Strachan. Position at date of interview (15/03/04): Civil Servant, Head of Scottish Executive Equality Unit.
9. Jackie Baillie. Position at date of interview (13/02/04): member of the Scottish Parliament for Dumbarton. At the time of interview Jackie Baillie no longer held ministerial responsibility for OSMC.
10. Barkers advertising (Edinburgh), commissioned by the Scottish Executive and responsible for the production of OSMC at date of interview.
11. Strachan.
12. ‘Cognitive legitimacy occurs when an idea corresponds to taken-for-granted beliefs that render it desirable, proper, and appropriate within a widely shared system of norms and values’ (Boxenbaum, Citation2008, p. 239).
13. Chris Wallace. Position at date of interview(20/02/04): Managing Director of Barkers Advertising (Edinburgh).
14. Chris Eynon. Position at date of interview (26/04/04): Managing Direction of System Three (Edinburgh).
15. For the negative relationship between politics and therapeutics see Imber (Citation2004). For an alternative view see Wright (Citation2008).
16. The ‘One Scotland, Many Cultures’ logo figured prominently in early campaign materials; later campaign materials seemed to de-emphasise ‘Many Cultures’. However, it should be noted that from its outset the campaign's web address was www.onescotland.com. and this also featured prominently in early campaign materials. The point may assume greater significance if we compare the Scottish Executives’ official designation of the historical problem of Catholic-Protestant conflict as ‘religious sectarianism’ distinct from ‘racism’ which was considered to be a problem related specifically to racialized ‘non white cultures’. This may indicate that Catholic-Protestant conflict was not interpreted as conflict between two ‘racial’ groups, the latter being synonymous with the ‘white/non-white’ binary designation institutionalised by British post war ‘race-relations’ legislation. According to the logic of ‘race relations’ the designation of ‘white’ Catholic and Protestant Scots as distinct cultures under the ‘Many Cultures’ logo would have been problematic. It is worth noting that the Scottish Executives’ (Citation2006), Sectarianism: Action Plan on Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland, published by the then New Labour government, carried the ‘One Scotland’ not the ‘One Scotland, Many Cultures’ logo on its cover, but that the internal narrative still utilised ‘many cultures’ (see endnote 18). Although a detailed comparison between the state's policy designation of ‘racism’ and ‘religious sectarianism’ lies beyond this paper, there is overlap when the issue of the treatment of racialized ‘non white religious groups’ such as ‘South Asian Muslims’ is included as a policy problem. As we go on to discuss, the aetiology assumed by affective governance to underlie and unite both ‘racism’ and ‘sectarianism’ (as policy problems) was that of dangerous emotion – ‘hate’ – not specific to ‘race’ or religion. For information related to the last phase of New Labour's campaign in 2007, which includes ‘no place for racism’ billboard ads issued under the ‘One Scotland’ logo, see http://wayback.archive-it.org/3011/20130205202325/http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2007/01/26113250#
17. At the time of writing the most recent phase of the SNP's One Scotland campaign was launched on 6 November 2014. Radio ads and other materials from this phase can be accessed here: http://onescotland.org/campaigns/race-campaign/
18. Former New Labour First Minister Jack McConnell (cited in Scottish Executive, Citation2006, p. 1).
19. Here the SNP's ‘anti-sectarianism’ rhetoric borrows and extends the logic of New Labour's ‘no place for racism’.
20. British journalist Liam Hoare (Citation2014) has noted, ‘Westminster believed that a strong “no” vote would take the question of independence off the table for a generation and undercut the authority of the SNP in Scotland’.