1st Edition

Cultural Policy and Democracy

Edited By Geir Vestheim Copyright 2015

    This book discusses how public cultural policies can relate to the principle political issue of democracy. Here, democratic cultural policies include ideas and ideologies, institutional structures, agents and interests, power, access and participation and distribution of economic resources. Contributors focus on analysing the relationship between a political system and culture and the arts as an empirical field. They critically consider questions such as: How do different democratic forms affect cultural policy consequences? Can cultural autonomy be combined with cultural democracy? How is cultural policy-making used as a political process and which interests are involved? What position does popular culture have in cultural policies? How does a former Soviet state like Lithuania handle the question of culture and democracy? What does it mean when UNESCO talks about cultural diversity? How did intellectuals act in cultural policy debates in France in the late 19th century? The volume also looks at whether the democratisation of culture is actually possible.

    This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Cultural Policy.

    1. Cultural policy and democracy: an introduction Geir Vestheim

    2. Democratic cultural policy: democratic forms and policy consequences Clive Gray

    3. Autonomy or democratic cultural policy: that is the question Roger Blomgren

    4. Cultural policy-making: negotiations in an overlapping zone between culture, politics and money Geir Vestheim

    5. UNESCO and cultural diversity: democratisation, commodification or governmentalisation of culture? Miikka Pyykkönen

    6. Post-Soviet transformation of Lithuanian state cultural policy: the meanings of democratisation Egle Rindzeviciute

    7. Democratising the popular: the case of pop music in France and Britain David L. Looseley

    8. Cultural democratisation in the struggle between public intellectuals and the state: the debate on the ‘Theatre of the People’ in France (1895-1905) Vincent Dubois

    Biography

    Geir Vestheim is a professor of cultural policy studies at Telemark University College, Norway. He has written many theoretical and historical articles and books about cultural policy, and is one of the founders of cultural policy studies as a research field in the Nordic countries and internationally.