Should the Plundered Arts be Restituted? : How international norms are interpreted differently in national contexts

Sammanfattning: The objective of this essay is to look at two cases where the debate rages regarding whether or not to restitute stolen art back to the states from which it was originally stolen. By looking at the debate in each country the essay focuses on gaining understanding in how one state might decide upon returning the cultural treasures and the other refuses to. In assisting the analysis of the debate, theories from social constructivism, norms and ideas of different national identities are assessed. More closely, this essay tries to examine the different ideas of national identity (Imperial Cosmopolitanism and Egalitarian Cosmopolitanism) and analyze the domestic interpretations of the international norm on restitution of plundered treasures that follow from these identities. In doing so, states of interest, Sweden and Great Britain, are chosen and the theoretical model for analysis developed by Bacchi (2010) will be used in order to present ―the problem‖, the causes to the problem and the solutions provided to solve the problem. Thereby, the essay aims to show how the actions, behavior and arguments of these states, in the question of restitution, are greatly dependant on the differences in the ideas of national identity that each state might possess or have inherited from past.