Cultural planning in Ontario,Canada: arts policy or more?

Cultural planning is often explained as a strategic approach to urban cultural development; an approach that involves the ‘mapping’ and leveraging of a wide range of ‘cultural resources’ (arts, culture, and heritage). However, it is increasingly being questioned whether cultural planning is anything more than a fairly traditional arts policy with a different name. In particular, it has been observed in Australia that cultural plans usually fail to address more than arts sector concerns. The objective of this paper is to investigate whether this assessment applies to cultural planning practice in Ontario, the province at the forefront of the current ‘municipal cultural planning’ push in Canada. An examination of all cultural plans in Ontario’s mid‐size cities and interviews conducted with municipal staff members overseeing these initiatives shows that whereas several municipalities do follow an arts‐driven policy agenda, this is not the case with most mid‐size cities in the province.     

Funding Faction or Buying Silence? Grants,Contracts, and Interest Group Lobbying Behavior

During the past decade, numerous congressional bills and amendments have attempted to curtail lobbying by nonprofit organizations that receive federal grants. These policy efforts grow out of an assumption that federal funds are encouraging advocacy at levels that are excessive and encourage additional government spending. Using survey data on more than 700 organizations based in Washington, DC, this article tests this assumption. The data show that for the most part, organizations receiving federal grants and contracts lobby no more frequently than similar organizations that do not receive such benefits. The exception is contacting federal agencies, which charitable organizations receiving federal funds do slightly more often than similar organizations without such funds. A multivariate analysis assesses federal funding together with other variables theorized to affect lobbying—federal tax status, resource levels, and the nature of the lobbying issue—confirming that while these other variables affect lobbying levels, federal funding does not.     

Auditing culture

This article explores the effects of the spread of the principles and practices of the New Public Management (NPM) on the subsidised cultural sector and on cultural policy making in Britain. In particular, changes in the style of public administration that can be ascribed to the NPM will be shown to provide a useful framework to make sense of what has been felt as an “instrumental turn” in British policies for culture between the early 1980s and the present day. The current New Labour Government, as well as the arm's length bodies that distribute public funds for the cultural sector in Britain, are showing an increasing tendency to justify public spending on the arts on the basis of instrumental notions of the arts and culture. In the context of what have been defined as “instrumental cultural policies”, the arts are subsidised in so far as they represent a means to an end rather than an end in itself. In this perspective, the emphasis placed on the potential of the arts to help tackle social exclusion and the role of the cultural sector in place‐marketing and local economic development are typical examples of current trends in British cultural policy making. The central argument purported by this article is that this instrumental emphasis in British cultural policy is closely linked to the changes in the style of public administration that have given rise to the NPM. These new developments have indeed put the publicly funded cultural sector under increasing pressure. In particular, it will be shown how the new stress on the measurement of the arts' impacts in clear and quantifiable ways – which characterises today's “audit society” – has proved a tough challenge for the sector and one that has not been successfully met. The article will conclude by critically considering how the spread of the NPM has affected processes of policy making for the cultural sector, and the damaging effects that such developments may ultimately have on the arts themselves.     

John Maynard Keynes,the Bloomsbury group and the origins of the arts council movement

The article examines the origins of the arts council movement in the ideas of the Bloomsbury Group and John Maynard Keynes. The Bloomsbury Groups' sense of experimentation and flexibility, their willingness to take action to create new institutions, and their distrust of bureaucracy, influenced Keynes's development of a new model for state patronage of the arts in 1946. He took an organization established during the Second World War to employ artists and organize morale‐boosting tours of the performing and visual arts, and oversaw its development into the Arts Council of Great Britain, the first such arts council. His model – making grants of public funds through semi‐autonomous government bodies to private individuals and privately operated arts institutions – became a standard form of public funding for the arts by the end of the twentieth century in many countries around the world.     

Putting the “art” back into arts policy making: how arts policy has been “captured” by the economists and the marketers

Abstract: This paper explores the current discourse about arts policy and funding and its placement within an economic paradigm. The models of “cultural industry” and “creative industry” are explored and how they affect arts funding discourse. Similarly the impact of the introduction of the language of industry and business to the arts sector is considered. If bottom-line arguments are used by funders, governments and critics to argue the merits or otherwise of arts activity, how does this affect arts practice? In recent times arts funding agencies have been restructured to reflect a market-driven agenda rather than an arts-driven agenda. The impact of all these issues is considered in the context of Australian arts' models in particular, but with reference to examples in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The paper concludes with suggestions for a reassertion of core cultural values in future discourse.     

PUBLIC‐PRIVATE SUPPORT OF THE ARTS AND GERMAN CULTURAL POLICY

This paper provides a historical context for thinking about Germany’s recent embrace of sponsorship and private donations as a means of supporting education and the arts. The paper notes that the chief architect of a new national cultural policy, Michael Naumann, has justified a turn to public‐private collaborative arts funding with the argument that a market‐driven model of private responsibility for the arts stimulates greater citizen involvement in civic life and thus greater democracy. Yet Naumann has not reconciled this argument with Germany’s own history, in particular the fact that Germany’s Golden Age of private support of the arts coincided with the authoritarian German Empire (1871–1918). My analysis of this historical constellation, presented as a case study of one of Germany’s most important museum directors, Wilhelm Bode (1845–1929), argues that private support of the arts formed part of a larger strategy designed to wrest control of arts institutions away from traditional elites. My essay seeks to show that the rise of more responsive public forums was intended to make the fruits of German imperialism and economic domination available to more Germans, particularly middle class Germans. On this basis, the essay suggests two things. First, German imperialist society was less hierarchical and more broadly participatory than is often assumed, complicating its ability to figure as a negative foil today. Second, the harnessing of market forces to German culture was expected to deepen popular appreciation for chauvinistic conceptions of German nationalism that today seem to conflict with what German democracy might ideally be. With these points in mind, I contend not that sponsorship and private donations are incapable of promoting greater public involvement in the arts. Rather, the private sector might yield more democratic outcomes when publicly funded democratic institutions retain a strong voice in the direction of culture.     

Public Spending on the Arts as Morality Policy: The Structure of Public Attitudes

Successfully reframing a political issue as morality policy should strengthen the hand of those charging immorality. However, reframers face a daunting task in shifting public opinion. In 1989, Christian conservatives attempted to reframe the debate over federal funding for the arts from waste to immorality, by attacking grants for "anti-Christian" and "homoerotic" art. Using General Social Survey data from before, during, and after the attempted reframing, this article assesses the reframers' success in heightening the salience of religion, commitment to civil liberties, and attitudes toward sexuality in public thinking about government spending on the arts.     

The MuseumsQuartier,Vienna: An Austrian Cultural Experiment

This paper focuses on an important Austrian development, which on closer examination enables consideration to be given to: (1) Austrian government cultural‐sector policy, ­practice and funding attitudes; (2) the nature of the structures, organisation, stakeholders, and legal relationships chosen to manage and market the MuseumsQuartier; (3) the tension between the individual autonomy of institutions and a state‐imposed umbrella organisation; (4) the characteristics of creativity in comparison with the requirements for conformity; and (5) the compatibility of facility and programming management. There is no pretence in providing a survey of museum cultural or creative quarters throughout the world or analysis of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks that may be associated with this approach to urban regeneration. It is unashamedly a detailed analysis of a major cultural development, which may have value for the future management of similar projects. Perhaps more significantly it provides a useful insight into the Austrian approach to arts policy and management.     

Funding the ‘nation’ in the national theatre of Scotland

The National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) is a an innovative and ground‐breaking, non‐building‐based, commissioning and producing cultural institution, established in the wake of the devolution of the Scottish Parliament. This article sketches the contours of this new model of a national theatre, exploring the complex dialectic between various economic, political, social and artistic choices, forces and factors that have influenced, and continue to influence, the formative years of the NTS. The article charts changes to the company during these early years and, most significantly, notes the potential effect that the change from arm’s length to direct government funding might have on the company’s long‐term development. It is argued that direct funding aligns the arts too closely to political agendas rather than supporting artistic freedom and expression.     

Behind the scenes of public funding for performing arts in Italy: hidden phenomena beyond the rhetoric of legislation

This paper focuses on how Italian performing arts organizations were funded between 2003 and 2005. How does policy regulate the financing system for performing arts? What are the underlying logics that govern financing choices? In this paper the authors move beyond the simple examination of formal policies by analysing the funding data and organizational routines of the ministerial offices responsible for the allocation of grants. The authors implemented a multi‐method research methodology consisting of document analysis, in‐depth interviews, and quantitative analysis of funding data. The main findings can be summarized as follows. First, funds are continuously allocated to the same group of organizations. Second, although rigid, the system is imbued by a ‘rhetoric of the project’. Third, the system does not reward innovation. In conclusion, only by studying how the law is actually implemented can one capture the choices that underlie financing actions, and thus unravel unanticipated outcomes and inconsistencies between rhetoric and conduct.     

Legitimation work in state cultural organizations: the case of Norway

Finding the balance between the inclusive and exclusive in programming and communication strategies are important for state-funded cultural organizations to master in order to be perceived as relevant by the public and deserving of their privileged position. The organizations have to legitimize themselves to broad audiences, in the last instance all of the nation’s citizens, as well as a narrow audience, the artists and intellectuals. This paper investigates how this legitimation work is mastered by the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, two Norwegian cultural organizations that receive most of their funding from the government. Through an analysis of the organizations’ annual reports, strategy documents and websites, in addition to interviews conducted with the CEOs, I investigate how the organizations communicate their relevance to the public.     

The nonprofit arts organization concept and its transformation in Korea

ABSTRACT

After the Korean War, both the autocratic and later democratic South Korean governments actively fostered the development of Korea’s arts sector, in part by emulating the organizational and legal structures of U.S. nonprofits. Yet, in this policy transfer, Korea has taken a different path, notably rearticulating the U.S.-style hands-off facilitation model to reflect and accommodate Korean political, institutional, and cultural exigencies. We analyze the effects of the resulting cultural policy on Korean public arts institutions, using documentary evidence and narratives from our case studies of two national arts organizations restructured by the government: The National Theater Company of Korea and the Seoul Arts Center. We employ the concept of cultural statism, conditioned by "culture as glorification," resource dependence, and path dependence, to understand the development of Korea’s public arts sector. Specifically, we consider: the government’s desire to use the arts to enhance its image on an international stage shaped by western liberal democratic values; arts leaders’ desire for reliable support (resource dependence); and the tendancy of Koreans to want to be associated with the stability and prestige of the government (path dependence).     

Mapping cultural policy in Portugal: From incentives to crisis

Abstract

Taking into account the course of cultural policy in democratic Portugal, and against the backdrop of the international crisis of 2008 and the sovereign debt crisis of 2011, this article seeks to interpret recent changes in the cultural sector in Portugal. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods it focuses on three main aspects: institutionalisation of democratic cultural policy; government funding; cultural organizations and facilities. The 2008 crisis put an end to a period in which investment tended to grow. We place Portugal in the broader European context, concluding that the Portuguese cultural scene may once again diverge from that of other European countries.     

A centralized decentralization: outsourcing in the Turkish cultural heritage sector

Recently Turkey has experimented with reforming its highly centralized cultural heritage sector by outsourcing commercial activities at museums and archeological sites. We examine three outsourcing contracts executed in 2009–2010 and their implications for understanding New Public Management in Turkey’s cultural sector. The initial project at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum was soon superseded by a ‘monopoly’ model that outsourced gift shop and ticket collection services at over 50 museums and sites to single companies. All three projects have significantly increased visitor numbers and revenues for the revolving fund that controls commercial operations within the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Yet unlike countries such as Italy, where outsourcing has led to decentralization, increased private sector involvement in Turkey has increased the control of the central government. This ‘centralized decentralization’ is a distinctly Turkish approach that allows for modernization without disturbing a highly centralized administrative tradition.     

Cultural governance and creative industries in Singapore

Singapore, a leading country in the Asia‐Pacific region, is currently attempting to transform its cultural industry into creative economy. Creative economies capitalise on how knowledge can be marketed by merging arts, technology and business. They ensure a nation's competitiveness within an integrated global economy. This paper critically examines Singapore's recent cultural policy developments in tourism, broadcasting and new media. It argues that new creative industries have produced new consumption patterns and identities that harness the place‐branding of “New Asia” as a form of cultural capital and a strategy of regional dominance. Cybernetics is proposed as an approach to frame creative cultural governance and consumption in Singapore.     

Researchers,bureaucrats and the lifeworlds of cultural policy

This paper reflects on the value of cultural policy research, particularly when such research forms part of projects that seek to produce insights or ‘outcomes’ that are useful to non-university research partners. The paper draws from the author’s involvement in a project examining cultural diversity in the arts that was funded as part of the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Project scheme. It addresses Eleonora Belfiore’s provocation that this kind of instrumental cultural policy research routinely amounts to ‘bullshit.’ However, in order to understand the critical function of such research, there needs to be greater attention to the lifeworlds of cultural policy and the multiplicity of the policy-making process. This multiplicity both complicates the possibilities for usefulness in policy research, at the same time that it enables such research to be generative in unpredictable ways.     

Public folklore dialogism and critical heritage studies

Abstract

Public folklore’s dialogic engagement with communities incorporates methodologies for sharing representational and interpretive authority, collaborative programme development, mutually constructed modes of presentation and stakeholder participation in policy-making. While recognising that heritage interventions inevitably involve power asymmetries, public folklore seeks to mitigate and diminish these imbalances as it develops approaches to enable communities to present their culture on their own terms. This paper explores dialogic public folklore practice through community self-documentation projects, folklife festivals, government folk arts funding programmes and a project promoting places of local cultural significance. It provides examples of the integration of multiple roles of public folklorists as scholars, administrators, producers of folklore presentations and government heritage officers. Public folklore praxis achieved through the integration of these roles is seen as a potential model for critical heritage studies praxis for scholars who are advisors and researchers in intangible cultural heritage (ICH) initiatives. Critical heritage scholars involved with ICH can learn from how public folklorists engage with communities and foster cultural self-determination. For public folklorists, collaboration and increased dialogue with critical heritage scholars could foster greater awareness of hegemonic discourses, reconceptualisation of the social base of ICH and recognition of the pitfalls of fostering economic development through heritage.     

The Double‐Edged Sword of Public‐Resource Dependence: The Impact of Public Resources on Autonomy and Legitimacy in Korean Cultural Nonprofit Organizations

As governments and nonprofit organizations build close partnerships for the provision of public services, they become interdependent in many ways. In particular, nonprofits' public‐resource dependence has significant implications for their behavior and decisions. By examining Korean cultural nonprofit organizations (CNPOs), this article posits a theoretical framework for the impact of public‐resource dependence on nonprofits' organizational autonomy and legitimacy. The empirical results of national survey data of Korean cultural nonprofits suggest that public‐resource dependence has a dual effect, reducing managerial autonomy while enhancing institutional legitimacy. Korean CNPOs seem to be constrained by public funding granted by both local governments and the central government, particularly in goal setting, resource allocations, and program choices. However, public funding also helps nonprofits earn institutional legitimacy through its reputation and recognition effects.     

LGBT Advocacy and Transnational Funding in Singapore and Malaysia

LGBT advocacy is an emergent site attracting transnational funding from an expanded set of donor types that now include private corporations, national governments, NGOs, intergovernmental organizations and public–private partnerships. This article discusses LGBT advocacy as involving an expanded range of issues that go beyond a traditional focus on HIV/AIDS prevention. The geographical focus is on Singapore and Malaysia, two Southeast Asian countries where homosexuality is officially illegal. Alongside the global politics of LGBT rights, previous critiques about external funding and North/South asymmetries in transnational aid raise questions about its effectiveness for transformative socio‐political change, and its political and theoretical implications. Three case studies are examined: Pink Dot Singapore, and the PT Foundation and Kuala Lumpur activist workshops in Malaysia. The data demonstrate the capacity for transnational support to contribute to grassroots activism and coalitional politics. However, significant observable outcomes are currently limited, partly because most of the grants are modest, and Singapore and Malaysia's high‐ and middle‐income status excludes them from various funding bodies. Furthermore, domestic resistance to transnational funding has emerged, constituting more widespread discourses in which anti‐LGBT sentiment is framed in terms of opposing Western encroachments and the dominance of the global North.     

Arts and culture in an era of austerity: key stakeholder views on the current and future Australian context

The arts and culture sector in many countries faces major challenges, as a consequence of ongoing austerity measures and changes in the ways in which the arts are experienced. In major nations such as the United States, the United Kingdom and in several European countries, there is considerable pressure to look for new ways of surviving in an age of consumerism, accountability and rapidly changing technologies. On the other hand, many Asian countries have invested heavily in building their arts and culture sector as part of the new twenty-first-century economy. The arts and culture sector in Australia faces serious challenges at present, including ongoing fiscal pressures, an absence of any national cultural policy and disruption as a consequence of changing governments. In order to explore these issues, interviews were held with 22 key leaders from a range of Australian organisations associated with arts representation, funding, policy and advocacy. The findings highlight both the challenges and opportunities facing Australia towards what may be considered the next wave of innovation and change.