"The packaging keeps changing!” The european intercultural cities programme and the politics of policy mobility into Ansan, South Korea

Abstract

This thesis examines the global circulation of the Intercultural Cities Programme (ICC) and its local adoption in Ansan City in South Korea (hereafter Korea). Since the 2000s, Korea has become a popular destination for international migration in Asia. In the pursuit of a framework to manage ethnic and cultural diversity, growing attention has been paid to European interculturalism in the academic and policy spheres in Korea. Within this context, the ICC was introduced - an urban diversity policy launched by the Council of Europe (CoE), with 164 member cities worldwide as of 2025. In 2020, Ansan became the first city in Korea and second in Asia to join the ICC. Building on the growing national interest in the ICC following Ansan’s accession, this thesis begins by asking how the European approach to diversity management gained legitimacy and credibility within the Korean context. This thesis investigates this process, with a focus on the development, promotion, and circulation of the ICC to cities, initially in Europe and eventually in Asia, including Ansan. This thesis adopts a policy mobilities approach to explore how global and local politics have shaped the contours of the ICC’s mobility. It draws on document analysis of the CoE’s official documents on the ICC, and Ansan’s city council transcripts, as well as interviews with 23 local actors in Ansan. Through Critical Discourse Analysis, this thesis presents three key findings. First, the global circulation of the ICC is part of a wider set of geopolitical reconfigurations that connect continental aspirations for international visibility and influence across Asia and Europe. Second, the adoption of the ICC in Ansan is marked by a non-linear process, shaped more by political contingencies within the particular local context than by its ideal fit as a policy. Third, the ICC operates as an empty signifier in Ansan, with its significations imbued with the imperatives of local politicians, while remaining detached from the everyday experiences of different local actors. Despite the disconnect between the perspectives of the CoE and Ansan regarding the ICC’s vision, this thesis highlights that the ICC’s mobility created mutual benefits for both parties, with each leveraging the discourse of the intercultural city to advance their respective goals. Critical insights developed in this thesis suggest that policy mobility studies need to expand their scope to incorporate geopolitics, in order to gain a richer understanding of how policy mobility is co-constituted by shifting global and local dynamics. This has particular implications for urban studies in Asia, demonstrating that Asia has become a key region where Europe seeks symbolic validation for its policy frameworks on a global scale, and that cities in Asia strategically modify and adapt these European, and more broadly, Western policy frameworks to better serve their own urban agendas.