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A Year to Tolerate Tolerance? An analysis of the UN 'Year of Tolerance' in the context of the theoretical debate on tolerance, 1945-2010.
[Thesis]. Manchester, UK: The University of Manchester; 2013.
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Abstract
The practice of making international dedications (of days, weeks or years) proliferated in the second half of the twentieth century with the rise of international institutions like the United Nations. The practice contrasts alternative dealings with time i.e. sacred time or dedication as commemoration. International dedications celebrate a concept of social or environmental importance, with a particular emphasis on awareness raising and inculcating change on a practical level. 1995 was the ‘United Nations International Year for Tolerance’. To the study of tolerance, the ‘Year’ marks the apex of tolerance as an object of modern international concern. This thesis is divided into two halves. The former undertakes a close analysis of the build-up to the UN ‘Year of Tolerance’ (Chapter One), the ‘Year’ itself and the subsequent follow-up (Chapter Two). It likewise provides a more general account of the rise and practice of international dedication making. The second half of this thesis addresses the broader theoretical debate on tolerance, 1945-2010. This thesis understands the UN ‘Year of Tolerance’ as a particular institutionalised expression of a specific theoretical mode of tolerance, taken from the theoretical debate on tolerance, and masked by the veneer of cultural universality. It uses 1995 as an artificial marker to gauge continuity and change in the debate on tolerance and to demarcate between Chapter Three-Chapter Four (pre-1995) and Chapter Five-Chapter Six (post-1995). The conclusion summarises the principal points of continuity and discontinuity and finally contextualises the UN ‘Year of Tolerance’ in the theoretical debate on tolerance i.e. as the institutional embodiment of a particular liberal-‘political’ mode of tolerance and an international attempt at final foreclosure of the controversy around tolerance. In seeking to critically account for the UN ‘Year of Tolerance’, and likewise to provide a general overview of continuity and change in the modern theoretical debate of tolerance, this thesis seeks to redress ‘a gap’ in current academic research.