ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews mainstream approaches to culture politics and language recognition as they relate to ethnicity, national identity and party politics. It assesses three approaches to culture politics: culturalist, modernist and neo-institutionalist. The chapter reviews David Laitin's work on language and identity. It also elaborates on a complementary framework based on party politics. The most tangible embodiments of culture regimes may arguably be in the form of language regimes, that is, to adopt a minimalist definition, the language or languages that are officially recognized and promoted by states or regions. The rise of identity politics and multicultural discourses, policies and ideologies in ethnoculturally diverse democracies can be interpreted as an attempt to deal with the problem of fair ethnocultural representation in state institutions. Neo-institutionalist approaches to culture politics focus on elements of institutional systems and their capacity to influence micro behaviour. The logic of language shift is essentially the same as that of identity change.
