ABSTRACT
The cultural factor has gained increasing weight in the global arena. It has shown that it is able to play the role as a resource for the creation and for the resolution of conflicts in contemporary international politics. In the world of today, a contradictory form of cultural globalisation is unfolding. On the one hand, cultural hybridisation, the emergence of global ethics and shared features of modernisation among cultures, becomes increasingly prominent; on the other hand, identity politics, often in form of violent conflicts between divergent ethical or religious cultural groups, have begun to play an increasingly conspicuous role in the global arena. As research and best practice cases have shown in abundance, there is nothing in the cultural traditions that creates inevitable obstacles for intercultural understanding and cooperation. The language of cultural identity is regularly used to disguise the real root causes of social, economic, or regional conflicts. The growing cultural factor in national, regional, and global politics can only become a sustainable resource for peaceful and fair conflict resolution on the basis of a comprehensive politics of recognition. Such politics should combine equitable participation of all cultural collectives in the available economic, social, and cultural resources together with the recognition of their respective particular identities by all the others. In the global institutional system, it is above all UNESCO that provides the concepts for such a policy and efforts to influence in this sense the other international institutions. Nevertheless, the core peacekeeping institutions of the UN also increasingly include cultural policies. The World Bank and ILO have started to incorporate the cultural dimension in their approaches. The EU provides an interesting example 288of how to combine political consensus on citizenship issues and common public policy with the protection and promotion of cultural diversity.
