The Arts, Politics and Change

Participative Cultural Policy-making in South East Europe

Editors: Hanneloes Weeda , Corina Şuteu and Cas Smithuijsen

The reform of cultural policies in South East Europe is recorded in a new book, The Arts, Politics and Change, in which practitioners and experts on cultural policy describe the results achieved to date.

Sensible cultural policy frameworks are key to developing a stable cultural sector and flourishing cultural activity. Since the political changes in South East Europe in the 1990s, a participative reform of the previously state-funded cultural system and a strengthening of the independent sector in South East Europe proved to be necessary.

To support this process, in the year 2000 the regional framework programme Policies for Culture (www.policiesforculture.org) commenced, run by the ECUMEST Association, Bucharest, and the ECF, Amsterdam. Following a bottom-up approach and aiming to bridge the gap between the cultural field and the policymaking level in South East Europe, an open platform was established. This platform enabled the various stakeholders to meet and discuss the day-to-day needs of cultural policy and to redesign them.

The first (theoretical) part of The Arts, Politics and Change, entitled Cultural policy in South East Europe, includes essays on the following topics: 1) centralism or decentralisation, 2) transforming regulatory frameworks, 3) rethinking state funding, and 4) the role of the media. The second part of the book, The power of local action, consists of case studies on: 1) cultural policy practices in South East European cities, 2) influencing legislation in South East Europe, and 3) cultural funding in South East Europe.

The programme's exciting experiments may also serve as an inspiration for the wider community of European and non-European countries and for all institutions and individual researchers involved in examining the role of cultural policy frameworks in politically and socially unstable societies.

Authors

Ela Agotić, Tsveta Andreeva, Odile Chenal, Vesna Čopič, Milena Deleva, Philipp Dietachmair, Sanjin Dragojević, Christopher Gordon, Vjeran Katunarić, Marius Lazurca, François Matarasso, Delia Mucică, Oana Radu, Cas Smithuijsen, Corina Şuteu, Lidia Varbanova, Yuriy Vulkovsky, Hanneloes Weeda, and Andrea Zlatar.

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