Public policies of the culture and arts

A public policy of the culture and arts , whatever the Community which conceives it and implement it (State, area, Commune) can be defines as a whole of actions showing the following main features:

of the objectives laid down a priori, giving a coherence, priorities and a direction to follow to obtain results,
financial means, human, administrative and logistic ones,
a development in time with programs and a planning of the implementation.

These three great characteristics arise in particular from the European Programme of evaluation of the cultural policies leads by the the Council of Europe (see bibliography, D' Angelo and Vespérini).

In a comparative approach of the public policies of the Culture in Europe, several common points are to be underlined, even if the national models of organization and regulation of the fields cultural can appear with many different regards.

The widening of the field of the public policies of the culture

The term of Culture can take on a broad design, Anthropologique, as that which UNESCO gives: the whole of the lifestyles, the values and the beliefs . It can also cover a restricted definition: the field to which a public policy applies who proclaims " culturelle" . However this field did not cease widening, passing from what one can call the heritage of arts courtiers to a whole of activities which contribute to a notation symbolic of the values, beliefs and lifestyles which found a Communauté. Several examples:
- after the Second world war, public radio-televisions which will dominate during forty years the European audiovisual landscape are equipped with cultural missions (and not only of entertainment): orchestras and choruses of radios, coproductions of films, emissions cultural,…),
- artistic expressions were recognized like culturally legitimate: arts of the Circus for example, the Cartoon, but also the Theater of street or even of the carnivals multicuturels, the Hip-hop, etc

The force of the identity referents

The Cultural identity of a community whatever it is builds on a feeling of membership and of difference, For Manuel Manors house, it rests on three fundamental attributes: the Language, the Religion and the Tradition (in particular in the lifestyle).

Any cultural policy must thus take into account storage the elements and Patrimoine material and immaterial of the community to which it is referred.

The cultural identity could thus seem round towards the past; however it constitutes an essential component in the project and the Sustainable development.

The constitution of the national identities rested everywhere in Europe on cultural Institutions which sometimes even were of the flag-holders. Thus progressively of the independence of country such as the Finland (1917), the Hungary, the Czechoslovakia (1918), etc, their national cultural institutions were legitimated in the defense and the promotion of their artists, creators and their national cultures.

The same phenomenon is with work in the regional fact. The continuous political reinforcement of the area, after the Second world war, did not cease being based on identity referents. Thus, the Catalonia, the Flandres, the Wallonia or the Corsica and the Scotland (in 1999) exerted the cultural competences granted by the fundamental laws of their countries and directed their respective cultural policies with the service of the reinforcement of their identities.

The public investment in arts and the culture

Even if the statistical data miss to evaluate the Public expenditure precisely for the culture in the European countries, all lets think that this one increased overall in constant value. There was however a certain redistribution of the roles between different the communities. One will take some examples which are enough speaking:
- with the Netherlands, the share of the national expenditure dropped appreciably as from 1985, but was relayed by the communes,
- in Italy, it is the rise to power of the areas which mitigated a certain stagnation of the national expenditure,
- with the the United Kingdom, the assignment with the cultural activities of part of the national Lottery constituted a very important resource coming to finance cultural equipment or artisanal achievements, or of the activities considered as creative.

This financial indicator of the direct public intervention is not however sufficient to evaluate how the public policies took into account the cultural one. Indeed, parallel to their direct supports, the States were brought more and more to set up indirect devices of support, in particular tax (and also, sometimes, social like the mode of the Contract workers in France, or of the special funds for the Social security of the Artistes as in Sweden and Germany). Special rates of VAT, incentives various and varied to as well support the private financings by the Patronage of company as by the Donation S or foundations.

The political movement of decentralization

Historically, the first decentralized capacities qualified in the sector of arts were the cities. They profited (some since the Moyen-âge) from a free administration, which encouraged them to deal with artistic questions, of Urbanisme, Architecture, of festivals and ceremonies, etc With the XIX° century, the cities find or provide grounds to build theaters there - buildings where several arts were cotoyaient, of the Musée S, the schools of art, etc a certain symbiosis between the municipal officials local elections and the middle-class elites " friends of the arts" , allows important cultural achievements (for example with Milan, the Theater of the Scala is municipalisé in the first years of the 20th century, not being able more to survive like a private Entreprise commercial).

In the second part of the XX° century, with the regional question in Europe, the role of this institutional level in the public action was posed in favor of the Culture. In what this one (even of the infra-regional levels like the department in France or the province in Spain and Italy) was it more relevant to treat cetaines questions such as the Town and country planning (under-equipped rural areas). Could cultural institutions traditionally taken of load by big cities be missionnées by regional authorities on projects having a regional radiation and allowing a better access in the rural areas or small towns?

Lastly, the fall of the Communisme brought from 1990 the Central European countries and Eastern has to engage of the important reforms of decentralization by which could be made the desetatisation of the structures acting in the field of arts and the culture.

The instrumentalisation of the cultural policies

One can speak about instrumentalisation when the public cultural activity is carried out to serve as the Objectifs of other policies. Generally those are about the image and/or of the development. For all community, it always raises the question of the impact when she wants to justify cultural choices (for example, why is necessary it to invest in a museum of Contemporary art which will interest a priori only one weak part of the population?).

In the international economic competition, the public authorities are brought to make arts and culture of the means so that their community or their territory profits from an increased visibility. The cultural events as of the Festivals for example are easily médiatisables. The benefit of an image is certainly difficult to evaluate, but it has certainly an impact in term of Economic development.

In the question of the development, there is certainly economic dimension (for example induced employment) but the concept is broader. Part of the cultural activities concerns what one called the " Third sector " who gathers part of the not-commercial activities, often rather precarious (small Association S, cooperative society, etc).

The weakening of the objectives of cultural democratization with the profit of objectives of cultural democracy

As of the Inter-war period, the public intervention of the States, range in particular by political parties socio-democrats as in Austria (1st Republic), in Sweden (as from 1932) or an left alliance as in France (Popular front in 1936), lays down objectives of democratization of the culture. It is a question of giving access to the culture of the underprivileged social categories. This objective is enough shared after the second world war and gives place to programs which besides bind executives defined nationally in local interventions. For example in Italy, since 1947, with the “theaters of cities”, the republican State wants to found a process of moral and civil rebuilding while leaving the Dramatic art the crisis where the Fascisme had plunged. The State then seeks to make a Public service capable of it guarantee to the community a spectacle quality and to conquer with this art the social classes which were traditionally excluded from it. The national device then envisaged an intervention incentive the big cities to renovate or develop their theatrical institutions. Thereafter, in the years 1970, the municipalities become the protagonists of a growth without precedent of the structures of diffusion of the dramatic art. In one decade, supporting number of local government agencies directly or the indirectly theatrical activities was going to pass from 100 to 800.

The Welfare state and its project of cultural democratization undoubtedly culminates in France when, under the impulse of Malraux, a vast plan must equip with the medium-sized cities (Angers, Caen, Grenoble, etc) of Houses of the Culture.

However, the new claims which emergent in particular with the movements of 1968 of cultures known as alternative will bring a significant evolution in the political orientations of the communities. The doctrines of the cultural democracy which preaches the equality of the cultural expressions without hierarchy between them gradually bring to make evolve/move the design of the public supports. Thus the turn is very Net in France as from 1981 when Jack Lang sets up a direction of cultural development at the ministry for the Culture and that one attends the installation of one support for the music Rock. In the same way in Germany, Soziokultur which related to cultural practices in alternative places as of old factories (for example Kulturfabrik in Frankfurt was one of these pioneers places).

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