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.