Cultural policy regimes and arts councils. The longue durée perspective, birth of the state, religious trajectories and national cultural policies

ABSTRACT

The cultural policy orientation of European countries has usually been interpreted in the light of political ideological factors or the model of the welfare state. However, while these dimensions explain part of cultural policy’s evolution in the second half of the 20th century, they overlook the influence of earlier factors affecting the state’s trajectory (especially absolutism) and the persistent influence of religious denomination on culture. To grasp the relationship between the state and culture, one needs to realise that Protestantism wields a significant influence in some countries (especially in variants such as Non-Conformism). These factors can be identified in the Eurostat surveys and statistics, providing that one adopts Braudel’s longue durée [long-term] perspective and the comparative historical institutionalism proposed by Tilly. This perspective lets us see continuities and interpret them in a multidimensional way and to suggest a different classification of the cultural regimes found among European countries.

KEYWORDS:

• State
• absolutism
• religion
• cultural policy
• cultural expenditure
• longue durée
• cultural regimes
• Europe

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. This short paper cannot nor does it try to discuss all the factors explaining the relationship between the state and the arts in Europe over the last three centuries. That is because such an undertaking would fill volumes and goes well beyond the scope of this paper. Apart from the economic and institutional factors (which currently receive greater attention in cultural policy studies), other ideological and cultural factors are also involved in the modernisation process and in the conflictive dynamics between the state and artists (Sapiro 2017), the political instrumentalization of arts for propaganda ends (Menger 2017), or the control and use of cultural nationalism and national branding could be cited as factors present in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Here, one can see differences in the history of cultural politics between central countries in Europe such as The UK, Germany, between ‘Western’ and former Soviet Bloc countries, and between Northern and Southern European countries. We identified several cultural regimes in Europe that gave rise to a patchwork of macro-regions that persist today notwithstanding trends towards European convergence (Rius-Ulldemolins, Pizzi, and Rubio Arostegui 2019; Arostegui, Arturo, and Rius-Ulldemolins 2020). However, this paper focuses on the longue durée factor of religious denomination and its impact on the relationship between State and the arts. Our contribution is to highlight the relevance of this important factor for it is one that is often overlooked. While we freely admit that other factors also need to be taken into consideration to grasp cultural policies in Europe, it would be a mistake to ignore the longue durée impact of religion.

2. While the choice of reading is not representative of the great diversity of contemporary cultural consumption and practices in Europe, we consider that it is a cultural consumption practice that plays a key role. Furthermore, there is a considerable body of analytical literature on literacy processes and practice in both children and adults, which are strongly linked to the origin of the state and of religious denominations (Vincent 2000; Graff 1987; Mosher 2016). In addition, choosing reading allows one to make comparisons that one cannot make for other forms of cultural consumption. That is because the latter are linked to cultural forms that are deeply rooted in certain countries but not in others. For instance, opera and classical music have put down strong roots in Northern and Central Europe but not in Southern Europe (Rius-Ulldemolins, Pizzi, and Rubio Arostegui 2019). Furthermore, we consider that reading has played a key role in providing access to high culture and, to some extent has been the door to other forms of culture that were hitherto hard to access through other means (Vincent 2000). In our view, these aspects fully justify the choice of reading as a yardstick. Nevertheless, an analysis of other forms of culture and their relationship with factors bearing on the birth of the state and religious denomination would be both interesting and relevant. However, such an analysis would go beyond both the purpose and scope of this paper.

3. One should note that this paper does not argue that the form in which the state and religious denomination were born is the dominant factor in contemporary cultural policy. The explicative argument is not a one-way street in the sense of considering cultural factors as an independent variable. On the contrary, we consider these strands within the framework of historical sociology, the interrelationship with other economic factors, military might and coercion, political-institutional and cultural-religious factors. All of these factors can be drawn upon to explain the configuration of the state and later development of public policies (Tilly 1992; Mann 1986; Bourdieu 2012). Thus Protestant religious denominations such as Calvinism have an ‘elective affinity’ [or are ‘kindred by choice’] to capitalist development and the configuration of liberal states. At the same, they that also had an ‘elective affinity’ to certain State mechanisms for disciplining the population (Gorski 1995). Accordingly, there is no one-way, sole-cause logic to the process but rather a multi-causal explanation in which a plethora of factors exercise mutual influences (Xiaohong and Gorski 2010). What our paper both discusses and questions is the construction of cultural policy models that solely focus on strictly economic and institutional factors (such as the welfare state model, or the institutionalisation of high culture), and that either overlook cultural-ideological, coercive or institutional factors or relegate them to the status of mere antecedents, dismissing their influence as vague, marginal, or of waning importance. By contrast, we consider that these last factors are also important (that is to say, we do not consider their explicatory power to be either subordinate or marginal) to explain the historical persistence of inequalities and differences in European cultural policy models.

4. We use the statistics provided by Eurostat (Eurostat 2018) to analyse the sundry aspects of public spending through cultural policies. We used the Eurobarometer 79.2 (2013) for studying cultural consumption and artistic activities. However, the analysis excluded micro-States (such as Luxembourg, Cyprus and Malta), which in any case represent few cases in the sample.

5. The original variables of reading and library visits employed the following frequencies: (a) Never; (b) Between 1 and 2; (c) Between 3 and 4; (d) 5 or more. We based our Reading Activity Level index on these categories.

6. We are keenly aware of the influence wielded by capitalist structure and practice on forms of State intervention in the cultural field. Nevertheless, our interest focuses on analysing the factor of religion (from a longue durée perspective) on forms of State intervention in culture. That is because we consider this approach valuable in shedding light on these forms and their subsequent development, and thereby build and define cultural policy models that better fit the underlying variables. That is why we have necessarily taken the configuration of the dominant religion among the economic elites and European States and by so doing, charted the influence of religions on forms of State intervention and on the relationship between the state and the cultural sphere.

7. The purpose of this paper is not to debate all the factors that might explain reading levels in Europe. Several studies on cultural consumption have revealed the importance of status, economic, educational and other factors that have a bearing on individuals’ reading levels in Europe. Our paper does not seek to explain individuals’ reading levels of reading but rather to examine the impact of religious denomination and its institutional effects on the public status of the arts. It is reasonable to think that this factor goes some way towards explaining population differences between countries in terms of average reading levels. Thus, we think that State management regimes of culture are influenced by longue durée factors, and that these are significant for establishing a classification in Europe that sheds light on the persistence of these regimes over time. In turn, we consider that each of these regimes presents a different pattern of cultural consumption. Specifically, we empirically verify that these cultural regimes correspond to different average reading levels for their respective populations.

8. Under the label of Non-Conformists, we include Protestants who did not ‘conform’ to the governance and usages of established Protestant confessions such as Lutheranism and Anglicanism. Non-Conformists include Pietists, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Baptists and Methodists. These Non-Conformists played an influential role in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Great Britain, Prussia and (outside Europe), in the United States, Australia and New Zealand (Heidenheimer 1983).

9. We do not say that countries sharing a common religious denomination have the same cultural policy model. That is because there are also other variables at work (for instance, recent political regimes and constitutional arrangements, the territorial model, internal diversity, and interventionism in cultural industries to mention just a few) (Dubois 2015; Mulcahy 1998). However, our hypothesis is that religious denomination has played a long-term role in shaping cultural policy and that is impact can still be seen in Europe today.

10. Germany’s case is unique because it is a country with mixed Catholic and Lutheran denominations, making it hard to classify. However, as we have already argued in this paper, consideration is given not only to the religious composition of the country but above all to the influence of the religious denomination in the birth of the state. In this sense, Germany is a continuation of Prussia, this being a Lutheran State heavily influenced by the disciplinary revolution fostered by Calvinism (Gorski 1995). That is why, despite being a State in which Catholicism is the majority denomination in the Southern Länder, we consider The German state as such and its public policies to have been strongly influenced by Prussia’s Lutheran roots and by Calvinism. This influence can be seen today in Germany’s parsimonious spending on culture compared with other European countries such as France (Rius-Ulldemolins, Pizzi, and Rubio Arostegui 2019).

11. We draw a distinction between absolutist and Ottoman influences even where the political regime in those European countries formerly under the Ottoman thrall was akin to absolutism, if one takes Charles Tilly’s categories as a guide (Tilly 1990). That is because the Ottoman governance was based on governance through regional elites, rendering the rule of the distant Sultan both remote and diffuse. By contrast, in those European countries following the absolutist model – especially in France and to a lesser extent, in Spain and Austria – the trend was towards ever-greater centralization and uniformity through military, economic and cultural infrastructures. This had the effect of concentrating symbolic power in the capital and the monarchy (Mukerji 2010).

12. There is no model in Europe of high State funding for culture with little direct political control of the populations. Were one to exist, it would fall within the upper left quadrant.

13. The reading practices levels of individuals are measured through an index that we construct from variables taken from the Eurobarometer (2013), as indicated in the methodological section.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain [RTI2018-096299-B-I00].

Notes on contributors

Joaquim Rius-Ulldemolins

Joaquim Rius Ulldemolins is PhD in Sociology from the UAB and EHESS. Currently, he is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Valencia where he teaches on sociology of culture and sociology of social change. He is the author of several books and more than fifty articles on the sociology of culture and cultural policy in national and international journals. Since 2015 he has been the director of Debats. Journal of culture, power and society (Alfons el Magnànim Institution), director of the Center for Studies on Culture, Power and Identities of the University of Valencia and the Valencia Centre of the Menéndez y Pelayo International University (UIMP). He is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Cultural Policy, Revista Española de Sociología (RES), Papers. Revista de Sociologia and Publicacions de la Universitat de València (PUV).

Alejandro Pizzi

Alejandro Pizzi is PhD in Sociology (Rovira i Virgili University, Spain). Professor at the University of Valencia, Spain (Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology). His main lines of study are framed within sociology of social movements, sociology of work and economic sociology. He has published research results in prestigious journals in United States, Canada, Europe (including Spain) and Latin America. He is also the author and co-author of several books and book chapters in leading European publishers. Likewise, he participates in research projects on his specialization topics. He also participates in projects related to political and cultural studies. He specializes in statistical analysis and discourse analysis. His specific themes are oriented to the study of the collective action of the labor movement in Latin America, and Argentina in particular. He also specializes in the evolution and characteristics of industrial relations in Europe, and the processes of innovation and economic development in Spain. Since some years he has assumed an additional line of research, oriented to the study of cultural policies at the European and Spanish level.