Arts Politics – Contemporary Arts – Political Science:
On three completely unrelated topics
Monika Mokre

Paper presented at the FOKUS-Workshop "de-fine arts", 28.02. – 2.03. 2002, Vienna

The title of this paper is meant as a provocation – but at the same time, it is a simple statement about the situation in Austria. Current developments of the arts on the one and Austrian Arts politics on the other hand do not have much in common and several problems result from this incongruence. – And political science has nothing – or next to nothing to say about arts politics.

Descriptions of Austrian arts policy usually start with the year 1780, the year when Joseph II became sole regent of Austria. This rather long shot into the past is due to the fact that nothing very much changed from 1780 until about two hundred years later in Austrian arts policy.

Joseph II was the son and successor of Maria Theresia and a very good example of an enlightened despot. Many smaller and bigger revolutions from above were carried out by Joseph II – and quite a few of them he had to take back in due time as his ideas were simply to progressive for his time and his people. Joseph II was very interested in the arts. One of his most significant acts for the development of the performing arts in Austria was the elevation of the "Theatre next to the Burg" to the status of "k. k. Hof- und Nationaltheater. He thereby started a tradition of a very close relationship between politics and the arts. The arts flourished in the Habsburg countries due to generous financing, and at the same time, quite naturally, artistic work adapted to a high degree to the wishes of the emperors.

The end of Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the foundation of the Republic of Austria did not change much in this relationship. The most striking example for this continuity is probably that the Federal Theatres – Staatsoper, Volksoper, Burgtheater, Akademietheater – which were formerly theatres of the court remained in the ownership of the Republic of Austria. – I would like to skip now the politically troubled 1920s and 30s as well as the time of National-Socialism when there was no autonomous Austrian policy.

After World War II both Germany and Austria tried to emphasize their grand cultural past and their huge cultural heritage in order to make the world forget the immediate past of these countries and its outburst of the most brutal barbarism imaginable. Mind – it was the cultural and artistic heritage which was used to create a new attractive collective identity not a political avowal to democracy. So, while the Staatsoper was reconstructed and Mozart and Strauss (Johann Strauss, of course, not Richard Strauss) were celebrated, the work of the communist poet Bert Brecht was boycotted for the better part of the 50s, many smaller critical artistic institutions were closed down or simply refused financial support in the 50s and 60s and during the 60s the "Wiener Aktionisten" protested with their scandalous and scandalized actions against repressive cultural politics and were convicted to jail by exactly these politics. 

Then came the late 60s and the early 70s, a time of social-democratic success in both German and Austrian politics. German Social-Democrats invented the formula "culture for everybody", a rather non-sensical claim in the light of a broad concept of culture; what they actually meant, however, was "art for everybody", or more precisely, "high art for everybody": Theatres and museums should lower their symbolic as well as financial thresholds in order to attract broader social strata. (The same concept applied to universities, by the way.) – Austrian social-democrats followed the German lead in a rather crude way; however, the basic features of this form of cultural politics were more or less the same in both countries.

But social-democratic cultural politics also felt some commitment towards those artists critical of political, social and cultural conditions – after all, social-democracy has its roots in the critique of capitalism – even when these roots are not easily recognizable in the politics of Blair and Schroeder. – And so, also innovative artistic movements and critical artists profited from state subsidies, although the sums used for innovative arts were always only a small part of those invested into the cultural heritage. For artists as well as for politicians the close relationship between politics and the arts often meant a bit of a tight-rope-walk; as the Austrian writer Robert Menasse put it once at the end in the Mid-90s: "Austrian artists are rarely available but as public enemies and public executives in one." 

The neo-liberal turn came much later to Austria than to other countries – but it came. The problem in Austria, however, was that due to the cultural history I just described nobody really knew how to deal with neo-liberalism. What exactly does this term mean? How does a market with minimal state interference work? And, even more complicated, how does a market for the arts work? – The attempts of Austrian cultural politics to get on a new track started already under the former government of social-democrats and conservatives but they became more frantic when the current government of conservatives and the extreme right Freedom Party started its work in 2000. – I would not think that the concept of a neo-liberal arts policy became much clearer over the last two years; however, there seem to be two core ideas of contemporary Austrian cultural politics – namely, superstar events and the so-called cultural industries.

The first point – cultural events – does probably not need a further explanation: There are so-called "Landesausstellungen", big exhibitions organised every year by every one of the nine Austrian provinces, there are festivals, there are special exhibitions of the big museums, especially of the Museum for the History of the Arts in Vienna. – During the last years most of the large Austrian museums have got a more independent legal status and have also been required to generate income by attracting visitors and sponsors. Special exhibitions are certainly an effective means to that. Other duties of museums, like e.g. scientific research or the adequate storage of art have become second-order- questions due to these new requirements – an internationally known and still rarely acknowledged problem - but I will not go into this any further as my focus here is on the problems of contemporary arts and not of the preservation of the cultural heritage. 

To clarify the problems arising for contemporary Austrian art out of the politics of superstar-events I shall give two examples which – incidentally or not – both take place in the same city, namely in Graz. Graz has a rather rich and diversified artistic and cultural scene reaching from newer literature over contemporary performing arts to a lively jazz scene which has developed over many decades including individual artists, groups and also a kind of basic infrastructure of pubs, small stages and the like where jazz is performed. 

In summer 1998, the province of Styria organised and financed a jazz festival in Graz: A big tent was set up in the city centre for some week where first-rate-jazz was played for free. The opportunity was widely used and gave some kind of Southern urban flair to the city. – The lively but chronically under-financed jazz scene of Graz suffered heavily from this activity of Styrian cultural policy. Not only did they get none of the several millions Austrian schillings going into jazz music at this occasion as Styrian cultural politicians exclusively invited international jazz stars but they also lost their paying audience during the festival - the competition of international stars playing for free was simply too hard for musicians from Graz playing in small jazz pubs and demanding entrance fees for it. 

The other example I would like to mention is a future one: Graz will be cultural city of the European Union in 2003 and this event – Graz 2003 – is already casting its shadow over the artistic scene in Graz and doing so in a quite similar way to the afore described festival. As far as one can see today Graz 2003 will be an international event without much participation of regional artists. Its most prominent project is an island designed by Vito Acconci, an internationally renowned artist from NYC who had originally planned this project for another river. Many of the cultural initiatives in Styria who showed initially positive interest in Graz 2003 have been disillusioned in the meantime and criticise the project as a waste of public money. Their complete exclusion from planning and carrying out Graz 2003 may have contributed to this disillusionment. A symbol for the problematic relationship between the planners of Graz 2003 and the regional cultural scene was the controversy between the limited company organising the festival and some cultural initiatives over the website "Graz2003": A very active cultural initiative succeeded in occupying the website "Graz2003.at" before the limited company had the idea of doing so – and was sued by the limited company. This led to a broad discussion on the question who actually owns Graz 2003 and who should benefit from it. Even more fundamentally, the question arose under which conditions a private company can claim to represent the "public interest". Foreseeably, this discussion did not lead to conclusive results but the fact that in times of shrinking cultural budgets the most significant single sum for cultural activities of a public body is spent in open contradiction to a majority of cultural agents of the region should lead to some concern.

A popular argument brought forward by cultural politicians in discussions of this kind is that Austrian artists have not yet understood the necessities of modern arts policy, that they still expect to be subsidized to 100 percent instead of trying to succeed on the market. I would like to argue here that while this may be the case sometimes we deal with a more fundamental problem: Austrian cultural policy has been lacking for a very long time any mission statements, formulations of its aims and the like. This was not really a problem as long as budgets grew – but nowadays it is of great importance to clarify what cultural policy aims at and how it intends to reach these aims. If this were done it would e.g. become clear that the often formulated aim of supporting regional cultural development is counteracted by the way international events are organised in Styria.

A last example for cultural policy contravening its own alleged aims can be found in the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna. We can read in the mission statement of the MuseumsQuartier Company: "It is a place of cultural variety, experimentation, ongoing action and change, and cultural exchange. The MuseumsQuartier, a living, contemporary centre for the arts, embodies an expanded, multidisciplinary approach to culture." However, the biggest institutions of the MuseumQuartier are fairly traditional large museums. The innovative approach should move into the quarter with the help of the so-called "Quarter 21", a place for smaller initiatives. Similar to the activities in Graz also in Vienna the holding company of the MuseumsQuarter prefers to define by itself what innovative art is instead of taking into consideration those initiatives already active in the field. This is why it looks at the moment as if those initiatives working in the MuseumQuartier during the last years will have to leave the quarter to make place for other initiatives chosen by a jury appointed by the MuseumQuartier company. – So, the overall picture is that a helpless cultural politics delegates decisions to private bodies without giving them any instructions on the aims and foundations of their activities – except in some cases the claim to generate as much income as possible. The private bodies set their own standards, mainly derived of private entrepreneurship and/ or individual career wishes of the responsible without much consideration for the field they are working in.

And political science? - Political science rarely attempted at saying anything at all on cultural policy and even more rarely succeeded in saying something of relevance. However, policy research is a quite well known and active part of political science and it would not be difficult to use methods of other policy field in the field of cultural policy. A starting point for doing this could be concepts derived out of policy network analysis, policy style and policy profile concept. Those concepts have been developed to deal with the fact that policies in contemporary societies are influenced by many different agents with diverse means, ends, forms of organisation etc. They are mainly a way to structure the field and can therefore be seen as a first step towards a more systematic understanding of policy processes. A policy network is characterised by the following parameter: 

•	actors (number, types, quality)
•	function (e.g. information exchange or coordination)
•	structure (determined by the number of actors, frequency and intensity of interaction, and network borders)
•	degree of institutionalisation
•	rules of the game (pragmatism or ideology led dispute)
•	power relations (e.g. the relation of the administration and organized interests)
•	strategy of actors (e.g. of certain actors or creation of semi-state institutions)

So, e.g. in the case of Graz 2003 we have the following actors:

	politicians and officials on the level of the city of Graz, the province of Styria, the republic of Austria and the European Union; 
	the ltd. company organising the event
	artists, cultural workers, cultural organisations and initiatives in Graz and Styria
	international artists and organisations commissioned by the ltd. co
	lobbies, unions and the like
Having enumerated those actors one could try to describe the ways the act and interact along the other lines of our network structure. This would imply some field work, interviews etc. The parameter of the policy network analysis would build the basic structure of this empirical work.
The aim of this research would be to understand how decisions are made in this concrete case. The findings could be structured according to the policy profile concept: 

1.	Formalisation (codification of policies)
2.	Integration (intervention on the basis of integrated partial policies or isolated policies)
3.	Continuity (correspondence or deviation from previous strategies)
4.	Intensity of intervention
5.	The kind and extent of measures, procedures and scope of manoeuvering room for the actors and addressees

The final aim would then be to understand how problems are solved in the case of Graz 2003:

1.	Procedure for problem solving (speed, access for participation, transparency, informality)
2.	Interaction between the actors (communication/information behaviour, degree of conflict)
3.	Problem solving behaviour (planning and control perspective, active/re-active, target consideration)

This now was only one example out of applied policy analysis to show which kind of blueprints political science can offer for a more thorough understanding of cultural policies. Obviously, one would not carry out such a study for its own sake but in order to find better ways of cultural policy-making, i.e. – if I may come back to the subject of my paper – to relate arts policies with the actual artistic work taking place in Austria.

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FOKUS (Forschungsgesellschaft für kulturökonomische und kulturpolitische Studien)
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