So "how come there was not one mayor in the USA that was prompted to submit an application to the Agenda 21 for culture?" It's a long, sad story, but I'll try to explain standing on one foot.
It's been an enduring element of U.S. policymaking orthodoxy that we have no cultural policy. (Of course, every nation has a cultural policy: most go through a process of formal adoption, but when it comes to the USA, you have deduce it from what's written between the lines of a zillion decisions about funding, regulation, education, broadcasting, city planning, and so on.) It pretty much started in the early sixties when the campaign to establish something like a National Endowment for the Arts picked up steam. In the waning days of the Cold War, the specter of state art of the type characteristic of the Soviet Union was a dealbreaker in Washington, so the people who created the NEA bent over backwards to avoid it. In fact, they designed the agency as a kind of adjunct to private philanthropy, a legacy that persists.
Things got worse when Ronald Reagan withdrew in 1983 from UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), the chief international body dealing with cultural policy. The cited reasons focused on "politicization," which translated into Reaganite opposition to things like attempts to ensure a multidirectional flow of information undominated by corporate press. The U.S. didn't rejoin till 2003, but we stopped paying dues in 2011 to protest giving Palestine membership, losing our vote two years later after failing to resume dues.
Other than using international cultural policy forums as political footballs, the U.S.'s main involvement has been to scrupulously avoid doing the right thing. Check out the impressive list of parties to the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions: keep scrolling to the bottom to see that none of the U.S. administrations in the decade-plus since this inspiring convention was passed has seen fit to sign it.
Okay, I'm tired of standing on one foot, but you get the idea. Either our policymakers are entirely unaware of the opportunity to integrate culture and development in a way that supports the health of both; or they know about this vital global conversation and collaboration, and just don't think it's a good idea.
If you think the mayor of your town should not only know about Agenda 21 for Culture, but might actually value the dialogues, tools, and examples his or her counterparts around the globe have provided, consider sharing this blog. And don't hesitate to get in touch with the Chief Policy Wonk: I'm always happy to help.
You can always rely on Bettye LaVette: "Bless Us All."
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