/ 1968
pdf

CULTURE AND DEMOCRACY – CLARIFICATION OF CONCEPTS

/in /by

This paper deals with the conceptual and historical relationship between culture and (non) democracy. The notion of culture is understood in the wider (way of the whole life of one nation) and narrower (artistic-creative) sense. As a system that does not prevent freedom of thought, creation and action, democracy represents the expansion of freedom in the artistic field of culture. In every system of public authorities and social relations, culture and art face certain challenges. The search for an art form, which by definition is an artistic gift, is often caught in grip of judicial obstacles. In non-democratic systems, the artist responds with his work to the external pressure of power. The political framework is a challenge for his/her creativity. In democratic societies and countries, the artist and his/her work face the mediators, which are cultural-market organizations and private and public institutions that do (or do not) open up a way to audiences. These brokers have the opportunity to accept or not accept artistic work for reasons of aesthetic judgement, market success or dislike towards the author. Also, the tastes of artistic audiences are different, so they can accept or protest against an artwork. The latest phenomenon is a democratization of culture in digital technology. The experience of cultural and artistic creativity in these two forms of public authority and social relations shows that art, as part of the cultural segment of a society, is not offered a safe haven but constant excitement, being caught in the relations among artist-work-audience-states. In that sense, one must always bear in mind that the democratization of culture can well take place in the institutional field, but not in the creative one. Great creators and their works do not produce any system of public authority, but offer their gift, talent, motivation, imagination and knowledge.

/ 1968
pdf

LOCAL PLANNING INITIATIVES IN THE CULTURE OF SERBIA DURING TRANSITION (2000-2018)

/in /by

In Serbia, transition has implied a transformation of the entire social system in the spirit of democracy. On the road to developing democracy, strategic planning has been a key instrument of cultural policy. Although it used to be practiced in the self-management system, based on the method of cooperative planning, the start of transition introduced the concept of strategic planning as a complete novelty. This is why the implementation of long term planning can be observed as a new/old challenge on all levels of management. This paper deals with the implementation of strategic planning in Serbia on the local level, in the period 2000-2018. It gives a review of local strategic planning initiatives in culture and analyses their implementation on the local level. Since the start of transition, over ten years, we have had a Law on activities of public interest in the field of culture (1992) which was in conflict with the increase of autonomy of local self-governments and the processes of democratization and decentralization that started in Serbia after 2000. This incompatibility, as well as the lack of a national strategy for cultural development has also reflected on the absence of local strategical plans in the field of culture.

/ 1968
pdf

CULTURAL PATTERN AND THE REACHED DEGREE OF DEMOCRACY IN SERBIA

/in /by

This paper deals with some important determining factors of influence in culture and the reached degree of democracy in Serbia. Understanding of the relationship between culture and democracy will assist in the fashioning of decisions that affects these areas. Democracy is a word we often hear and exploit, forgetting that democracy relies on the development of culture, so that, today, democracy indeed exists only formally and declaratively, as there can be no democracy without essential influence of culture. The basic problem of the underdeveloped culture in Serbia is not technological in nature: large quantity of carbon dioxide, global heating or waste materials are only the symptoms. The problem lies in the culture itself and in our mind mode. Efforts for the restoration of economic growth are essential, since they are replies to the questions like: what are really the future development targets; whether these are the goals of economic welfare, employment, environment protection and improvement of educational structure; and whether the cultural level in population is meeting new technological challenges. Investment in research, infrastructure and energetics, education and culture, would have multiple positive effect on the strengthening of competitiveness. The findings of this paper support the calls for a comprehensive reform, if we consider the fact that the market mechanisms operate in culture, that relativism is becoming the idea of culture, and that culture is identified with consumption, with an economic standpoint of value in culture. Maladjusted countries, under globalization conditions, would be the ones to fall behind evolutionally, technologically and culturally speaking, or the ones that do not have a development strategy and a social cohesion strategy, and particularly fail to sufficiently invest in education and culture. In the future, a competitive advantage will lie in development, knowledge, culture and technological progress. Societies must define their priorities and must relay a clear message what is important and what is not, what represents public interest, and what does not.

/ 1968
pdf

ON CULTURAL DEMOCRACY IN NEOLIBERAL MARKETS OR WHY TASTES SHOULD BE DISCUSSED

/in /by

The subject of this paper is the status of cultural assets in the contemporary merchandise and service markets. The research starts from the premise that the relationship between democracy and culture nowadays cannot be considered beyond the value matrix of neoliberal capitalism, which has a direct and decisive influence on the cultural field. The conceptual apparatus has been precisely defined and different theoretical perspectives, based on the narratives of humanistic and anthropological approaches to culture, have been analysed. A neoliberal paradigm on creative industries has been presented, with special emphasis on the institute of cultural exclusion in trade agreements, viewed from two opposing perspectives: the US and the WTO, on the one hand, and the European approach to cultural policy, on the other. The aim of the paper is to discuss, by a scientific methodology, the relationship between normative principles of cultural democracy and the practices of neoliberal markets. We conclude that cultural policy should ensure a proportion between market-oriented creative industries and various non-profit culture goals: aesthetic, ethical, educational, identity and democratic.

/ 1968
pdf

POLITICAL CULTURE AND THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY

/in /by

In this paper we shall investigate the ideas and ideals of the political culture in a democratic society, which contribute to the viability of democracy and its further development. The main objective of the paper is to analyse the normative dimension of the democratic political culture. Starting from the principles of freedom and equality we ask how these principles provide grounds for some basic ideas and ideals of the political culture of a democratic society. Although our investigation is normative in nature, we argue that normative political theory should pay attention to empirically oriented research on political culture.

/ 1968
pdf

FROM THE CULTURE OF DIALOGUE TOWARDS A DIALOGICAL CULTURE

/in /by

This article analyses the concept of the culture of dialogue in regard to three aspects: the broadest political and historical context; the potential which I find Christian theological thought has in this regard and which is usually not evident in the public discourse; and the actual practice of the culture of dialogue in the dominant frame defined by the media. My final aim is to reconsider the concept of the culture of dialogue in perspective of its possible openness towards the concept of the dialogical culture or culture as dialogue, which may be much broader and deeper in terms of philosophical and anthropological potency and relevance.

/ 1968
pdf

MULTICULTURALITY OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETIES

/in /by

The lives of people are less and less nationally and spatially limited today and multiculturality has become a factual reality and a crucial determinant of the contemporary post-industrial societies. This paper aims to highlight the division of scientific discourses about the cultural pluralism and the desirable ways of organizing existing multiculturality in the contemporary societies, through analysis of the relationship between liberalism and multiculturalism, cultural relativism and the universality of human rights and freedoms. It is being considered whether the cultural theory today is in danger of simplifying plurality, diversity and hybridity, as well as whether the universality and the indivisibility of human rights “suffer” from marginalization or absolutization of their cultural context. Also, a critical review was given of the experiences of various countries in pursuing the policy of multiculturalism and interculturalism, in order to point out the significant variations in evaluating what the cultural democracy is and how far individual countries are willing to go to reach this goal. General conclusion is that, in everyday practices of achieving and disputing democracy, the cultural rights and freedoms are more verbally advocated and normatively grounded than practically realized. The current migrant crisis intensifies islamophobia and ethnocentrism, which additionally aggravates legal and political regulation of cultural diversity in certain countries and sometimes even facilitates and justifies political advocacy of the complete abandonment of the concept of multiculturalism. It is necessary to invest a lot of effort to overcome all the limitations and inconsistencies of the previous multicultural policies and, in accordance with the specifics of their own multicultural reality, to search for more desirable ways of organizing the existing cultural diversity, for the sake of achieving more equitable, inclusive and stable democratic societies.

/ 1968
pdf

HERITIZATION OF THE IDEAS AND WORK OF STEVAN MAJSTOROVIĆ

/in /by

A debate program of the Centre for Study in Cultural Development was organized in memory of its founder and first director, Stevan Majstorović, to deal with current issues of cultural policy, cultural creation and cultural development. Bearing in mind the foreign policy and socio-cultural context of the time in which Majstorovic has lived and worked, this paper shows, through a comparative content analysis of the program cycle of the Institute’s public debates the ways in which his work is made prevalent and current to this day. Incentives for this research are both theoretical and practical, and a special attention is paid to issues such as cultural rights, multiculturalism, cultural development, cultural needs, cultural identity and so on. The final part of the paper highlights the complexity of a new reading of the theme of culture and democracy that was almost four decades ago represented by Stevan Majstorović in his research papers and studies, as a contribution to the cultural memory, and to the ongoing dialogue.

/ 1968
pdf

CULTURE AND DEMOCRACY: CULTURAL POLICIES IN ACTION

/in /by

This text starts with a thesis that Yugoslav, Belgrade and Zagreb schools of cultural policies, in the 1960s and 1970s, were among leading world theories and practices of cultural policies, but were sent to oblivion due to the semi-peripheral status of our science and the lack of engagement of academic culture of memory, reinforced with new trends of academic capitalism. The text analyses the ways of operation of the leading world academic journals in the area of culture of scientific memory, case studying the “Cultural policy review of books” that was planned and published in the International Journal of Cultural Policy (Vol. 16, n. 1). Not only that the editor of the review selected mostly Anglo-American theoreticians and academics from Northern Europe, he also insisted that they should present only books available in English. That prevented researchers competent in other languages to present authors from peripheries and semi-peripheries. Thus, Stevan Majstorović, one of the leading Yugoslav academics that influenced cultural policy teaching in South East Europe could not be part of this “Cultural policy review of books”, in spite of my explicit demand. This is how contemporary academic journals have centralized knowledge production and created new semi-peripheries (French, Spanish, Italian researchers have not been invited). However, several French authors (Bourdieu, de Certeau, Dumazedier) have been selected by Anglo-American academics and myself to be presented in this issue. A few of them, coming from Asia and Southern Europe with their degrees obtained in the UK, made “the right choice” to show their competence in this contemporary cultural policy academic research. My contribution (the book of Michel de Certeau Culture in the plural) used “strategy and tactic” of the subaltern to present Stevan Majstorović and the Yugoslav schools of cultural policy as a context in which this book was read. This might not be an important sign of resistance to academic centralization of knowledge but it is a symbolic subversion of semi-periphery against a powerful centre.