Creating the cultures of the future: cultural strategy, policy and institutions in Gramsci

Abstract

Gramsci’s writings have rarely been discussed and used systematically by scholars in cultural policy studies, despite the fact that in cultural studies, from which the field emerged, Gramsci had been a major source of theoretical concepts. Cultural policy studies were, in fact, theorised as an anti-Gramscian project between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when a group of scholars based in Australia advocated a major political and theoretical reorientation of cultural studies away from hegemony theory and radical politicisation, and towards reformist–technocratic engagement with the policy concerns of contemporary government and business. Their criticism of the ‘Gramscian tradition’ as inadequate for the study of cultural policy and institutions has remained largely unexamined in any detail for almost 20 years and seems to have had a significant role in the subsequent neglect of Gramsci’s contribution in this area of study. This essay, consisting of three parts, is an attempt to challenge such criticism and provide an analysis of Gramsci’s writings, with the aim of proposing a more systematic contribution of Gramsci’s work to the theoretical development of cultural policy studies. In Part I, I question the use of the notion of ‘Gramscian tradition’ made by its critics, and challenge the claim that it was inadequate for the study of cultural policy and institutions. In Parts II and III, I consider Gramsci’s specific writings on questions of cultural strategy, policy and institutions, which have so far been overlooked by scholars, arguing that they provide further analytical insights to those offered by his more general concepts. More specifically, in Part II, I consider Gramsci’s pre-prison writings and political practice in relation to questions of cultural strategy and institutions. I argue that the analysis of these early texts, which were written in the years in which Gramsci was active in party organisation and leadership, is fundamental not only for understanding the nature of Gramsci’s early and continued involvement with questions of cultural strategy and institutions, but also as a key for deciphering and interpreting cultural policy themes that he later developed in the prison notebooks, and which originated in earlier debates. Finally, in Part III, I carry out a detailed analysis of Gramsci’s prison notes on questions of cultural strategy, policy and institutions, which enrich the theoretical underpinnings for critical frameworks of analysis as well as for radical practices of cultural strategy, cultural policy-making and cultural organisation. I then answer the question of whether Gramsci’s insights amount to a theory of cultural policy.

Keywords:

• Gramsci
• cultural policy
• cultural policy studies

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Richard Johnson and Anne Showstack Sassoon for their penetrating comments and insightful advice. I am grateful to Steve Chibnall for his encouragement and help. Jeff Hill and Tim O’Sullivan have had the patience of discussing some of the ideas in their early stages.

Notes

1. Throughout this article, when discussing Gramsci’s writings, I provide references to the page numbers of the available English translations. When more than one translation is available, I reference the older most widespread anthology. References to the Italian critical edition of the prison notebooks (Q) are added in parenthesis; they also allow a rapid location of the notes (although not of the page numbers) in the first three volumes so far published of the English critical edition of the prison notebooks (PN). Where no published translations are available, translations are my own. A list of abbreviations of editions and anthologies of Gramsci’s writings cited in this article is provided with the list of references. Concordance tables of the anthologies of English translations with the Italian critical edition of the prison notebooks are available at http://www.internationalgramscisociety.org/resources/concordance_table/index.html. For the dates of Gramsci’s prison notes, I refer to Francioni (1984a).

2. In 1987, they established an Institute for Cultural Policy Studies at Griffith University. The institute was directed, for the first three years, by Tony Bennett. For an account of this intellectual enterprise by one of its protagonists, see Mercer (1994). The Centre later became the Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy, which Bennett directed from 1995 to 1998, when he returned to Britain (Bennett 2007).

3. See, for example, Bennett (1992).

4. This criticism should also be seen in the context of a broader rejection of a then perceived dominance of Gramsci’s influence within cultural studies. See, for example, Harris (1992).

5. For a detailed analysis of the role of this process in Gramsci’s thinking, see Sassoon (1990), reprinted in Martin (2002).

6. See Buttigieg (1990) and Buttigieg’s introduction to PN1, pp. 42–64.

7. The role of paradoxical reasoning in Gramsci’s thought has been captured in Sassoon (2000), Chapter 2 ‘The challenge to traditional intellectuals’.

8. I am thinking, for example, of the potential contribution of dialectical critical realism proposed by MacLennan and Thomas (2003).

9. I will discuss this aspect of Gramsci’s reception in the introduction to Part III.

10. Classic texts on Gramsci’s political theory include Buci-Glucksmann (1980 [1975]) and Sassoon (1987 [1980]). On cultural aspects, see Adamson (1980) and Crehan (2002).

11. Overviews of interpretations of Gramsci’s writings are: Davidson (1972), Mouffe and Sassoon (1977), Mouffe (1979a), Femia (1979, reprinted in Martin 2002), Sassoon (1982a), Buttigieg (1994) and Liguori (1996). For a recent outline of post-1989 scholarship, see Vacca (2011). Specifically on the interpretations of Gramsci in the English-speaking world, see Eley (1984) and Forgacs (1989), both reprinted in Martin (2002). Recent important philological work in the analysis of Gramsci’s prison notebooks has attempted to free Gramsci’s central concepts from a host of old interpretations and controversies, and to focus, instead (following Gramsci’s own indications), on the systematic reconstruction of the theoretical evolution of his concepts without trying to distil a single meaning. See, for example, Francioni (1984) and Frosini and Liguori (2004). This work has not been translated into English, but it is discussed extensively in Thomas (2009). However, it seems that a pioneer of the evolutionary approach has been Christine Buci-Glucksmann (1980 [1975]), who has also integrated what she has called the ‘constant restructusring’ (p. 8) in Gramsci’s though with that of his political practice.

12. Throughout my three-part essay, I use the expression ‘Australian school’ as a shorthand because this is how this intellectual formation has come to be described in the literature, although its members eventually moved back to Britain (see McGuigan 2003).

13. Bennett has defined the study of cultural policy as ‘concerned with the instruments (legal, administrative, economic) through which governments provide, regulate and manage cultural resources and the uses to which they are put. The objectives that are pursued by these means can be divided into three broad, but overlapping, categories – the symbolic, the social and the economic’ (Bennett 2004, p. 3092).

14. Hegemony is considered a central concept in Gramsci’s conception of politics (Sassoon 1987 [1980], note 4, p. 232). It is in fact perhaps the most studied amongst all of Gramsci’s concepts and the one that has generated most interpretative controversies. Classic texts include Williams (1960) and, Femia (1975). A useful account is Boothman (2008). An important text, also for the analysis of the concept of hegemony in relation to those of state and civil society, is Francioni (1984b), an extended critique of Perry Anderson’s highly influential article of 1976. As a starting point for my discussion, we can refer to the following synthetic definition: ‘It has to do with the way one social group influences other groups, making certain compromises with them in order to gain their consent for its leadership in society as a whole. Thus particular, sectional interests are transformed and some concept of the general interest is promoted’ (‘Hegemony’, in Sassoon 1982b, pp. 13–14). Gramsci often restricted the discussion to specific aspects of hegemony by adding qualifiers, as for example in the expressions ‘political hegemony’ (FS 306 (Q 10, 6-IIiv, 1245)), ‘intellectual hegemony’, ‘ethical-political hegemony’, ‘economic hegemony’ (PN2 183 (Q 4, 38, 461); PN3 30 (Q 6, 38, 713); SPN 161 (Q 13,18, 1591)); ‘intellectual and moral hegemony’ (SCW 255 (Q 23, 57, 2253)), ‘cultural hegemony’ (SCW 184 (Q 29, 3, 2346)) ‘cultural-political hegemony’ (Q 9, 132, 1192; Q 13, 26, 1618). This can be taken to mean that the generic word ‘hegemony’ included all such aspects.

15. Criticism of Gramsci’s principle of hegemony within cultural studies continued in the following decade. See, for example,Thoburn (2007) and, in the same journal issue, Lash (2007). For a powerful response see, again in the same journal issue, Johnson (2007).

16. For Gramsci, ‘every social group, coming into existence on the original terrain of an essential function in the world of economic production, creates together with itself, organically, one or more strata of intellectuals which give it homogeneity and an awareness of its own function not only in the economic but also in the social and political fields. The capitalist entrepreneur creates alongside himself the industrial technician, the specialist in political economy, the organisers of a new culture, of a new legal system, etc.’ (SPN 5(Q 12, 1, 1513)). These were ‘organic intellectuals’ (Q 12, 1, 1522). ‘However, every “essential” social group (…) has found (…) categories of intellectuals already in existence and which seemed indeed to represent an historical continuity uninterrupted even by the most complicated and radical changes in political and social forms’; examples included the ecclesiastics (SPN 6–7 (Q 12, 1, 1514)). These were ‘traditional intellectuals’.

17. See Bennett 1997. Hall discussed his understanding of the role of the organic intellectual in Hall (1992).

18. The role of the organic intellectual has often been simplified and misunderstood to mean (as in Bennett here) an organiser of consent or of the political opposition.

19. For other uses of the concept of hegemony, see Boothman (2008).

20. See Adamson (1980).

21. This positive evaluation of Gramsci’s use of language is antithetical to Perry Anderson’s argument that it watered down the distinctiveness of Gramsci’s concepts (Adamson 1980). Peter Ives (2004) has linked Gramsci’s reliance on existing meanings of words to Gramsci’s own criticism of the artificial creation of new words as ‘neolalism’, a pathological use of language. I discuss Gramsci’s view of ‘neolalism’ in relation to cultural policy questions in Part III.

22. See, for example, Sassoon (1982b), and the glossary in AGR, pp. 420–431.

23. See SCW 150–163 (Q 4, 78–87, 516–530); SCW 359–362 (Q 21, 6, 2120–2123); SCW 203–206 (Q 14, 72, 1737–1740); SCW 138–146 (Q 9, 134, 1195–1197); (Q 14, 15, 1670–1674); Q 14, 21, 1678–1679. In the case of literature, as with the arts in general, Gramsci recognised a degree of autonomy of the aesthetic element. For him, the arts were always part of a specific culture, and therefore cultural history could contribute to art history and criticism. This meant that art historians and critics could legitimately investigate the ideologies circulating in a work of art, but they should not judge a work as beautiful on the basis of its moral and political content (Buttigieg 1998).

24. The concept of cultura politica (political culture) was used by De Sanctis in a way presumably similar to the contemporary usage by German cultural historians like Gustav Klemm. Klemm had borrowed the concept from Voltaire’s notion of culture as expressed in customs, beliefs and forms of government (see Tucker 1973).

25. By ‘syncretism’ I mean the ‘attempted union or reconciliation of diverse or opposite tenets or practices’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 2009). In Williams’ case, this seemed manifest in his attempt to reconcile the thought of different Marxist theorists to create a new synthesis. By contrast, I understand ‘eclecticism’ as referring to the borrowing of concepts from a number of different theorists and combining them, but retaining them as distinct. Alastair Davidson has used the adjective ‘eclectic’ to describe Stuart Hall’s borrowing of Gramsci’s concepts (see Davidson 2008).

26. See Note 14.

27. The English translation of this passage in SCW is incorrect, as it translates ‘of’ instead of ‘or’ for the original Italian ‘o’.

28. For a detailed critique of Laclau and Mouffe’s reading of Gramsci in Laclau and Mouffe (1985), see Rosenthal (1988) and Ives (2004, pp. 144–160, 2005). Rosenthal casts serious doubts on Laclau and Mouffe’s understanding of the notion of class as identity, while Ives questions their alleged linguistic enrichment of Gramsci, which neglects Gramsci’s writings on language.

29. See also Hall (1980).

30. Bennett referred here to Laclau (1977) and Mouffe (1979b).

31. Jones (1994) has demonstrated that questions of education and communications policy were already present within cultural studies from the outset, in the work of Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams. However, Bennett has responded by representing Williams’ cultural policy preoccupations as anticipating precisely the reformist–technocratic approach and as an implicit critique of Stuart Hall (Bennett 1997). See also McGuigan (1995, 2006).

32. Gramsci’s concepts of state and civil society have raised major interpretative controversies, but are also enjoying a significant revival, particularly in the context of recent debates on globalisation. Without running through the older literature, which would require too much space, a classic is Buci-Glucksmann (1980 [1975]) from an Althusserian perspective, while other contributions include Francioni (1984b), Buttigieg (1995) and Morton (2007).

33. On Gramsci’s concept of ‘integral state’, see Note 40.

34. See Note 25.

35. In the original Italian (Q 27 §1, p. 2314), Gramsci used the verbs ‘superare’ (‘overcome’) and ‘estirpare’ (‘uproot’), which leave no doubt about the radical character of the process.

36. For the political context of this strategy, see Note 31 in Part III.

37. For a basic definition of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, see Note 14.

38. Gramsci’s concept of ‘philosophy of praxis’, often considered only a code name for ‘Marxism’, is seen instead by Wolfgang Fritz Haug as Gramsci’s particular reinterpretation of Marx’s historical materialism (Haug 1999, 2000). See also Francioni and Forosini (2009).

39. SPN 366 (Q 8, 182, 1051–1052); FS 360 (Q 10-I, 13, 1237); Q 10-II, 40, 1300; SPN 137 (Q 13, 10, 1569). The concept of ‘catharsis’ was also imaginatively used by Gramsci to refer to the terrain of this complex relationship as the ‘starting-point for all philosophy of praxis’ and the freeing of human beings from the passivity of social reproduction (SPN 366–367 (Q 10, 6, 1244)). In SPN, the translation of Gramsci’s ‘blocco storico’ is ‘historic bloc’, while PN3 uses ‘historical bloc’. The latter, which means ‘of or pertaining to history’ seems correct, while the first, which usually means ‘celebrated or noted in history’ (Oxford English Dictionary 2009), seems less accurate.

40. For Gramsci, hegemony was a central concept of political science, which in turn was the science of the state. See Sassoon (1987 [1980]), note 4, p. 232. Gramsci defined the concept of ‘integral state’ synthetically as ‘State = political society + civil society, in other words hegemony armoured by coercion’ (SPN 263 (Q 6, 88, 763–764)), where ‘political society’ was the state as traditionally understood (i.e. as governmental function). I discuss the concept of integral state in greater detail in Part III.

41. Gramsci could not use the concept of revolution in a normative sense in his prison writings. The concept of ‘catharsis’ was, arguably, one of the nearest approximations (see Note 39). Gramsci’s use of the concept of revolution has therefore been the object of different political interpretations and appropriations, as well as of scholarly controversies. For the purpose of my discussion it is possible to refer to Anne Showstack Sassoon’s basic definition: ‘Rather than viewing revolution as a dramatic break after which the new society begins to develop from scratch, Gramsci maintains that revolution must be understood as a process which begins within the old society and continues after moments of dramatic change. An old society will be destroyed in all its aspects only insofar as a new one is built and consolidated. (…) In addition to this notion of construction-destruction, revolution as a process is related to Gramsci’s view that a socialist revolution must be made by the mass of the population, not by a small élite’ (Sassoon 1982b, pp. 15–16).

42. Thomas has criticised Hall for trying to ‘complete’ Gramsci’s incomplete texts. Alastair Davidson (2008) has moved a similar critique of Hall’s eclecticism (see Note 25). A completely different assessment can be found, for example, in Baratta (2000) and Sassoon (2009).

43. This list draws on the analysis in Johnson (1986–1987).

44. This list draws on the analysis in ibid.

45. A mechanism of connection seems necessary in any idealist schemes of analysis (be they based on the concept of hegemony or not) because they assume a separation between civil society and the state. This would include Bennett’s neo-Foucauldian ‘governmentality’ framework, as Bennett claims that a separation is necessary and guaranteed within liberal and neoliberal conceptions of government (Bennett 2004, p. 3096). The concept of governmentality, therefore, refers to a traditional notion of the state, that is, government, (or, in Gramsci, the coercive element of the state), which in fact in Bennett has the function of policing and ‘reforming others in the context of varied programmes of social management’ (Bennett 2007, p. 10).

46. On the different aspects of the concept of hegemony in Gramsci, see Note 14.

47. See the role of culture in Bennett (2007, p. 9).