Stakeholder Conflict Map — Governing Culture Through Capacity

Direct conflict

Structural tension

Partial alignment

Stakeholder A

UNESCO & Convention System

"Universal norms, universal obligations." Operates through Periodic Reporting, national inventory requirements, and intergovernmental oversight — all designed for states with functional bureaucracies.

Normative universalism State-level compliance Convention legitimacy Institutional continuity

Core vulnerability: Capacity-agnostic design means compliance rates systematically favor high-income states. African states consistently underperform not from indifference but from structural incapacity.

Stakeholder B

International Tech Firms & NGOs

"We preserve what would otherwise disappear." Deploy AI cultural heritage tools in low-capacity contexts. Currently hold unilateral control over data governance. Business model depends on absence of data sovereignty requirements.

Data asset accumulation Training corpus ownership Reputational legitimacy Minimal regulatory burden

Core vulnerability: Current project structures are unidirectional — extract cultural knowledge, deliver nothing back. Data Sovereignty Paradox: "preservation" becomes extraction when no community governance framework exists.

Key Conflicts, Tensions & Alignments

A (UNESCO) ↔ B (Tech Firms)

Data Sovereignty vs. Operational Freedom

UNESCO's normative mandate to protect cultural communities conflicts with Tech firms' interest in unregulated data collection. UNESCO currently lacks enforcement mechanisms for AI projects.

Structural Tension

B (Tech Firms) ↔ D (Communities)

Extraction vs. Sovereignty

Direct conflict. Tech firms extract oral knowledge, training data, and linguistic corpora. Communities receive nothing — no governance rights, no access, no benefit-sharing. The Somalia dynamic in digital form.

Direct Conflict

A (UNESCO) ↔ C (Low-Capacity States)

Normative Obligation vs. Institutional Reality

UNESCO requires national inventories, safeguarding plans, and periodic reports. Low-capacity states lack staff, archival systems, and coordination capacity. Formal ratification without substantive implementation.

Direct Conflict

C (Low-Cap. States) ↔ D (Communities)

Proxy Legitimacy vs. Direct Representation

Current frameworks treat states as community proxies for data agreements. Where state legitimacy over a community's cultural domain is contested, this proxy relationship produces misrepresentation, not protection.

Structural Tension

A (UNESCO) ↔ D (Communities)

Top-Down Standards vs. Community Knowledge

UNESCO's model validation is external and expert-driven. Determination of cultural meaning — which elements are central, how traditional terms should be rendered — is intrinsically community-internal knowledge.

Structural Tension

A (UNESCO) + D (Communities)

Shared Goal: Cultural Diversity Survival

Both parties share the normative objective. TDCGP creates a pathway where UNESCO's legitimacy and community governance capacity reinforce rather than undermine each other. Alignment is possible.

Partial Alignment

Stakeholder C

Low-Capacity & Fragile State Governments

"We ratify, therefore we comply." Formal commitment to UNESCO conventions without the administrative, legal, or financial infrastructure to implement them. Often serve as nominal proxies for community data agreements they cannot enforce.

International legitimacy Aid access Nominal sovereignty Low compliance cost

Core vulnerability: Incapacity is structural, not motivational. Somalia's cadaverous state did not fail to protect the Xeer from indifference — it destroyed the institutional conditions under which the Xeer could function.

Stakeholder D

Cultural Communities — Heritage Holders

"Our knowledge, their archive." Bear the most direct stake in cultural heritage survival, yet are the least represented in the governance frameworks nominally designed to protect them. Absent from data sovereignty agreements signed on their behalf.

Cultural survival Data sovereignty Governance self-determination Offline accessibility

Core vulnerability: Invisible to current frameworks as governance actors. Treated as heritage repositories, not governance principals. The bidirectionality criterion names what they are owed: provision through the same channels from which extraction occurs.

TDCGP Resolution Architecture

How the four mandatory requirements restructure each stakeholder relationship

↔ UNESCO

Req. 1 (ICA) adds enforcement teeth to convention obligations without new treaty. Compliance module in Periodic Reporting creates accountability for how AI projects are governed, not just whether they exist.

↔ Tech Firms & NGOs

Req. 2 (Data Sovereignty) directly challenges unilateral data control. Phased implementation: grandfathers existing projects, requires TDCGP compliance for all new UNESCO-affiliated initiatives. Primary resistance point.

↔ Low-Capacity States

Req. 1 (ICA) relieves states of obligations they cannot meet. Tier 3 designation bypasses the absent state intermediary entirely — community holds agreements directly. Reduces compliance theater.

↔ Communities

Reqs. 2, 3, 4 collectively make communities governance principals rather than heritage repositories. Offline-first (Req. 3) ensures access; community validation (Req. 4) ensures self-representation. Installs bidirectionality.

He, Z., Wang, Y., Peng, L., & Liu, Z. (2026). Governing Culture Through Capacity. SDGs Youth Public Policy Innovation Challenge, Renmin University of China / UNITAR SDGs Singapore Center. — Supplementary Material II: Stakeholder Conflict Map. Stakeholder positions derived from analysis in Proposal Sections II and IV. All empirical claims cited in main proposal text.