Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgements
- An Introduction to Cultural Policy in the Polder
- A Well-Balanced Cultural Policy: An Interview with Minister of Culture Ingrid van Engelshoven
- 1 Legal Aspects of Cultural Policy
- 2 An International Perspective on Dutch Cultural Policy
- ‘A Subsidy to Make a Significant Step Upwards’: An Interview with Arjo Klingens
- 3 The Framing Game: Towards Deprovincialising Dutch Cultural Policy
- 4 Values in Cultural Policymaking: Political Values and Policy Advice
- An Exercise in Undogmatic Thinking: An Interview with Gable Roelofsen
- 5 Towards a Cultural Policy of Trust: The Dutch Approach from the Perspective of a Transnational Civil Domain
- 6 Dutch Media Policy: Towards the End of Reflective Diversity?
- ‘A More Holistic Approach to Problems’: An Interview with Hans Poll and Jacqueline Roelofs
- 7 Cultural Education Policy: Its Justification and Organisation
- 8 Culture for Everyone: The Value and Feasibility of Stimulating Cultural Participation
- ‘A Strong Field Needs Variation and Experimentation’: An Interview with Saskia Bak
- 9 The People's Palaces: Public Libraries in the Information Society
- 10 Cultural Policy at a Crossroads?: How the Matthew Effect, New Sociocultural Oppositions and Digitalisation Challenge Dutch National Cultural Policy
- ‘Production is Preceded by Talent Development’: An Interview with Sandra den Hamer
- Epilogue: A Systemic View of Dutch Cultural Policy in the Next 25 Years
- Overview of Dutch Ministers of / Secretaries for Culture and their most important Cultural Policy Documents
- Appendix: Facts and Figures on Culture and Cultural Policy in the Netherlands
- Authors’ Biographies
- Index
An Introduction to Cultural Policy in the Polder
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgements
- An Introduction to Cultural Policy in the Polder
- A Well-Balanced Cultural Policy: An Interview with Minister of Culture Ingrid van Engelshoven
- 1 Legal Aspects of Cultural Policy
- 2 An International Perspective on Dutch Cultural Policy
- ‘A Subsidy to Make a Significant Step Upwards’: An Interview with Arjo Klingens
- 3 The Framing Game: Towards Deprovincialising Dutch Cultural Policy
- 4 Values in Cultural Policymaking: Political Values and Policy Advice
- An Exercise in Undogmatic Thinking: An Interview with Gable Roelofsen
- 5 Towards a Cultural Policy of Trust: The Dutch Approach from the Perspective of a Transnational Civil Domain
- 6 Dutch Media Policy: Towards the End of Reflective Diversity?
- ‘A More Holistic Approach to Problems’: An Interview with Hans Poll and Jacqueline Roelofs
- 7 Cultural Education Policy: Its Justification and Organisation
- 8 Culture for Everyone: The Value and Feasibility of Stimulating Cultural Participation
- ‘A Strong Field Needs Variation and Experimentation’: An Interview with Saskia Bak
- 9 The People's Palaces: Public Libraries in the Information Society
- 10 Cultural Policy at a Crossroads?: How the Matthew Effect, New Sociocultural Oppositions and Digitalisation Challenge Dutch National Cultural Policy
- ‘Production is Preceded by Talent Development’: An Interview with Sandra den Hamer
- Epilogue: A Systemic View of Dutch Cultural Policy in the Next 25 Years
- Overview of Dutch Ministers of / Secretaries for Culture and their most important Cultural Policy Documents
- Appendix: Facts and Figures on Culture and Cultural Policy in the Netherlands
- Authors’ Biographies
- Index
Summary
Dutch Cultural Policy Before the Cultural Policy Act
Historically, central public authority in the Netherlands has been considered problematic. The country's origin as a confederate republic without strong central leadership has had the effect that the government usually works in a decentralised manner, giving leeway to provinces and cities. The modern Dutch state still tends to work ‘bottom up’, as recent trends in social and welfare policies demonstrate. As a result, the Netherlands possesses relatively few national cultural institutions in comparison to other countries. In addition, the national media historically were organised according to the ‘pillarised’ society, i.e. they were linked to religious and political denominations rather than to the nation-state. Before the Second World War, there was hardly any national cultural policy to speak of, apart from the preservation of cultural heritage, including national monuments and museums, and direct subsidies to a limited number of cultural institutions, such as orchestras and theatre companies. There was no separate department or Minister of culture1: the arts were administered by the ministry of the interior. The visual arts were supported by stipends and one national prize, the Prix de Rome. The mainstay of governmental support for the cultural sector was taken up by cities, which provided facilities such as libraries, museums, art galleries, concert halls and theatre venues. Art producers such as theatre companies were largely left to their own devices.
A national, centralised cultural policy system gradually developed in the post-war years. In contrast to the centralised bureaucracy built by the Nazis, which sought to bring cultural expressions under political control, this new system, though similar in structure, aimed to support the aesthetic independence and quality of the cultural sector. The new system evolved as a result of pressure from the cultural sector, which feared quality would suffer if left to their own devices—as had been the case before the war—and from city authorities who felt ill-equipped to effectively support arts production in the country. Moreover, there was a general consensus on the need for a cultural, not just economic and architectural, reconstruction of the nation after the Nazi occupation (see the section on the support for the national system for more details). At the same time, the rise of modern cultural genres—especially cinema—and growing possibilities for mass dissemination through radio and television required stronger oversight over the cultural sector.
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- Cultural Policy in the Polder25 Years Dutch Cultural Policy Act, pp. 11 - 36Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018