The Council of Europe's White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue: An Analysis Using the Ethic of Care

Abstract

This article examines what an ethic of care could offer to discussions about Europe's increasing cultural diversity by analyzing the important White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue published by the Council of Europe in 2008. The authors consider the White Paper from the perspective of the political ethic of care and thus examine its adequacy in dealing with issues of care. Their point of departure is that policy texts display normative ways of speaking about certain issues -in this case, issues of diversity, multiculturalism and citizenship in Europe. They first contextualize the discussions for promoting intercultural dialogue in the Council of Europe and analyze the normative framework of the White Paper. Then, they use the care perspective as a lens to comment on notions of diversity, multiculturalism and citizenship. Finally, they discuss how the notion of care as a citizenship issue could contribute towards further development of discussions on citizenship education and intercultural dialogue in Europe.Recent years have witnessed increasing cultural diversity in Europe, generating a continuing challenge about how to balance unity and diversity in contemporary multicultural societies (Fortier, 2005). Unity without diversity results in hegemony and oppression; diversity without unity leads to separatism and fragmentation (Banks, 2007). The challenge to all multicultural societies is to recognize diversity and yet at the same time promote social cohesion. However, there are divergent views on how far one can go to recognize diversity, while maintaining social cohesion.The dominant moral conceptions in pursuing the national interests of governments have been grounded in the language of citizenship rights, equality and universal law (Held, 2004). An alternative moral approach is the ethic of care (Sevenhuijsen, 1993;Tronto, 1993;Hekman, 1995;Clement, 1996; Held, 2004). Among its characteristics is the view of individuals as relational and interdependent, regardless of citizenship rights associated with the national interests of governments. As Held writes:Rather than assuming, as do the dominant moral theories, that moral relations are to be seen as entered into voluntarily by free and equal individuals, the ethics of care is developed for the realities as well of unequal power and unchosen relations. (Held, 2004, p. 143) In other words, the ethic of care acknowledges that there are unequal power relations in the global transnational arena and thus focuses on how to promote trust, social bonds, cooperation and caring relations. It is not unlikely, therefore, that the national interests of governments may often be in conflict with caring as a democratic practice that includes rather than excludes individuals (Knijn &

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