Cultural policy themes related to democracy

Since 2008, Culturalpolicies.net has been tracking developments in 10 cultural policy fields specifically related to democracy. This transversal section was created in order to highlight cross-cutting issues addressed in the Compendium profiles´ sub-chapters online. The following Culture and Democracy themes are addressed:

• cultural diversity;
• intercultural dialogue;
• the status of artists;
• international cultural co-operation and mobility issues;
• cultural rights and ethics;
• cultural access and participation;
• socio-economic impacts of culture;
• multi-stakeholder governance;
• regional cultural policies;
• digitisation and culture; and
• gender equality.

This theme-section also includes the Good Practice Database of culture-related projects serving the integration of migrants / refugees, and information on the Intercultural Cities programme. (An initiative by the Council of Europe and the European Commission established to share knowledge on the management of diversity).

All themes consist of:

• a short introduction (relevance, methodology, definitions etc.);
• links to relevant Compendium sub-chapters, enabling users to create integrated country reports (compiling information from different countries or from different chapters into one document);
• existing and new comparative, monitoring or statistical tables; and
• links to key resources (permanently updated).

Indicator Framework on Culture and Democracy (IFCD)

The European Ministers of Culture at their Conference in Moscow in April 2013 requested the Council of Europe, in partnership with its member States, to develop a set of indicators for assessing culture’s contribution to democracy. An indicator framework has been built with the help of the Hertie School of Governance (Berlin) and leading research institutes, supported by the European Union and the European Cultural Foundation. in this context a IFCD policy maker's guidebook as well as a Brochure on the Indicator Framework on Culture and Democracy were produced together with an interactive tool IFCD interactive data explorer: beta version.

Additionally two thematic reports were developed based on the IFCD:

• First thematic report "Cultural participation and inclusive societies" highlights the links between culture, trust in society and inclusion.
• Second thematic report “Online Participation in Culture And Politics: Towards More Democratic Societies?” explores the impact of digitisation and the internet on cultural and political participation in Europe, examining the opportunities and challenges this creates.

The Compendium community was actively involved and supports the development of the IFCD. At the General Assembly of Compendium Experts in Brussels (November 2013), research papers on different indicator or index-related exercises in Europe and other parts of the world were presented. They aimed at developing indicator frameworks or indexes related to culture in general, and cultural contributions to democracy, in particular:

• The work carried out on the Council of Europe draft indicator framework on culture and democracy (Michael Hoelscher);
• The "Dutch Arts Index" as described in a presentation of the Boekman Foundation (Lisa van Woersem);
• Plans for a "European Cultural Vitality Index", introduced by the European Cultural Foundation (Lyudmila Petrova/Tsveta Andreeva) and the ERICarts Institute; as well as
• A statistical method to assess "The True Value of the Culture and Creative Sectors in Europe" by Compendium expert Michael Söndermann.

Background

These Compendium themes on "Culture & Democracy" recognise the fact that the role of culture and related policies has expanded steadily in fostering democratic processes. Since 2008, Culturalpolicies.net started monitoring cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue, social cohesion, participation in cultural life and ´furthering the democratic governance of culture in the digital era´ specifically after they became issues of priority to the Council of Europe, including to those priorities set by the Warsaw Summit of Heads of State (2005), and the Ministerial Conferences in Baku (2008) and Moscow (2013).