Designing cultural policy in a postcolonial colony: the case of Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico became a territory of the United States in 1898 with the end of the Spanish-American War. In 1952, the island became a ‘Commonwealth’ through the development and approval of a local constitution. While this political status allows Puerto Rico some degree of autonomy, it nevertheless continues to subject the island to United States federal authority. For the last 60 years, discussions on whether Puerto Rico’s Commonwealth status is a permanent or transitional status has fuelled much of the political debate and public policy of the region, and has been highly influenced by political status ideologies: to become a state of the United States, to maintain the current status, or to become independendent. Budgetary, legal, and commercial dependence on the United States causes constant conflicts in the design and implementation of Puerto Rican public policy in areas such as education, law, and economic development. Likewise, culture has not been exempt from these debates. In fact, cultural differences have caused conflict at all levels – from the theoretical conceptions of culture, to cultural policy and arts management. Moreover, the implementation of cultural policies has also been subject to political ideologies and the concept of culture has variably been seen as an obstacle or strength for specific political purposes. In the midst of a sustained economic crisis, the current Puerto Rican government has proposed the development of a comprehensive cultural policy through a participatory process. The objective of this paper is to present this process as a means of analyzing Puerto Rico’s experience through the challenges in designing and implementing cultural policy within a ‘postcolonial colony’ scenario. This paper will place emphasis on the government’s role, cultural public institutions, and cultural production.     

Public game funding in the Nordic region

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore the policies related to support structures surrounding national game industries, with focus on the three Nordic countries Finland, Norway and Sweden, and investigate what kind of context the Nordic welfare state model has provided for game development. The three cases illustrate how Nordic welfare state measures have interacted with the games industry over time. While the political ideals have been fairly similar, our study demonstrates how the objectives and practical means of state engagement have differed significantly. We argue that although the three countries all have support schemes of which game companies can take advantage, there are significant differences in the degree to which each individual country has organized government interventions and support. While the Finnish state has treated game development as an endeavour in business development, the regional Nordic game program and the Norwegian state has developed a cultural policy that primarily aims to protect the cultural heritage. The Swedish state has not established a tailormade policy directed towards game development but has a broad spectrum of general policies for supporting research and business development. We suggest that future research should investigate how the public funding is structured and how discourses are formulated around appeals for more public funding for the games industry.     

Cultivating digital mediation: The implementation of publicly funded digital museum initiatives in Denmark

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to review and re?ect on the factors defining the expected benefits that have influenced the implementation of digital mediation initiatives in publicly funded museums over the course of the last 20 years. The expectations directed towards digital museum mediation are established by taking a closer look at Danish cultural policy implementation and socio-technological development. Examples from a review of cultural policy documents, funding applications and reports, supplemented by articles from a museum practice journal illustrate trends and developments in digital museum mediation. This article identifies a development of digital museum mediation in three phases, from providing access to digitized cultural heritage to more user-oriented communication strategies such as personalization and participation. The analysis shows that, in a cultural political context, the adoption of digital mediation in institutions is part of a higher strategy where technological development acts as a catalyst for innovation in the cultural sector.     

Creating the cultures of the future: cultural strategy,policy and institutions in Gramsci

Gramsci’s writings have rarely been discussed and used systematically by scholars in cultural policy studies, despite the fact that in cultural studies, from which the field emerged, Gramsci had been a major source of theoretical concepts. Cultural policy studies were, in fact, theorised as an anti-Gramscian project between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when a group of scholars based in Australia advocated a major political and theoretical reorientation of cultural studies away from hegemony theory and radical politicisation, and towards reformist–technocratic engagement with the policy concerns of contemporary government and business. Their criticism of the ‘Gramscian tradition’ as inadequate for the study of cultural policy and institutions has remained largely unexamined in any detail for almost 20 years and seems to have had a significant role in the subsequent neglect of Gramsci’s contribution in this area of study. This essay, consisting of three parts, is an attempt to challenge such criticism and provide an analysis of Gramsci’s writings, with the aim of proposing a more systematic contribution of Gramsci’s work to the theoretical development of cultural policy studies. In Part I, I question the use of the notion of ‘Gramscian tradition’ made by its critics, and challenge the claim that it was inadequate for the study of cultural policy and institutions. In Parts II and III, I consider Gramsci’s specific writings on questions of cultural strategy, policy and institutions, which have so far been overlooked by scholars, arguing that they provide further analytical insights to those offered by his more general concepts. More specifically, in Part II, I consider Gramsci’s pre-prison writings and political practice in relation to questions of cultural strategy and institutions. I argue that the analysis of these early texts, which were written in the years in which Gramsci was active in party organisation and leadership, is fundamental not only for understanding the nature of Gramsci’s early and continued involvement with questions of cultural strategy and institutions, but also as a key for deciphering and interpreting cultural policy themes that he later developed in the prison notebooks, and which originated in earlier debates. Finally, in Part III, I carry out a detailed analysis of Gramsci’s prison notes on questions of cultural strategy, policy and institutions, which enrich the theoretical underpinnings for critical frameworks of analysis as well as for radical practices of cultural strategy, cultural policy-making and cultural organisation. I then answer the question of whether Gramsci’s insights amount to a theory of cultural policy.     

A centralised market orientation: the implicit determinants of Finnish cultural policy in 1990–2010

This article examines the reactions of Finnish cultural policy to the neoliberal turn in its societal environment. The analysis of cultural policy documents in 1990–2010 concentrates on three particular elements of societal change: the reforms in public management, the reorientations in international relations and the paradigm of immaterial production. It is argued here that besides the mythical democratic pluralism of the Nordic welfare states, cultural policy treats newcomers to the political arena selectively. Consequently, the system, constructed originally for protecting free artistic expression and equal distribution of cultural possibilities, has been in the front line of political market orientation in Finland. The orientation is modelled rhetorically after the ideas of cultural pluralism and economic efficiency; in practice, the fight has been a technocratic one between different notions of governmental responsibilities. This mechanism stresses formal procedures at the expense of ad hoc negotiations, leading to a centralised market orientation.     

Who governs culture? Actors,federalism and expertise in Swiss regional cultural policy

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a novel approach to cultural policies and cultural policy change, drawing on public policy and institutional analysis to study how decision-making power is distributed between actors in the public and private sectors and at different state levels, as well as the precise roles of public administrations, elected officials and cultural actors. Indeed, rather than directly defining cultural policy, laws on culture mostly designate actors in charge of policy implementation. Based on an empirical application of this analytical framework to the case of Swiss cantons and focusing specifically on the positions of cultural actors, findings show that cultural policies are transformed in different ways, affording more or less power to actors from the cultural sector in implementation arrangements generally dominated by administrative actors.     

Dismantling the Soviet Security System. Soviet–Finnish Negotiations on Ending Their Friendship Agreement, 1989–91.

The Soviet Union had tied Finland to its security system through the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (FCMA) signed between the two in 1948. As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate at the end of the 1980s, Finland exited the Soviet sphere of influence – the region controlled through a system of bilateral and multilateral agreements. This article analyses the Soviet–Finnish negotiations to discard the FCMA treaty as a case study of the changing Soviet European neighbourhood policy. It gives important insights into the disintegration of the Soviet foreign policy mechanism during the Gorbachev era as it elaborates on both the intra-bureaucracy conflicts between the Kremlin and the Soviet foreign ministry, MID, and later between the Soviet central government and the Russian republic. As Finland was part of the Soviet security system, analysing Finland's exit from it sheds light onto the crucial change that took place in the Soviet foreign policy doctrine during the perestroika years. The Gorbachev leadership's decision not to defend its sphere of influence with force paved way for the upheavals of 1989 which led to the Cold War's end.     

Representations of the Outbreak of World War II in Polish Film, 1945–67: From Partial Recognition to a Component of National Memory

In September 1939, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, starting World War II. The war’s end in 1945 marked not the true liberation of the country, but the beginning of a period of Soviet domination that ended only in 1989. As a result, for forty-five years of Polish history, the alliance made by the Hitler with Stalin in 1939 and its tragic consequences for Poland were taboo across society. Polish filmmakers presenting the beginning of World War II were constrained by realities of the Communist state and its own historical narratives. These films reflect what happened to their country in 1939 and highlight the political changes that occurred within Poland under Communist rule, as well as the impact of shifts in the regime itself. The most significant period in this regard was 1945–67, when the outbreak of war was first presented following the end of Stalinism, emerging as a component of national memory both generally and for the Communist authorities.     

Making creative industries policy in the real world: differing configurations of the culture-market-state nexus in the UK and South Korea

ABSTRACT

This paper compares creative (content) industries policies in the UK and South Korea, highlighting the coevality in their development. Seeing them as ‘industrial policies’, it focuses on how state intervention is justified and why a certain set of policy options have been chosen. The UK policy-makers prefer passive and decentralised roles of the state that addresses market failures via generic and horizontal policies. Meanwhile, Koreans have consistently believed in the strong, resourceful and ambitious state in developing centralised, sector-specific policies for cultural industries. While demonstrating two contrasting approaches to the nation state’s management of cultural turn in the economy, both cases seem to present a ‘paradox’. Despite its neoliberal undertone, the horizontal and fused approach taken by the UK’s creative industries policy engenders some space for ‘cultural’ policy. On the contrary, the non-liberal and state-driven content industries policy in Korea has shown a stronger tendency of cultural commodification.     

Using Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of liberty to rethink cultural policy: a case of Poland

The overarching aim of this paper is to rethink the normative aspects of Polish cultural policy after 1989, using a conceptual framework built upon Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of liberty. More specifically, this article aims to analyse the rhetoric used in cultural policy and the practice of policy-making, in order to uncover and characterise the normative role that the state has played in shaping and executing cultural policy in Poland after 1989. The analysis shows that Polish cultural policy has been dominated by a perfectionist logic, which corresponds to Isaiah Berlin’s concept of positive liberty. It means that cultural policy has not been axiologically neutral but instead it has been based on state’s judgements about what kind of art is worthy support. On the other hand, the analysis shows that Polish cultural policy after 1989 cannot be classified as negative liberty.     

浅论苏区文化建设

中国共产党一贯重视文化建设。早在民主革命时期,党就在苏区根据地建立了专门的文化教育组织机构,颁布了一系列方针政策,尤其是在知识分子政策上纠正了"左"倾关门主义错误,广泛吸收利用知识分子。由此,苏区的文化教育事业蒸蒸日上,取得了令人瞩目的辉煌成就。     

The political impact of the European Capital of Culture: ‘Maribor 2012 gave us the power to change the regime’

The European Capital of Culture (ECoC) is a cultural political initiative of the European Union and is perceived as one of the most prestigious events in the community. Existing studies have neglected the political effects of hosting ECoC in terms of engendering regime change in host cities. The present study therefore tries to fill this gap and demonstrates how the cultural policy of Maribor 2012, including its implementation, impacted on local citizens’ communication and political activities and contributed to regime change in the city at the end of the cultural year. The paper employed document analysis, participant observation of all the main processes of ECoC Maribor 2012 and in-depth interviews with management, programme organisers, cultural operators and participants. It shows that through the empowerment of local citizens by means of bottom-up initiatives in the effective planning and implementation of ECoC, they challenged the regime and neoliberal system of Maribor.     

Culturally sustainable development: theoretical concept or practical policy instrument?

Abstract

This paper outlines the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development, and considers the evolution of efforts to integrate culture into sustainable development policy and practice over recent years. The specific concept of culturally sustainable development (CSD), first promulgated more than 20 years ago, is re-assessed in the light of contemporary circumstances as a theoretically plausible proposition and as a basis for application to cultural policy formation. The paper proposes a set of principles by which consistency of a cultural policy or cultural development strategy with CSD can be judged. The application of each of the principles is discussed, drawing illustrations from particular policy areas in both developed and developing countries. The paper argues that CSD is a concept that has both theoretical substance and potential for practical policy application.     

BOOK REVIEW

This article examines the transition from cultural industries to creative industries policies in the English regions between 1980 and 2010. It argues that audio-visual policy in this period is best understood as a trajectory: the gradual, differentiated, contested, but overall coherent development of a policy discourse and corresponding institutional structure. This trajectory can be mapped onto the wider political economy of the period: the transition from social-democratic reformism to neo-liberalism at the end of the 1970s and up to the present. This process has resulted in audio-visual policy being determined to a large degree by the perceived needs of commercial interests, up to the point where regional cultural policy is virtually indistinguishable from economic policy. The transition from cultural to creative industries reflects the development of the neo-liberal state in which cultural policy has been instrumentalised within the larger project of the privatisation of public assets and the shift of relative power from labour to capital.     

Cultural development: a new policy paradigm in the cultural policies of the 1970s in Québec

The common expression of ‘cultural development’ appears in many cultural policy statements without it necessarily arousing questions about its precise meaning. Indeed, we usually spontaneously associate ‘cultural development’ to any governmental intervention that aims at stimulating cultural vitality. However, if we look more closely at the origin of this concept, we soon discover that its appearance on the eve of May 68, in France, corresponds to the rise of new concerns in cultural policy matters and to a radical redefinition of the state’s role in this domain. Still enjoying a strong influence, France’s political transformations were closely followed by some Quebecois politicians and socially engaged intellectuals who were participating, at that time, in the formulation of a new political vision in cultural matters in Québec in the 1960s and 1970s. The objective of this paper is thus to retrace the origin of the idea of cultural development and follow its evolution in Québec.     

The end of cultural policy?1

ABSTRACT

The article discusses whether we are approaching the end of public cultural policy in Western democracies, because contemporary cultural policy is not adapted to major transformation processes in contemporary societies. I discuss seven different challenges/scenarios that public cultural policy has to confront today: (1) It appears to be very difficult to democratise culture. (2) Public authorities consistently continue to support cultural institutions that may be obsolete. (3) Professional artists are still poor, despite public support schemes. (4) Public cultural policy is still predominantly national, despite the globalisation of cultural production and distribution. (5) Public authorities increasingly justify subsidies to culture with reference to the beneficial effects that art and culture could have outside the cultural field. Therefore, one might argue that other public bodies could take better care of cultural affairs. (6) A specific public cultural sector may appear to ‘imprison’ culture in a bureaucratic ‘iron cage’. (7) Finally, one might argue that a public cultural policy has no sense in a period of stagnating public finances. In addition, I discuss several counterarguments to these challenges, without coming to a definite conclusion. I have based the analysis on available comparative research about the public cultural policies of Western democracies, predominantly Norwegian cultural policy.     

Film distribution as policy: current standards and alternatives

Much recent scholarship has identified an urgent need to address distribution opportunities for Australian cinema in a digital age. In trying to understand why Australian film policy has been beleaguered by complacency for distribution, this paper looks abroad to see what precedents and attitudes exist in distribution-related cultural policy. Why hasn’t support for distribution and exhibition been the touchstone of cultural policy for national cinemas? Why has policy support for the production sector prevailed, when distribution is the film industry’s key zone for profit? This paper surveys international policy examples of what governments are doing beyond the production realm. It examines legal interventions into the distribution realm, including direct state measures such as subsidies, levies, quotas and import restrictions, indirect state aid, and cultural initiatives by film funding bodies that stimulate audience engagement in the distribution and exhibition sectors. The paper combines these primary sources of film policy information with film historians’ accounts to provide a comparative analysis of national film distribution policies. It then examines the politics underlying the various policy frameworks, before mapping out an alternative strategy for the future of policy in Australia that is equipped to deal with the huge changes in digitalisation.     

Contemporary cultural diplomacy in South Korea: explicit and implicit approaches

This paper argues that in the case of Korea, cultural diplomacy (CD) has been explicitly implemented in a top-down and unilateral approach by government to enhance national prestige abroad, underpinned by the institutional legacy of a ‘developmental state’ model of governance. Yet, an implicit approach has also emerged, associated with capacity building of the domestic cultural industries through promoting ‘international cultural exchange’. Whilst the top-down unilateral approach has persisted, a disarray of policy rhetoric and institutional fragmentation surrounding CD, as well as the blurring of cultural industries development policy with the CD agenda has led to gradual convergence of both explicit and implicit approaches.     

Cultural policy archetypes: the bathwater and the baby

ABSTRACT

Cultural policy archetypes have been fundamental to comparative cultural policy study and continue to be influential in both everyday and scholarly characterizations of national cultural policy systems. This paper explores the proposition that cultural policy archetypes reflect what people believe to be true about culture – their cultural ideologies. Cultural ideologies are integral to the formation of cultural policy and, thus, must be considered in any theory that hopes to measure the extent to which and explain why cultural policies differ. Cultural ideologies embody ideas about why culture is important and how it should be governed. Those ideologies spotlight certain administrative mechanisms, overemphasizing their role in systems that actually are deeply administratively hybrid. This makes archetypes poor tools for analyzing the mechanisms of cultural policy; however, because archetypes tell us about cultural ideologies in straightforward and powerful ways, it is essential that they continue to be a part of comparative cultural policy study.     

On the legitimacy of cultural policies: analysing Québec’s cultural policy with the Economies of Worth

This paper explores the question of the legitimation of cultural policies by examining the case of the Canadian French-speaking province, Québec, where the consensus over the legitimacy and the purpose of a cultural policy was not easily reached. To understand the evolution of the justifications for state intervention in this field, we have analysed three major policy statements issued by the government of Québec as well as the criticisms levelled at the moment of their publication using the analytic framework the Economies of Worth. Developed by French sociologist Luc Boltanski and economist Laurent Thévenot, this framework conceptualises different regimes of justification that can be retraced in cultural policy statements. We explore more particularly the concept of ‘compromise’ which enables us to understand why cultural policies have difficulty achieving consensus. This paper thus aims at assessing the heuristic value of this interpretative device for cultural policy analysis.