European inventory of
societal values of culture

Kawashima - Theorising decentralisation in cultural policy

Kawashima, N. (1997), Theorising decentralisation in cultural policy: Concepts, values and strategies, The European Journal of Cultural Policy, 3:2, 341-359, DOI: 10.1080/10286639709358053

Kawashima discusses three main topics in this paper: types of decentralisation in cultural policy, values which legitimise policies of decentralisation and strategies which can be used to implement decentralisation in a cultural field. She differentiates between three areas where decentralisation can occur: cultural, fiscal, and political. Cultural decentralisation is an objective of cultural policy. It aims to provide equal opportunities for every citizen's consumption of culture by removing geographical, socio-economic, physical, and cultural barriers. On the other hand, fiscal decentralisation does not directly relate to citizens as art consumers but focuses on funders or cultural content producers. There are three subtypes of fiscal decentralisation. The first one aims to equalise public expenditure regionally for the arts and culture. The second deals with the proportion in spending on culture between central, regional and local authorities. The third one concerns the disparity in subsidy for arts organisations by location and 'unfair' funding of 'mainstream' and non-mainstream culture. Finally, political decentralisation is about policy administration. It concerns the strategies of diffusion of political and administrative power for making and implementing cultural policy. According to Kawashima, cultural decentralisation can be done with or without political decentralisation. When it is done without political decentralisation – with the centre still playing a main role – it can be based either on the creation of units which promote regional cultural development (deconcentration); on building cultural facilities and arts organisations across the country (e.g. the Maisons de la culture in France) or arranging the touring of art exhibitions and performances nation-wide. On the other hand, cultural decentralisation, which includes political decentralisation, can be done through the transfer of power and resources (authority, legitimacy, money, information) from the central to the local government. The second approach would be to enhance the power of the local, without reducing the power of the central government which then serves as a guarantee of standards, a consistency of approach and provide assurance of governmental commitment to culture.