Cultural policy


Cultural policy is the government actions, laws and programs that regulate, protect, encourage and financially support activities related to the arts and creative sectors, such as painting, sculpture, music, dance, literature, and filmmaking, among others and culture, which may involve activities related to language, heritage and diversity. The idea of cultural policy was developed at UNESCO in the 1960s. Generally, this involves governments setting in place processes, legal classifications, regulations, legislation and institutions which promote and facilitate cultural diversity and creative expressions in a range of art forms and creative activities. Cultural policies vary from one country to another, but generally they aim to improve the accessibility of arts and creative activities to citizens and promote the artistic, musical, ethnic, sociolinguistic, literary and other expressions of all people in a country. In some countries, especially since the 1970s, there is an emphasis on supporting the culture of Indigenous peoples and marginalized communities and ensuring that cultural industries are representative of a country's diverse cultural heritage and ethnic and linguistic demographics.
Cultural policy can be done at a nation-state level, at a sub-national level, at a regional level or at a municipal level. Examples of cultural policy-making at the nation-state level could include anything from funding music education or theatre programs at little to no cost, to hosting corporate-sponsored art exhibitions in a government museum, to establishing legal codes and creating political institutions, arts granting councils, and cultural institutions such as galleries and museums. Similar significant organisations in the United Kingdom include the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and Arts Council England.
Throughout much of the twentieth century, many of the activities that compose cultural policy in the 2010s were governed under the title of "arts policy". Arts policy includes direct funding to artists, creators and art institutions and indirect funding to artists and arts institutions through the tax system. However, as Kevin Mulcahy has observed, "cultural policy encompasses a much broader array of activities than were addressed under arts policy. Whereas arts policy was effectively limited to addressing aesthetic concerns, the significance of the transformation to cultural policy can be observed in its demonstrable emphases on cultural identity, valorization of indigineity and analyses of historical dynamics." A general trend in Western industrialized nations is a shift, since the 1970s and 1980s, away from solely supporting a small number of relatively elite, professionalized art forms and institutions to also supporting amateur and community cultural and creative activities and cultural forms which were not considered part of the Western canon by previous generations.

History

Prior to the twentieth century, the arts were typically supported by the patronage of the church, aristocrats such as kings and queens, and wealthy merchants. During the nineteenth century, artists increased their use of the private marketplace to earn revenue. For example, the composer Beethoven put on public concerts in the 19th century for which admission was charged. During the twentieth century, governments began to take over some of the arts patronage roles. Governments' first efforts to support culture were typically the establishment of archives, museums and libraries. Over the twentieth century, governments established a range of other institutions, such as arts councils and departments of culture. The first departments of culture typically supported the major arts that are part of the Western canon, such as painting and sculpture, and the major performing arts.

Arts policy

In the twentieth century, Western governments in the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many European nations developed arts policy measures to promote, support and protect the arts, artists and arts institutions. These governments' arts policy initiatives generally had two aims: supporting excellence in the arts and broadening access to the arts by citizens. An example of an arts policy initiative that supports excellence would be a government grant program which provides funding to the highest-achieving artists in the country. A concrete example would be a literary prize of $100,000 for the best fiction authors from the country, as selected by a panel of top experts. An example of an arts policy initiative that aims at increasing access to the arts would be a music in the schools program funded by the government. A concrete example would be a program which funded an orchestra or jazz quartet and paid them to play free concerts in elementary schools. This would enable children from lower- and middle-income families to hear live music.
The two goals, supporting excellence and broadening access, are often trade-offs, as any increase in emphasis on one policy objective typically has an adverse effect on the other goal. To give an example, if a hypothetical country has a $12 million per year grant program for orchestras in the country, if the government focuses on the goal of supporting musical excellence, it may decide to provide $4 million per year to the three top orchestras in the country, as determined by a panel of independent professional music critics, conductors and music professors. This decision would strongly support the goal of enhancing excellence, as funding would only go to the top musical groups. However, this approach would only enable citizens in three cities to have access to professional orchestras.
On the other hand, if the government was focusing on broadening access to symphony concerts, it might direct the independent panel to pick 12 orchestras in the country, with the stipulation that only one orchestra per city be selected. By proving $1 million per year to 12 orchestras in 12 cities, this would enable citizens from 12 cities in the country to see live orchestra shows. However, by funding 12 orchestras, this would mean that funding would go to ensembles that do not meet the highest standards of excellence. Thus, excellence and broadening access are often trade-offs.

Theoretical approaches

Cultural policy, while a small part of the budgets of even the most generous of governments, governs a sector of immense complexity. It entails "a large, heterogeneous set of individuals and organizations engaged in the creation, production, presentation, distribution, and preservation of and education about aesthetic heritage, and entertainment activities, products and artifacts". A cultural policy necessarily encompasses a broad array of activities and typically involves public support for:
Some governments may place policy areas from this list in other ministries or departments. For example, national parks may be assigned to an environment department, or public humanities may be delegated to an education department.
Since culture is a public good and something that is generally viewed as a merit good, governments have pursued programs to promote greater accessibility. In this way of thinking, significant aesthetic works such as paintings and sculptures should be made broadly available to the public. In other words, "high culture" should not be the exclusive preserve of a particular social class or of a metropolitan location. Rather, the benefits of the highest reaches of cultural excellence should be made in an egalitarian manner; national cultural treasures should be accessible without regard to the impediments of class circumstances, educational attainment or place of habitation. A democratic state cannot be seen as simply indulging the aesthetic preferences of a few, however enlightened, or of overtly infusing art with political values. Consequently, a democratic cultural policy must articulate its purposes in ways that demonstrate how the public interest is being served. These purposes have often been expressed as involving either the creation of cultural democracy or the democratization of culture.
The objective of cultural democratization is the aesthetic enlightenment, enhanced dignity, and educational development of the general citizenry. "Dissemination was the key concept with the aim of establishing equal opportunity for all citizens to participate in publicly organized and financed cultural activities". To further this goal, performances and exhibitions are low cost; public art education promotes equality of aesthetic opportunity; national institutions tour and perform in work places, retirement homes and housing complexes.
As indicated earlier, the "democratization of culture" is a top-down approach that promulgates certain forms of cultural programming that are deemed to be a public good. Clearly, such an objective is open to criticism for what is termed cultural elitism; that is, the assumption that some aesthetic expressions are inherently superior - at least as determined by a cognoscenti concerned with the acquisition of cultural capital. "The problem with this policy that, fundamentally, it intend to create larger audiences for performances whose content based on the experience of society's privileged groups. In sum, it has... taken for granted that the cultural needs of all society's members alike". The objective of cultural democracy, on the other hand, is to provide for a more participatory approach in the definition and provision of cultural opportunities.
The coupling of the concept of democratization of culture to cultural democracy has a pragmatic as well as a philosophical component. Cultural patronage in democratic governments is markedly different from patronage by wealthy individuals or corporations. Private or politically paramount patrons are responsible only to themselves and are free to indulge in their tastes and preferences. Democratic governments, on the other hand, are responsible to the electorate and are held accountable for their policy decisions.
The two objectives just discussed - dissemination of high culture and participation in a broader range of cultural activities - evoke a related debate about the content of public culture: "elitist" or "populist."