Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper examines the modes of persuasion deployed throughout the decision-making processes of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. Through long-term ethnographic, archival and quantitative research, we reveal how the lofty goals of global conservation are elided by national interests and alliance-building. What unfolds in annual meetings is a range of state-to-state threats and exactions, often masquerading as consensus, that guarantees certain heritage sites are inscribed on the World Heritage List or, alternatively, rescued from the List of World Heritage in Danger – all of which remain indifferent to conservation status. We begin by providing the background to the political landscape of UNESCO’s flagship World Heritage programme and then describe various modes of coercive diplomacy. We demonstrate how different pathways to persuasion further the goals of specific nations to secure the World Heritage brand by employing international political pressure and policy substitution, often undermining the very tenets of preservation. Such tactics effectively undercut the implementation of expert advice and conservation measures, thereby ‘gaming the system’ to new levels.
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