Cultural policy, like any other domain, does not operate in a vacuum. The international context of cultural policy is relevant from two perspectives. First, a comparison between policy systems and policy practice can shed light on the typical characteristics of national cultural policy. And second, the tension between national and international perspectives on culture plays a part within national cultural policy. This chapter explores both perspectives. It starts out by exploring the ways in which it may be viable to compare policy systems. It will do so first with regard to the systemic aspect of cultural policy by answering the question of how the Dutch system differs from other national cultural policies. Second, it will explore the role of national culture in Dutch cultural policy so as to determine the Dutchness of Dutch cultural policy. With regard to the latter, this chapter focuses on the role that national culture plays in Dutch international cultural policy, i.e. that part of cultural policy that concerns itself with international cultural cooperation and exchange as well as cultural diplomacy.

National Culture and National Cultural Policy

National culture has been a key feature of industrialisation and an engine of modernity. The formation of a national culture at the beginning of nation-states ‘helped to create standards of universal literacy, generalized a single vernacular language as the dominant medium of communication throughout the nation, created a homogeneous culture and maintained national cultural institutions, such as a national education system’ (Hall 1992: 612). The construction of a unifying national culture thus played a crucial role in the stability of the nation-state as regime throughout the world. But as a result of globalisation, the role of culture as a national identity layer has become less self-evident. As Zygmunt Bauman points out, three waves of migration led to a gradual degradation of the stability caused by the close connection between culture and nation-states (2011: 34). The first migration wave, which mainly occurred in the nineteenth century, consisted of two elements: an increase in emigration to the new continents and colonisation. The second wave occurred in the opposite direction: immigration (or remigration) from the former colonies.