Exploratory Research and Cultural Policy: Towards a Bottom-up Understanding of Culture in Croatia

In now over thirty years that have followed the “golden age of cultural policy”, decision-makers have often been criticised for social “instrumentalisation” and economic “colonisation” of culture (Scott Sørensen, 2016). Criticism has also been levelled at the current “participatory turn” in cultural policies, emphasising “active involvement” of “users” and their having more say in how public money for culture is spent. While in the former case, the replacement of self-cultivation (Bildung) with goals such as “employability” or “achieving social competence” is seen as an unacceptable degradation of humanistic ideals, in the latter case “user democracy” is feared to lead to populism. Nevertheless, it is clear that policy makers cannot formulate inclusive cultural policies without consulting their “end users”: the question is how to best approach that task. This paper presents the results of an exploratory survey on Croatian citizens’ different understandings of culture, carried out within the Horizon 2020 project ‘European Inventory of Societal Values of culture as a Basis for Inclusive Cultural Policies in the Globalizing World’ (No: 870691). Since the study involved a limited number of respondents (170) and was based on open-ended questions, our data collection followed the logic of qualitative sampling (maximum variation and the typical case approach), and our data analysis involved two qualitative strategies (connecting and linking). The results reveal important differences (especially generational) in understanding what culture is and what role it plays in respondents’ lives. Exploratory research has proved its heuristic value in a policy context that has traditionally favoured top-down solutions.