Lluís Bonet

The end(s) of national cultures? Cultural policy in the face of diversity

This paper analyses the impact of cultural diversity on cultural policies through an international overview of case studies and reflections. Cultural diversity is generally perceived as a threat toward national cultures. However, this paper argues that (1) there exist substantial national differences in the way in which diversity is perceived and integrated as a policy paradigm; and (2) cultural diversity can be used as an instrument for reconfiguring cultural policies, regardless of the governmental level in question. The authors discuss whether cultural policies of diversity exist and what they are. They also examine the practical consequences of the emergence of a new paradigm concerning the redefinition and implementation of cultural policies within a triple context: the plurality of the territorial configurations of diversity, the simultaneous coexistence of several levels of understanding this issue, and the economic dimensions of cultural diversity.

Cultural policy in Spain: processes and dialectics

The redistribution of powers concerning cultural policy corresponds to a specific historical trajectory as well as to political and commercial dynamics. Thirty years since the 1978 Constitution, Spain is a quasi-federal state. Their cultural life and policies have expanded and have been decentralized. The redistribution process is a result of the search of effectiveness confronted with the question of the legitimization of power. Legitimacy is a permanent theme of debate as well as a discursive and strategic instrument between institutional actors, and it sheds light on the apparent inconsistencies of the multi-level governance of cultural policies. To study the different aspects of these relationships, the article principally focuses on three areas. The first is an institutional analysis, which allows us to determine the place of each institutional actor within the network of cultural policies as well as the horizontal and vertical interactions. The second is an analysis of the public financing of culture, which permits us to measure the quantitative impact of cultural policies within the centre–periphery dynamic. The third is an analysis of public policies, which allows a comparative approach to the dynamics of the autonomous community regime. The dialectic between differentiation and standardization, a mark of cultural policies modernity in the context of centre–periphery relationships, is a result of the pressure from the main players on the different Spanish cultural and territorial markets. Examples of “good practices” mimicry as well as of “new” pattern models, like the new Arts Council of Catalonia, are used to expose the non-existence of a formal Spanish model of cultural policy, but shows the process of innovation-reply product strategies, and the dialectic between political autonomy and homogenization processes.

Autonomía y cooperación en los modelos federalizantes de política cultural. Análisis comparativo de los casos de Alemania, EEUU, Canadá, Suiza, Reino Unido y España

Desde los anos ochenta diversas investigaciones han profundizado en la comparacion de los diversos modelos de las politicas culturales nacionales. Asimismo, el interes por la descentralizacion cultural y el reconocimiento de la diversidad cultural y nacional ha crecido en paralelo a la importancia de la accion cultural publica de las regiones y las municipalidades. Sin embargo, no se han desarrollado estudios que permitan comparar de forma sistematica la relacion entre los modelos de federalismo y los modelos de politica cultural de un Estado. Este trabajo persigue cubrir este vacio realizando una comparativa de seis paises federales o casi federales que han destacado en su desarrollo de politicas culturales, comparando sus diferentes niveles de autonomia, gobierno compartido y del reconocimiento de distintas identidades culturales y nacionales.