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This isn't a Culture novel, but the setting might be an alternate history, in which the entrenched Powers That Be managed to block the rise of the Minds (and therefore of the Culture), by framing the AIs for an attack on galactic civilization, resulting in a mostly successful war against and subsequent quasi-religious abhorrence of machine intelligences. The resulting galaxy is divided, warlike, and dominated (at least in the part where this story is set) by the Mercatoria, a baroque bureaucracy that maintains its own power largely through simple propaganda and lies, but is willing to use whatever else it takes.
Also, in this universe, most of the galaxy's gas giants are inhabited by the Dwellers, an immensely ancient race whose bumbling and disorganized outward face may or may not hide something quite different underneath.
Against this background Banks tells a number of stories simultaneously, about a quest for a long-lost secret that may or may not exist, about interstellar wars of conquest, about hidden currents in both Dweller and Mercatorial civilizations, about how things that happen in our youths can shape who we are, or keep us from becoming much of anyone at all. The stories don't all hang together completely, or convince me utterly, but for me the background, rich and fascinating and thought-provoking, more than makes up for any lack along those lines. And after all, in real life, the stories very seldom hang together all that neatly or convincingly.
Also notable for The Truth, a quasi-religion based on the theory (currently floating around in the real world today) that it's highly likely that we live in a simulation, and further based on the theory that when enough people realize this, or proclaim it, or whatever, the simulation will end, and, well, something different will happen.
Not bad, really, as religions go...
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Creative Commons License.