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This article explores the intertwinement of politics, international affairs and culture during the Cold War through a case study of Polish-Dutch cultural relations and the heterogeneous factors that shaped them. The study centres around the turbulent events of 1968 in Poland, and their impact on the international cultural policies of the Polish People's Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It demonstrates that the cultural field suffered the most immediate consequences of the political decisions taken by both parties – consequences which lasted for a considerable time – thus making it a metaphorical litmus test for the Cold War international relationships. This article reconstructs and analyses Polish and Dutch reactions to the 1968 events and their use of culture for the sake of their own policies – both as a form of protest and as an anti-crisis tool meant to influence the authorities and citizens of the target country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In democratic societies, the political process ultimately is about making value judgements. Comparative cultural policy research indicates different value orientations may be behind cultural policies of different nations. It has also indicated developments that are common, such as democratisation of culture, neoliberalisation of politics and globalisation. As of yet, such value changes have not been studied at the level of cultural policy documents analysed as text. This article proposes a methodology to study value changes behind cultural policies over time and across nations. Based in the "pragmatic sociology" of Boltanski, Thévenot, and Chiapello, the article presents a big data methodology to uncover value changes of policy documents over time, between different policy agents, and across nations using material from the UK and the Netherlands. The paper explains the methodology, discusses the implications of the preliminary outcomes and provides suggestions for further comparative policy analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to foster its citizens' identification with Europe, the European Union has made a great effort to identify what can be called 'common European heritage'. Many heritage initiatives, centred around the idea that heritage should be designated as European by the member states' heritage sectors, have proven counterproductive – instead of reaching their goal to construct a more stable European identity, they served as repositories of national pride and tools in the negotiation of nationalist claims of the member states. Through the empirical case of the EU's own Maastricht Treaty and the peculiar ways it became 'common European heritage' within the Dutch state heritage sector, in this paper we analyze the discursive tactics of national policy makers and the power dynamics between national and EU heritage regimes in the process of designating heritage as European. We demonstrate that even EU states with more constitutional traditions like the Netherlands maintain a powerful role in the construction of heritage as an unchangeable set of traditions and values strictly defined within the national boundaries, lacking the mechanisms to change their state-sanctioned and firmly established ways of defining heritage as 'national' and to legitimatize EU heritage narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores and discusses the fairly recent phenomenon of cultural clustering strategies in the Netherlands. Amongst other things based on ideologies of 'enterprise culture', the quest for urban imagery and positioning strategies, the changing spatial fabric of cities and a search for economic and cultural revitalisation, for the past 5-10 years, the formation of cultural clusters has turned into something of an urban cultural development hype. However, what at first glance appears as a common model, often accompanied by boldly expressed slogans concerning the new role of culture and creativity in the physical and economic revitalisation of cities, in more detail unfolds as an ambivalent and conflict-ridden mixture of cultural, economic, social and spatial interests and sentiments. From a short-term perspective, such an eclectic blending of interests and sentiments might be considered as a good opportunity for urban cultural developments within a ’post-modern’ urban development regime. However, from a long-term perspective, there is the danger that the divergent sentiments and interests start to undermine and constrain each other, in the end resulting in adverse effects, mutual distrust and a standstill of developments. Following a detailed investigation of five cultural clustering projects in the Netherlands, and based on Zukin's account of the exchange of cultural and economic values in the contemporary city, the paper argues that, in order to get out of this potentially self-defeating situation, and to enable a more sensitive but also strategic involvement of the cultural sector in the governance of cultural cluster projects, it is necessary to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the complex dynamics involved. Central to this is a locally specific appreciation of the changing interaction between culture (place) and commerce (market) in today's mixed economy of leisure, culture and creativity. This implies both a critique and advancement of existing theories concerning the role of culture in urban development and the development of a more detailed comparative perspective on urban cultural policy projects, thus moving beyond overgeneralised perceptions of the developments concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following international initiatives to safeguard the most valuable cultural landscapes, the Dutch government has recently introduced National Landscapes; these are landscapes of international importance because they are either unique to the Netherlands or are seldom found elsewhere. The main policy goal is to preserve the existing landscape quality, while at the same time promoting sustainable social and economic development of the area's communities. The designation of 20 National Landscapes represents the youngest attempt to introduce IUCN-Category V protected landscapes in the Netherlands. Earlier attempts to promote the preservation of cultural landscapes date back to the 1970s. However, the original ideas were already formulated during the inter-war period. This paper traces back these earlier ideas on landscape conservation. During the period under investigation, the evolution of ideas on landscape conservation shifted from regulatory to more developmental modes of planning and from authoritative to decentralized-liberal arrangements. It is argued that factors influencing this shift are the changed position and function of agriculture, the altered role of government planning and a paradigm shift in natural heritage management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on possible effects on income and earning capacity of creative workers of three measures that were recently introduced or that are being discussed to combat the vulnerability of non-standard working conditions in the cultural and creative sector in the Netherlands: the Balanced Labor Market Act, the Fair Practice Code for Culture, and a call for certain unified agreements, for instance in the form of minimum tariffs for self-employed workers. Each of these measures separately has its merits and the intention to improve working conditions. Therefore, the power lies in their joint introduction, which combines general legislation with a moral benchmark and subsector-specific solutions. However, in this combination several unintended consequences loom, such as the possible separation between professional and amateur creative workers, a higher threshold for talent to enter the sector, threats to artistic and aesthetic innovation, and the prioritization of fairness over equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efforts to improve local public policy-making in the Netherlands have led to two changes in local government. First, a budgeting system that focuses political debate on the outcomes of policies rather than on their costs was implemented as of 2004. Second, as of 2006, municipalities have been obliged to install a local Audit Committee (rekenkamercommissie). The committees examine the efficacy and efficiency of municipal policies. Several of these committees have devoted research to cultural policy. In this article, I present the manner in which this budgeting system and the institution of Audit Committees have impacted the evaluation of local cultural policies in the Netherlands. Furthermore, I discuss the way practices relate to key dilemmas concerning evidence-based cultural policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the emergence of a digital imperative - the belief in the necessity of digitising cultural expressions - in a particular heritage project in the Dutch city of Maastricht. The main reason for doing so is to contribute to the growing body of literature on digital cultural heritage, a perspective that pays analytical attention to the organisational and institutional dynamics of heritage innovation. Such a perspective complicates the popular assumption that digitisation will be beneficial to participation and instead puts forward - by drawing on institutional theory and the sociology of expectations - a less technology-centric and more contextual understanding of digital heritage. The conclusion highlights the potential of institutional analysis and the sociology of expectations for digital heritage studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes how the simple participation of migrant artists in the art scene in Amsterdam over the last three decades has turned into a political issue. Their claims for inclusion led to questioning the closed character of the Western art world. This critique of the closed nature of the Western art scene and of the exclusionary structures of Western aesthetic valuation has been articulated and dealt with on two analytically different, but empirically intertwined levels: cultural policy and the art institutes. Both the redefinition of the cultural policy and the reorganisation of the field of art itself have been accompanied by—sometimes passionate—public debates. The article takes the city of Amsterdam as the unit of analysis, as the city hosts a rich variety of ethno-cultural communities and is characterised by a large and flourishing cultural apparatus. Of course, the developments enacted in the city of Amsterdam are not unique. They are one particular articulation of dynamics occurring on different scales: global, national and regional. My analysis is restricted to the domain of high culture, and focuses on two subfields: the visual arts and theatre performances. For the purpose of this article, the field of high art is of special interest as it is surrounded by a complex set of—mostly implicit—rules and mechanisms that regulate entry. These mechanisms, which affect different groups unevenly, have become the subject of major critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the success of the privatization of national museums in Netherlands. The first group of six museums, which includes the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and Boerhaave Museum for the history of Science in Leiden became independent in July 1994 and had been in the forefront since the Minister of Culture announced that he was determined to transform state-owned national museums into private sector organizations.

The article offers a look at the establishment of the Rotterdam European Cultural Capital 2001 in relation to the political and social agenda of Rotterdam, Netherlands. Cultural Capital 2001 is a program organized by an independent nonprofit organization and is partly financed by city fund. In an effort to understand the factors that influence the creation of the program, the author explored the history of urban cultural policy of the city. He then examined the actual programming of the event and characterized the homology between cultural policy and the event. He argued that the event presents an inherent conflict.

This article addresses the policy for cultural diversity in the Netherlands and particularly how an older notion of pillarization differs from the newer realities of the 1990s. According to the author, while there has been a process of de-pillarization since the 1960s, questions of multiculturalism have become more complex, to do with the legacy of empire, ethnicity and race. He looks at both national and regional policies and usefully compares the situation in dissimilar places: Almelo, Utrecht and Maastricht. He also provides some basic information on the composition of the Dutch population, the origins of its diversity, and on how the country's cultural pluralism affects its social climate.

The article discusses the highlights of a conference held in Amsterdam, Netherlands from June 11 to 14, 1997 concerning privatization in the cultural field. Peter Boorsma, professor of public administration and Senator of the Dutch Parliament, outlined the advantages of privatization for the cultural field and the seven types of privatization. Professors David Throsby, president of the Association for Cultural Economics, issued warnings against privatization in the cultural field.