Week 1
• Culture is more than money
• Tillage of the soil (agriculture)
• 16th century: cultivation of mind and intellect
• 19th century: intellectual and spiritual development of civilisation as a whole
• Today: the entire way of life of a nation or society
• Main domains of culture
• Arts
• Heritage
• Urban issues
• Diversity
• Education
• Cultural industries
• Intellectual property
• Tourism
• Throsby’s CCI concentric circles
• Core creative arts
• Performing and visual arts
• Literature and poetry
• Mother of all other institutions and disciplines
• Other core culture industries
• Museums, libraries, theatres, film, photography
• Dependent on the core centre
• Wider cultural industries
• Heritage services, publishing houses, sound recording, TV, computer games
• Related industries
• Advertising, design, fashion, architecture
• Commercial output the highest at the outside
• Need for government help in the centre
• Why the CCI circles?
• Shows relationship to core arts
• Arts: mainly non profit, related industries more profit related
• The more commercial it is, the further it is from the arts
• Cultural value
• Core ones create new ideas that are used by peripheral ones
• Cultural value at the centre is the highest
• Those in the centre must be funded because they generate ideas and innovation for
the outer ones
• Shows how they are organised and dependent on each other and how they are
financed
• Cultural policy Qs
• What do we mean by cultural policy
• Why does it exist
• For whom is it made
• Who is responsible
• How are cultural policies organised and implemented
• How is it applied to various sectors
• Why are policies changing
• Approaches to answer the Qs
• Anthropological approach
• Human need of myths, rituals etc. to understand world and society
• We need to tell and create stories to answer questions we cannot find real answers
to
• Focus on: contents of myths/rituals, individual identity, group identity
• Story is ritualised to understand world and society (celebrate the story)
,• Historical approach
• How did culture change in time and why?
• Longitudinal study
• Focus on: origin and development
• Sociological approach
• Why and how do we behave as a group in culture
• Focus on: group identity and behaviour
• Economic approach
• Which values are realised in culture?
• Focus on: social, cultural, financial values
• Excellence, access, equity, efficiency
• Financial values are nothing without social or cultural values
• Only financial translation of a value you have in mind
• Geographic approach
• Where is culture distributed?
• Focus on: local, regional, national, international cultural policy
• Often combined with the 4 others
• Often the approaches are combined
• In this course 4 out of 5 (not anthropological)
• Which theoretical approaches do we use
• History: origin and development
• Specific focus on the historical formation of (international) cultural policy in various
countries
• Sociology: group behaviour
• Neo-institutionalist approach, legitimisation paradox, creative class
• Economics: values
• Excellence, access, equity, efficiency
• 4 theories: welfare economics, Pareto, second best, public choice
• Geographic: place
• Local, regional, national, international
• What is cultural policy
• Promotion of cultural practices and values by governments, corporations, other
institutions and individuals
• Can be explicit: objective openly described as cultural OR implicit: cultural objectives
are concealed in other terms
• More than only government (actors can also be organisations, corporations,
individuals (crows funding) etc.)
• Public sector
• Governmental sector
• Local, regional, national, international
• Private sector
• Market (profit)
• “Third sphere” (non-profit)
• Why do we need policy for culture?
• One point of view: culture develops on its own ( no policy necessary)
• Another point of view: culture has a value for society
• Social and cultural values go together to make an economy
• To foster quality of life
• Policy is necessary to steer, stimulate, foster, correct
• To ensure the existence, access, quality of the arts and cultural heritage
• According to welfare economics: cultural is part of a market failure
• Market imperfection
• When you run an opera house you cannot charge ticket prices accordingly
• Price mechanism does not work
• Expenses are higher than incomes
• This gap needs to be corrected
,• Example by government subsidies and grants
• Market failure is caused by characteristics of a public good
• Non rival and non excludable
• Also caused by externalities, asymmetric information
• Why should there be public policies for culture?
• Public good
• Externalities
• Information asymmetry
• Experience goods, gatekeepers
• Equity
• Versus efficiency
• Merit good
• Public choice
• Government decides on it and pays for it
• Baumol’s cost disease (Throsby 2010, p.69)
• Rising expenses and decreasing income
• Gap gets bigger and bigger
• Non-use values of culture
• Option, existence, bequest, prestige, identity, aesthetic, religious
• What does cultural policy intend (aims, goals)
• Ensure the existence of arts and heritage
• Enable access for all
• To raise and maintain quality
• Who are the cultural policy players
• International governments
• National governments
• Regional governments
• Corporations
• Individuals
• Cultural policy objectives
• Economic
• Efficiency
• Structured and efficient production
• Equity
• Growth
• Employment
• Price stability
• External balance
• What they want:
• Creativity —> innovation —> growth
• Entrepreneurship
• There is a risk related to it
• Market
• Boost export and access to funding
• Artistic, cultural, social objectives
• Producing and consuming creative art
• Excellence
• Innovation
• Access
• Defining cultural identity
• Creating diversity
• Ensuring continuity (sustainability)
• Heritage
• Education
• To communicate cultural values and practices
• Objectives of governmental cultural policy translated to values (examples)
, • Pluralism, participation, cultural heritage, protection —> public goods, externalities,
merit goods
• Identity, quality of art, internationalisation, cultural heritage protection —> prestige,
identity, value
• Who are the stakeholders
• Cultural workers: artists, support staff, teachers
• Not-for-profit firms with mainly artistic objectives
• Commercial firms: architecture, fashion etc.
• Public cultural institutions
• Education and training institutions
• Government agencies and ministries
• International organisations
• UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, EU, World Bank
• Consumers and consumer organisations
• Omnivores vs. Univores
• Who decides about cultural policy?
• Which level of government is responsible?
• Central vs. (Regional) local
• Ministry of culture vs. Other ministries
• International: EU vs. National governments
• How are responsibilities divided?
• Centralised or decentralised
• Should be organised
• Arms length organisations
• Idea from UK
• There is a ministry of culture that gives funds to arts council (of England, Wales etc.)
who decides who gets money
• There is an organisation that gets and distributes money according to their criteria
• How is the private (non-profit/profit) sector involved
• More and more “friends of”
• Different government levels:
• International level: international institutions/governments
• National level: national/federal government
• Regional level: provincial/regional government (counties, prefectures)
• Local level: municipalities
• Decision making process of creating a policy
1. Identification of products and activities
2. Identification of objectives
3. Allocation of responsibilities
4. Policy coordination
5. Choice of policy instruments
6. Implementation of policy measures
7. Monitoring and evaluation of effects of policy
• What do public/private sectors decide about
• Within the domains:
• Industry development
• Throughout the domains:
• Labour
• Trade
• Education
• Urban and regional development
• Environment
• IT and media
• Legal affairs
• Intellectual property
• Social welfare
