Cultural policy in France - Genesis of a public policy category

Vincent Dubois [email protected] Professor – Centre for European Political Sociology (GSPE) Extracts translated from La politique culturelle. Genèse d’une catégorie d’intervention publique, Paris, Belin, 1999, 381 p., by Cristina Fernandez, Jean-Yves Bart and Luc Vailler.

Abstract: This paper is a partial translation of a book published in French, which puts forward a socio-historical analysis of the relationships between cultural and political/bureaucratic field. This analysis sheds light on the conditions of the emergence, shaping and institutionalisation of a State policy regarding culture in France, from the late 19th to the 20th century. In this perspective, what is now called “cultural policy” is considered as the product of the history of power struggles, wherein the main stakes are the legitimate definition of culture and the definition of the legitimate functions of the State. The historical comparison reveals that these power struggles have long hindered the shaping of a “cultural policy”, which only took place starting in the early 1960s. It also shows that the persistence of these issues led to an “institutionalisation of vagueness” of a policy whose object could still not be precisely defined by the late 20th century. This research thus contributes to the history and sociology of the cultural field, as well as of the State and State intervention. By analysing the conditions and limits of a State definition of culture, it also sheds light on the modes of expression of the State’s symbolic violence. The notion of category of public intervention developed used in the context of this research is embedded in the elaboration of a broader framework of analysis, aiming to account for socio-historical processes of institutionalisation of groups, relational structures, representations and constitutive normative frameworks of what is called a policy.

Keywords: cultural policy, policy category, state, symbolic power, socio-history.

Résumé : Ce texte est la traduction partielle d’un ouvrage paru en français. Celui-ci propose une analyse socio- historique des rapports entre les champs culturel et politico-bureaucratique, qui met au jour les conditions d’émergence, de mise en forme et d’institutionnalisation d’une politique d’État en matière culturelle, de la fin du XIXe à la fin du XXe siècle en France. Dans cette perspective ce qu’on appelle aujourd’hui « politique culturelle » est considéré comme le produit de l’histoire des rapports de force dont les principaux enjeux sont la définition légitime de la culture et la définition des fonctions légitimes de l’État. La comparaison historique révèle que ces rapports de force entravent durablement la mise en forme d’une « politique culturelle », qui ne s’opère qu’à partir du début des années 1960. Elle montre également que la persistance de ces enjeux conduit à l’institutionnalisation par le flou d’une politique dont l’objet ne peut être précisément défini, encore à la fin du XXe siècle. Ce travail apporte ainsi une contribution à l’histoire et la sociologie du champ culturel, de même qu’à celles de l’État et de son intervention. En analysant les conditions et les limites d’une définition étatique de la culture, il contribue aussi à rendre compte des modes d’exercice de la violence symbolique de l’État. La notion de catégorie d’intervention publique forgée à l’occasion de ce travail s’inscrit dans l’élaboration d’un cadre d’analyse plus vaste visant à rendre compte des processus socio-historiques d’institutionnalisation des groupes, des structures relationnelles, des représentations et des cadres normatifs constitutifs de ce qu’on appelle une politique.

Mots-clés : politique culturelle, catégorie d’intervention publique, Etat, pouvoir symbolique, socio- histoire.

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION 3

PART ONE AN IMPROBABLE CATEGORY CULTURE AND POLITICS BEFORE “CULTURAL POLICY” 10

Chapter I - Culture versus the State 11

Chapter II - An impossible policy 12

Chapter III - The repetition of an absence (1920 – 1958) 12

PART TWO THE BIG SHIFT ORIGINS AND AMBIGUITIES OF THE CULTURAL POLICY 13

Chapter IV - A Ministry for culture 16

Chapter V - The contradictions of cultural planning 16

PART THREE THE INSTITUTIONALISATION OF VAGUENESS PROFESSIONALISATION OF CULTURAL ACTION AND CULTURAL BROADENING 17

Chapter VI - A paradoxical professionalisation of cultural policies 20

Chapter VII - The state versus culture? 21

CONCLUSION 22

An undefined yet successful category 22

From cultural policy to cultural practices 24

TABLE OF CONTENTS (BOOK) 27

NOTES 28

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Cultural policy in France - Genesis of a public policy category

Vincent Dubois [email protected] Professor – Centre for European Political Sociology (GSPE) Extracts translated from La politique culturelle. Genèse d’une catégorie d’intervention publique, Paris, Belin, 1999, 381 p., by Cristina Fernandez, Jean-Yves Bart and Luc Vailler.

principle of legitimisation – the General introduction “democratisation of culture” that has become a “categorical imperative”.

Cultural policy – the existence of this Cultural policy, then, should not be public policy category seems to be self- considered as a transhistorical category. Of evident, on the same level as educational, course, the intervention of the authorities social or economic policies. Yet, it does in artistic matters is a fairly ancient not merely reflect the objective reality of phenomenon.3 This long history does not the problems tackled by the authorities. however imply that there has always been Like the environmental, family, consumer 1 such thing as a cultural policy. The genesis or urban policies, it is linked to the social of this policy is not limited to the origins of classification that produced public action the different forms of support for the arts and that is produced by it in return. First of by the authorities. It also consists of a all, it consists in the classifying and specific integration and ordering of these shaping of objects and social problems, multiple interventions as a whole that is some of these objects being designated as more than the sum of its individual belonging to the “cultural” category rather elements. Yet, we cannot understand this than another one, and treated accordingly. integration and ordering without first This is the reason why – in the case of taking into account the specific historical French policy – a “cultural” vision of the conditions of its emergence. book industry or graffiti became imperative, as opposed to an exclusively Finally, the “cultural policy” category economic perspective in the first case or an 2 cannot be transposed as such to every exclusively repressive one in the second. institutional configuration. Apart from the The classification and shaping of institutional organisation or the “styles” of intervention practices give coherence and public action, frequently studied in meaning to a set of necessarily different comparative approaches, 4 it is more acts, discourses, expenditures and fundamentally the very definition of the administrative practices. Indeed, what is object of public policy which varies greatly there in common between the subsidies from one country to another.5 The German granted to the street arts festival of Chalon- Kulturpolitik, which has a long history, sur-Saône, the Louvre’s renovations and includes a set of artistic, educational, the announcement of a law on public sports and leisure activities.6 The Italian readings? In fact, very little, except for the policy of “cultural goods” largely overlaps same “cultural” labelling in the distribution with heritage protection and is distinct of public acts and spending, as well as a from the management of music and common integration within the main public theatres, dealt with by a Ministry of

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Tourism and Performing Arts. 7 “Public support for the arts” – the expression “the multiplication of activities, “cultural policy” being only lately and areas and modes of intervention, the hesitatingly used in Great Britain – has heterogeneity of actions, the only recently been extended to popular indifference, powerlessness or entertainment and other “cultural hostility towards every form of industries” to create a new whole.8 In the rationalisation by the government Netherlands, the Ministry created in 1982 regarding people and cultural established links between cultural activities matters, which would require the that are heterogeneous according to French promulgation of precise and clear classifications: welfare, health and cultural objectives, the organisation of affairs.9 In other places, such as Québec or priorities into a hierarchy, the Belgium – focusing on western examples rigorous management of resources only – cultural policy is essentially and the methodical assessments of structured around the language issue.10 At results”.12 the European level, culture is still not organised as a category of Community Looking for a precise definition of action: it is only integrated in programmes culture in official speeches and texts would that are not specifically cultural and is the be useless. At the local level and object of programmes that are as of yet specifically at the municipal level, the weakly unified.11 autonomisation process started in the

1970s and steadily gained momentum This book aims to show how culture throughout the next decade, but cultural was shaped as a public policy category in services are always endowed with other France, where cultural policy is generally responsibilities (animation, festivals, considered as one of the oldest and most education, etc.) and/or remain in ambitious sectors of public policy. It is competition in the management of culture, often cited as a model – in a positive but in which they do not always have a sometimes also a negative way – in other monopoly.13 At the national level, despite countries, especially in Europe. Yet, even the creation and the progressive in the French example, the definition of reinforcement of the ministry, culture culture as a public policy category has remains divided between numerous limits, contradictions and oppositions. This institutions. Among the main ones, we category has indeed “succeeded”, if we could mention the Ministry of Foreign compare it to past attempts at structuring a Affairs and the French Association for policy field that were either more or less Artistic Action (AFAA) for the diffusion abandoned (who remembers leisure policy of French culture abroad and international in France today?) or failed almost cultural exchanges, the Ministry of immediately (the short-lived Ministries and Education, especially for arts teaching at policies “for the Quality of Life” in 1974 school, the Ministry of Higher Education or “of Free Time” in the early 1980’s). and Research, the Ministry of Youth and Culture is objectivated in institutions and Sports for popular education and social roles, and forms one of the domains associations, etc. 14 The changes in the that are assessed when governments leave Ministry’s attributions also show this office. However, culture is not a clearly uncertain sectoral division: the defined sector of public action. Pierre- incorporation of public libraries, which Michel Menger remarks that in comparison were attached to the Ministry fifteen years with other public policies, cultural policy is after its establishment; architecture, characterised by: integrated at first and then moved to the

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Ministry of Equipment before being satisfactory. By explaining the problem of reintegrated into the Ministry of Culture in the institutionalisation of this intervention 1996; or French language, whose general through reference to the polysemy of the Delegation left the Prime Minister’s word culture, this type of interpretation services the same year. It is an uncertain forgets what the origin of this problem is, division indeed for an area in which there that is, the use of this word to talk about a are internal differences, particularly at the policy. central level. Except for those dedicated to It is rather to the genesis of this policy general administration and cultural that we must look for the reasons of this development structures, 15 the ten uncertain character. The analysis of this departmental structures of the Ministry genesis reveals that it took a “big shift”21 form as many relatively autonomous for culture to be constituted as a category territories – the so-called sectoral of public policy, and it is precisely from directions16 – and are very different from these specific conditions of emergence that one another, even in their geographic problems to define this category arise. localisation.17 The very negative reactions among civil servants and the professional Let us first go back to the time of the milieus affected by the fusion of music, structuring of a social space of culture, as dance and theatre into a large internal we know it nowadays – the turn of the 19th division of performing arts in 1998, century.22 The affirmation of the autonomy highlight this strong internal of this space not only led to an opposition differentiation. 18 There is not only one to economic reasonings – arts vs. money – group of State agents but also numerous but also to denounce anything that might professions and more or less be perceived as government or institutionalised university curricula bureaucratic fiat. The question of artistic (librarians, curators, chartists, theatre creation was then partly constructed professionals, teachers, graduates of the against the State. It was also at that time National School of Administration (ENA), that intellectuals who “went to the people” etc.). There is neither a unified public body to give them culture found in this of experts nor a homogenous, stable group, proselytism a way to organise themselves clearly identified as the sole legitimate as a group, by opposing an alternative to interlocutor. 19 Cultural policy certainly the traditional methods of political forms a heterogeneous and vague nebula. representation. 23 Relationships between culture and the people were a second What are the logics and reasons behind problem, which was central to the this uncertainty? This question will guide structuring of the cultural field, also our analysis. In this case, there is more to it constructed against the State and its than the common uses of vagueness and representatives by artists and intellectuals. ambiguity in the elaboration of The “freedom of art”, “art and the people” compromises that make public policies.20 – these problems took center stage within Forty years after the creation of a Ministry larger social and political issues. The of Cultural Affairs, and despite the huge construction of an antagonism between the body of scholarship that has tried to arts and the State was cognitively linked to understand public action for culture, we the separation of the Church and the State can no longer be satisfied with the usual and gave artists an opportunity to take a anthropomorphic interpretation of an stand on the role of the State and the indecisiveness linked to the “young age” of principles of the Republican regime. The this ministry. The lexical interpretation is emerging debates on “people’s culture” – also common although not more such as the ones that took place amongst

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the advocates of a “people’s theatre” – hierarchization of artworks were linked to were used by intellectuals as an public intervention if not determined by it. opportunity to talk to the people, on its Thus, in two or three decades, the behalf and to express its vision of the relationships between public organisations social order and the ways to transform it. (museums, purchasing funds) and private Constructed against the State, these operators (art dealers) had been reversed. questions did not trigger much investment The actions of public organisations from public agents – ministers, authorities, determined the activity and the choice of and civil servants – who already had few private operators, rather than ratifying the resources to invest. Discredited in advance, results of these as they had done before.26 they could not work and even less play a Entire areas of cultural production only role in this area. For a long period starting existed through and for public intervention, at the beginning of the Third Republic, and the principles that governed them were public intervention for culture was not very defined in the adjustments between State unified, institutionalised and, in fact, not agents and artists. 27 Public policy for very central. Admittedly, from the end of culture created the emergence and the the 19th century, a legal and institutional development of new positions, in the now framework for the cultural market was closely intertwined worlds of “cultural developed – with intellectual and artistic professions” – animators, mediators, property – as well as heritage protection. administrators, cultural managers, etc. – However, even though there were and public administration – directors of divergences between different sectors (on cultural affairs, graduates of the National which we will subsequently elaborate), School of Administration (ENA) cultural production was generally carried specialised in the field, etc. There were out without any public assistance. Artistic increasing numbers of political speeches production and the organisation into a on culture and from the government to the hierarchy of artworks mostly followed municipal councils of big cities, private considerations. The State did not specifically “cultural” jobs created huge purchase or order many artworks, and investment from agents of the political when it did, it was generally unconcerned field. with the renewal of aesthetic forms.24 Once culture was instituted as a From the 1960s, with the establishment category of public policy, the questions of a Ministry of Cultural Affairs in 1959, directed against the State at the turn of the the creation of a “cultural development century reappeared, but in the opposite plan” or the expansion and specification of way. Of course, the spectre of “official art” cultural policies at the municipal level, loomed, with references to the aesthetic culture became firmly established as a manipulations of Nazi Germany and the category of public policy. State agents Soviet Union - the threat was frequently gained a new influence in the production of brandished by the opponents of publicly culture. Public institutions played a commissioned and sanctioned art. dominant role in mechanisms of cultural However, now that State agents were in legitimisation. From this moment on, charge of it, the issue of the arts and the “recognition became intrinsically linked to State was not really raised in terms of a the State’s level of support. Artistic binary opposition anymore, but rather as a certification and public aid could no longer way to assert the necessity of public be dissociated”.25 What was true for theatre intervention in the preservation of the was also true for other areas, such as autonomy of the artistic field. The question sculpture. The art market and the of the “democratisation of culture” was no mechanisms for the selection and longer the privilege of intellectuals

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opposed to the authorities’ institutions. It denounce propaganda and cultural now had its own experts appointed by the technocracy, are an example of this Ministry, who used this very Ministry to resistance. There are many other possible define a role of the State. They imagined scenarios, but here is how Jean Dubuffet and assessed public policy plans that were illustrates it: supposed to facilitate the democratisation of culture. Nevertheless, the shift did not “I know only one side to the State – provide an answer to these questions. In the side of the police. In my opinion, public institutions of the central all the departments of State administration or local authorities, or in Ministries only have this side and I debates in the media – they remained very cannot imagine the Ministry of contentious and opposed competing Culture in any other way than as the visions of the social world, generalisations police of culture, with its police on the future of civilisation, the prefect and commissioner. This side, distribution of power, or social cohesion. for me, is highly hostile and This is a first explanation to why cultural repulsive”.28 policy stabilised in a vague and open form. Historically, artists and intellectuals “The legitimacy of the competition of directed cultural problems against the State ideas, and the freedom that the State must in an all-embracing manner. The respect with regard to cultural activities”29 establishment of culture as a State category do not only shape the general principles of reflected and reproduced the proliferating liberal democracies. These ideas are placed and fluctuating character of these pre- at the centre of the relationships between existing constructions. cultural production and the authorities, the latter always being suspected of avoiding However, by limiting the analysis to them, and always being expected to show the question of historical roots, one would that they update them. Kept under a close fail to consider all the consequences of the watch, public policy more generally stirs huge shift in the treatment of culture. up disputes about the definition of culture, Indeed, this historical shift that made the in which old exclusive prescribers, who are State a place where culture was defined is now in competition with State agents, deny in itself at the origin of that vagueness that, the State’s legitimacy. In fact, from the in a sense, it requires. From culture against radical critique of the 1960s denouncing the State to the State producing culture – the administration of a “bourgeois culture” with the elaboration of a cultural policy, it by a State paternalism to the neo- is the monopoly of the right to talk about conservative intellectuals of the 1980- culture that is brought into play. By 1990’s combating a supposed relativism of organising interventions and creating the Ministry of Culture threatening “real cultural institutions, State agents are culture”, the question of the definition of involved de facto in the definition of culture has always been central in the culture, taking away at the same time the debates on cultural policy. monopoly of talking about culture from Resistance, opposition, and opposing those who – mostly artists and intellectuals definitions: cultural policy has evolved – successfully claimed this position in the within this set of constraints, and from that past. State intervention in the production moment on has been created in a manner and definition of culture therefore creates characterized by denial and euphemism. resistance and opposition. The numerous The choice of public procedures highlights warnings against growing State control on this. With their commissions, councils and culture and minds, which recurrently expert consultations carried out by the

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cultural sector, they give numerous signs culture” of “marginal” groups – of dialogue and flexibility, proof of the immigrants, “young people living in State’s non-intervention. 30 It is probably suburban areas” – in the 1980-1990s, the within this insistent suspicion that it is public treatment of culture is regularly necessary to find the reasons for the seen as way of representing different social adoption, by the official creators of cultural groups. This purely social dimension of policy, of a “style” – “openness”, cultural policy does not seem as prevalent “passion”, personalisation, etc. – that, in today as in the past with the rather blunt their language, dress code and opposition of proletarian culture vs. relationships they have with their bourgeois culture. It has not vanished, interlocutors, differentiate them from the however. Considering the political rest of the public administration. Moreover, imperative to produce a consensus and to the incomplete definition of cultural policy give a unanimous representation of the could be the key element of this forced social space, this inevitable embedding – to mise en scène. The “vice” of administrative borrow another notion from Karl Polanyi – formalism is the homage paid to the of cultural policy within social “virtue” of freedom and of the creative relationships, does have an impact drive of artists who readily transgress regarding the possibilities to define a limits and boundaries. The indecision and policy of culture. It will inevitably raise the vagueness of this policy are perhaps important issues which are practically therefore less the sign of its “weakness” inextricable. This dilemma therefore than the essential factor of its successful generates avoidance techniques, notably institutionalisation. the designation of an unreachable horizon. This happened in Malraux’s times, with Here, we have solid foundations to State cultural legitimism, when the social answer the question of the consubstantial dimension of culture was completely vagueness of cultural policy. However, to transformed into the myth of the people’s be exhaustive, it is necessary to remember communion in the admiration of the great two characteristics that exclusively belong works of art. It was thought to be the last to the political treatment of cultural matters. resort for civilisation. It is avoidance as The first one comes from the special role well, when you consider this public played by cultural matters in distinction cultural ecumenism that consists in binding strategies of social groups and the together different definitions of culture – diffusion of representations within the from fine arts to ethnology – or through the social space. The procedures that agents refusal to choose between the promotion of and social groups use to mobilise techno music, the protection of the French instruments of culture in order to highlight language and the restoration of Roman their differences and to promote their own chapels – running the risk of being accused vision of the world are well known. It is of wasting taxpayer money, relativism and therefore not necessary to spend too much demagogy. time on them.31 It is nevertheless important Finally, the state definition of culture is to draw out all their consequences as constituted as an issue that is all the more regards the development of a cultural potent and whose scope is all the more policy. From the political celebration of a general, because it creates contests in popular culture in the 1950-1960s to the which the protagonists found their position promotion of “middle classes” through the on a dual claim to talk about the social organisation of their access to cultural world and to embody universal values: consumption in the 1960-1970s and to intellectuals and artists, 32 State agents. 33 strategies of the “rehabilitation through We thus understand the intensity and the

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general scope of the debates brought on by the modes of political representation, the the historical shift that makes the State a respective place of the State and cultural place where culture is defined. As at the professionals in society or the relationships turn of the century, the debates on culture between “morals” and public action. This and the State take place at the general level profusion of discourses, their high level of of the fundamental values that need to be generality and their multiple implications protected and of the social model that has characterise the cultural policy to which to be defined. We are no longer in the they assign this quite distinctive place in perspective of the affirmation of the public policies. Their action contributes autonomy of cultural production but rather, greatly to blurring the borders of a policy in the perspective of the definition of a which becomes the battleground for the cultural policy. One can cite the recurrent confrontation of wider social and moral attempts to give legitimacy to State values. cultural action. Consider for instance the The impossibility of finding a lyricism which, following the path of definition of culture as a category of public André Malraux or Jack Lang, Ministers of intervention now has a more complete Culture do not seem to want to abandon in explanation. First, artists and intellectuals their declarations. One can also recall the have historically directed cultural problems explicit production of a “major society against the State in a globalising manner debate” in the Plan commissions at the that makes their contours unclear. beginning of the 1960s, or within the Secondly, the institution of culture as a Conseil de développement culturel public category of intervention ratifies (Council of Cultural Development) at the these pre-existing constructions and their beginning of the 1970s. Or one can recall fluctuating character. Moreover, the very the latest attempt, the establishment by conditions of the shift prior to the Catherine Trautmann, then Minister of establishment of culture as a public policy Culture, of a monitoring commission of the category lead to euphemisations and Front National’s elected members, avoidances that further dilute the borders explicitly following the model of anti- of this category. Framing such a policy fascist monitoring committees of the 1930s. requires at the same time that it be framed These attempts demonstrate a in due form, that is, focusing on the universalistic pretension of State agents to absence of a restrictive definition of the intervene in internal affairs of the cultural cultural space, and the guarantee of area, and are regularly denounced as such, flexibility and adaptation to innovation in in the manner of Eugène Ionesco’s relationships with this social space, which humoristic injunctions, that the Ministry of sees itself as a locus of perpetual Culture content itself with being a movement. Finally, if we add to this the “Ministry of Supplies” for artists. They are strong embedding of cultural matters also denounced in the alarmist prophetic within social relationships, the tone of “liberals” observing the erosion of protagonists’ pretension to debate on the last protections of the “individual” and culture and the State’s pretension to “civil society” with the production of embody the universal, we can understand values and beliefs by the “cultural State”. how cultural policies constitute this Social agents who take a stand or mobilise moving space criss-crossed by wider all- against the authorities in power – political embracing controversies. Culture, as a opponents, artists or intellectuals – are not public intervention category, which to be outdone in the mobilisation of represents a specific social area, can universal categories. They trigger therefore only become stable through its controversies around questions as vast as structural vagueness.

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To illustrate this point, we first need to backward-looking ideology. They judge a go back to that antagonism between culture few isolated people and the beginning of and the State, constructed at the turn of the the Front Populaire period more positively century and which hindered for a long time but overall, their assessment is very the possibility of a State cultural policy negative. (part I). We will thus be fully able to These accounts of the past, which understand the consequences of the sometimes directly reproduce the reversal constituted by the establishment of authorized comments of the time – that is, culture as a State category, study its of the agents of the cultural field – tell a conditions of emergence and analyse its story that is the complete opposite of an effects. We will then look at the two major epic: no heroes, no adventures and no moments of cultural policy prophetic visions, just mediocrity, routine institutionalisation. First, the beginning of and narrow-mindedness. They are certainly the 1960s, with the building of institutions pervaded by retrospective judgments (Ministry, Plan, etc.), the invention of a enabled by subsequent developments in art policy and the uncertain and controversial history. Public action is accused of not definition of its territory (part II). The having benefited to the works of art that second institutionalisation of cultural turned out to be the most aesthetically policy took place in the 1980s, when significant – case in point, the long-lasting public credits for culture reached an neglect of impressionism in public unprecedented level and when the cultural purchases.34 The assessment of this failure administration played a new role in the came mostly from those who, from Jeanne administrative area and in the regulation of Laurent to André Malraux, worked to the cultural area. However, neither the implement a cultural policy and used the rapid development of this policy, nor the Third and Fourth Republics as professionalisation that occurred at that counterexamples in order to legitimise and time put an end to the uncertainty of its stress the innovation of their project. 35 definition and to the debates that it stirred These negative epics have recently been up. The renewal of the controversies with revisited to provide a more balanced vision regard to the notion of culture is a strong of that period, occasionally for reminder of this (part III). rehabilitation attempts with aesthetic and political implications: erasing the suspicion of academicism in order to free art history from the shackles of the ‘terrorist” PART ONE supporters of modern art, 36 praising the An improbable category unfairly underrated prescience of the Culture and politics before authorities of the time in order to celebrate the “Republican model”37 or nostalgically “cultural policy” remembering the place that humanities, literature or conventions were thought to 38 Public policies in the cultural field are have taken. said to have mostly failed before the 1960s, We do not aim to denounce or especially under the Third Republic. rehabilitate anything or anyone, but merely According to most critics, there was to take another look at this history and extremely little funding due to the absence explain what diametrically opposed of political backing, a heavily bureaucratic retrospective judgements – absence of and confusing organization, and a total policy vs. “project”, ‘system” or inability to support contemporary creation Republican cultural “model” – both tend to because of a dominant conservative, overlook: the historical constitution of

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functions and categories of the State (in Chapter I this case cultural policy) and the weight of Culture versus the State historical configurations in the generation – or not – of these functions and categories. If, during the “settling” years of the In order to give an account of these Republic, there were relationships of historical constructions and configurations proximity and mutual recognition between from the turn of the 20th century to the end intellectuals, artists and scholars on the one of the 1950s, we have to point out the hand, and politicians and civil servants on conditions that made the formalisation of a the other hand, a clearer separation public policy on cultural matters gradually took shape and became impossible. These conditions are first and established in the 1890s.39 This separation, foremost linked to the relationships which leads us to consider the opposing between the bureaucratic and the cultural relationships between State and culture, field. The founding period of the originates from the way cultural production 1890/1910s will be our starting point. is structured. We will discuss these logics Admittedly, at that time, the French state of cultural production in this chapter – in had little – financial and human – particular the controversies around visual resources and State agents – notably MPs – arts and theatre, these two areas being the were concerned with limiting expenditures main objects of public intervention for and therefore limited the development of what was then called “fine arts” (beaux- public intervention. But there were other arts), as well as key domains in the aspects. The relationships between the structuring of cultural debates. On some bureaucratic and the cultural field were level, the dismissal of public intervention characterised by the autonomisation of the and of the State in general by artists and cultural production and diffusion fields, intellectuals is a manifestation among which had a number of effects: the others of the global opposition to delimitation of the artistic field constructed heteronomous principles that shapes and in opposition with other fields likely to maintains the autonomy of the fields of impose their heteronomous principles, such cultural production. But that is not all there as economy or politics; then, with the is to it. Indeed, this dismissal is even figure of the intellectual, the affirmation of stronger now that artists and intellectuals a political function opposed to the practise openly show ambitions that result in their of official political functions (Chapter I). being in competition with State agents. State agents, placed in a delicate position, Having progressively left behind the “art internalised their illegitimacy to intervene for art’s sake” retreat – a characteristic of on cultural matters – somehow the “heroic period” of autonomy, a lot of objectivated in precarious institutions and them become politically involved in the positions (Chapter II). These conditions of name of art and the values they claim to impossibility started at the turn of the embody with their art. The development of century and have consistently been present small journals is a good example. They in the structure of the relationships started out as organs of artistic schools between the bureaucratic and the cultural confined to aesthetic and esoteric field and were reproduced until the discussions, and have gradually hosted creation of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs debates on society, politics, philosophy and (Chapter III). art. Another example is the rise of aesthetic and political actions of artists and intellectuals who aim at establishing new relationships between art and the people. The recurrent expressions of the rejection

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of the State are thus not only a tactical way illegitimacy was also objectified in the of preserving a recently gained autonomy; precarious positions and institutions of the they are also part of renewed relationships fine arts. The civil servants and the of competition between cultural producers ministers’ roles were badly defined, as and State agents. In the founding period of budgetary and administrative organization the turn of the century, it is in this charts fluctuate. In fact, nothing opposition to the State - necessary in order materialised into a clearly unified “policy”. to protect cultural producers from what The incompetence of state agents in artistic was now denounced as political matters, their illegitimacy to act in this interference, and useful for the field, and the representation of a natural establishment of their position as opposition between art and the State can be legitimate producers of discourses on the analysed as “well-founded illusions” in the social world aiming to represent what is relationships between the areas of universal - that cultural problems institutional policy and cultural production. (conditions of the creation, shaping and The uncertainty of intervention practises objectives of cultural proselytism) have and the instability of the institutional been conceived and constructed. constructions and positions contribute to create these well-grounded illusions.

Chapter II Chapter III An impossible policy The repetition of an absence

(1920 – 1958) “One needs more than a little abnegation to accept the task of finding a few words to define the fine arts in Established at the turn of the century, terms of political economy: finding the conditions that prevented the shaping limits where there are none, trying to of a policy on cultural matters remained in isolate operations of the human mind the following decades. The relationships and nature that merge and overlap. Such between cultural producers and State an activity is the consequence of the agents were reproduced, under partially unfortunate spirit of specialisation that different forms, but with identical effects: smothers us and brings us down, as the the de-legitimisation of their “interference”, language of human knowledge becomes the correlative weakness of their a heavier burden. The more we learn, investments, and consequently, the the more we drift away from the divine perceptions of the unity of the world. We indecisiveness of the institutional forms of need to classify our knowledge in a public treatment of culture. The multitude of sciences, confine ourselves competitions to represent the people and, to them, and being thus absorbed, our in general, the struggles to express the eyes are distracted from the sublime social world have also been reproduced in sight of the whole”.40 the new efforts to bring culture to the people and the debates that they stirred up. Constructed against the State, cultural This has been revealed by the analysis of issues only generated little investment the collective mobilisations for culture – in from its agents who, placed in a delicate which most of the principles and methods position, had internalised their illegitimacy of the social treatment of cultural matters to deal with such matters. MPs, were established until the 1960s – and the governmental staff, and theorists of relationships between these mobilisations administration only play a forced and and public institutions. In this case, those uncertain role. This internalised relationships were ambivalent – and most

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of the time hostile – and did not help the The emergence of a cultural policy integration of these principles and cannot be seen as the answer to a modalities of cultural action to the State “problem”, the affirmation of a “political institutions and policies. These State will” or the acknowledgement of a “social institutions and policies have remained demand”.41 The rationalist outline of the weakly structured, and have been marked institutional answer to a pre-existing by a series of unfinished projects and failed problem is a particularly inefficient experiments. explanation here, precisely because a particular problem had not been identified. We may think about the social inequalities regarding access to culture, but they were PART TWO not particularly strongly denounced at the The Big Shift end of the 1950s and there was no Origins and ambiguities of the movement to demand that the government deal with the issue. They officially became cultural policy a problem that had to be solved because of public intervention – they were not perceived as such before. The “political A State policy of culture emerged at will” thesis does not match what we know the beginning of the Fifth Republic. A about the direct conditions of the genesis specific ministry was created, and policy of this policy either. There were no was produced and implemented in preliminary debates; the policy seems to be institutions such as Maisons de la Culture the result of politico-administrative (Houses of Culture), in positions, political improvisation where passing opportunities or administrative roles (a minister, cultural played a major role – see in particular the managers) and in speeches and texts (the conditions of the creation of the Ministry decree of the ministry’s creation, numerous of Cultural Affairs. Likewise, no public statements, administrative reports, mobilisation, no pressure, no “demand”, etc.). All the different operators of the even vaguely expressed, preceded the objectivation of a policy were now emergence of the cultural policy. There consolidated in a coherent system. After was no public controversy, no appeals years of rather tentative public from cultural or political authorities, no management of the so-called “fine arts”, transactions between mobilised groups and the authorities claimed they had a “cultural high-ranking officials,42 like in the case of mission” to perform and they formalised a consumption43 or environment,44 precisely “doctrine of action” (in their own words). because there were no mobilised groups From then on, within State institutions – and no investment from high-ranking ministry, Plan commissions – the issues of officials in these matters.45 It seems more freedom of creation, diffusion and even useful to keep in mind the general socio- definition of culture, which until then were historical conditions that might have treated outside the State and to some extent supported this emergence than to look for directed against the State, were discussed. direct causes in vain. If, as we have tried to In this second part, we will try to explain show, the affirmation of the autonomy of the modalities and the consequences of this the cultural production fields, through the shift, and show how the conditions in systematic rejection of the heteronomous which it occurred shaped the emergence of principles it entails, was a condition that the cultural policy and its made the structuring of a State policy institutionalisation. impossible, the opposite is probably also true: The progressive crystallisation of

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these social areas has led to less political innovations. Then, if these general consideration of the “dangers” that transformations appear as conditions of threatened their – always relative – possibility, there are missing links such as autonomy after the “heroic” period of the group mobilisations – organisations “conquest”,46 thus making possible, even representing the middle class, artists, or advisable, a public policy considered by within the State administration – that might artists as helpful, and not only as have linked them more clearly to the interfering. Moreover, the increase of time emergence of cultural policy. spent within the educational system – over Here, we chose to focus on the time or longer periods, the increase of the relative places where this policy was implemented, importance of cultural capital within social the agents who produced it, their practise relationships, as well as the “rise of the and the relationships in which they were middle classes”, precisely characterised by involved, as well as the concrete modalities the importance of their cultural capital,47 of this emergence, which occurred from are certainly involved in the construction 1959 and the beginning of the 1960s, i.e. of cultural issues as political issues. This during the “settling” period of the new construction could be understood by taking political order built around Charles de into account and shaping the “aspirations” Gaulle and codified in the 1958 created in these social transformations. Constitution. During this key period, the Along with these transformations, the formalisation of the cultural policy and the changing role of the State should also be definition of a cultural authority were considered, with the increase of its shaped. 50 The terms of cultural policy, different types of resources. The programme or planning were integrated to emergence of a cultural policy could also the politico-administrative terminology. be considered as an expression among The creation of a Ministry of Cultural others of the general boom in State Affairs confirmed the idea that culture is a intervention after the Second World War, national prerogative and contributed to the and particularly of the increasingly progressive supremacy of the central level. dominant role of the State in terms of The leaders of the Ministry strove to give “management of the symbolic” – the meaning and unity to the various actions development of educational policies, the developed within the Ministry and in its mobilisation of State expertise or the name. They marked their territory, notably increase of governmental communication by dissociating themselves from related policies all attest to this. 48 The Ministry departments such as Youth and materialisation and the development of a Sports or Education. This was the first time cultural policy took place within the that the elements pertaining to a cultural broader context of these processes of policy were selected and gathered, that its transformation of public policies. objectives were announced, and that the Crystallisation of the cultural legitimate modalities of its production production area, development of schooling, were defined. growing role of the symbolic in public action (and vice versa): these changes are This first institutionalisation of cultural essential, but cannot be seen as explaining policy has to be understood within its factors:49 first, because, unless we posit the proper context: the arrival of the Gaullist hypothesis of a “French exception” that regime. 51 There are similarities, even would have to be precisely defined, they homologies, between the shaping of a cannot enable us to explain why cultural policy in André Malraux’s time comparable changes in other Western and the modalities of transformation of the countries did not come with similar political regime. In both cases, a radical

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change was announced. The previous the sense that this newly formed public system was highly depreciated, and a clean action was among the elements that break with the practises that characterised symbolised the change of regime. This was, that system – too many middlemen, in the general sense, the political compromises – was proclaimed, to make dimension of the cultural policy: it helped way for a “national communion” renewed symbolise and organise the modalities of thanks to the establishment of a direct the relationships with the people and the relationship between the people and their ways to exercise power that characterized leader and between the public and great the new political order established in 1958. works. Just like the advent of the Fifth Therefore, the advent of the cultural policy republic, the shaping of the cultural policy does not only entail the emergence of a was characterized by the promotion, for new ‘sector” of State intervention, it is also modernity’s sake, of “rational” political a new place for the elaboration and practices partly based on technical skills diffusion of the State’s representation of and tools.52 With the new regime comes the social space. the redefinition of the criteria for political skills: this is what shows, in particular, the These conditions and the practices emergence of technician ministers, as related to them place the production of the opposed to the existing parliamentary cultural policy in a space of reference and model. Of course, the Minister André competition that is more “global” than Malraux was certainly not one of these ‘sectoral”.53 There is neither a profession technicians. However, the invention of nor a sector whose “misadjustments need cultural policy involved attempts at to be regulated”, 54 but the people in rationalisation, as the important role of general, a dimension thought to be planning – and sociological expertise - in essential to the “human condition” the development of public cultural (culture), a “mission” (democratising its programmes shows. Following paths partly access) and through this, objectives that similar to the advent of the Fifth Republic, involve the protection of civilisation facing the shaping of a cultural policy also the “sex, money and death trinity”, in the constituted a means to bring about political Minister’s words. 55 This large reference change. It acted as a symbolic marker, space, with multiple implications, in which displaying what analysts described at the the producers of cultural policy – ministers, time as the revival of the politique de senior civil servants, planners – place it is grandeur and also contributed to this matched by multiple and far-reaching revival: the relegation of past elites was issues, from the redefinition of the also relevant in the cultural area, and the legitimate forms of political representation contemplation of great works was also to the new means of production and supposed to favour the communion of the diffusion of state visions of the social people transformed into an audience. The world via the competition over the specific conditions and modalities of this definition of culture. These issues and genesis have had consequences on the way competitions are all the more powerful as cultural policy has been carried out in the various categories of agents – local France: they closely linked it to the officials, artists, various cultural emergence of the Gaullist Republic, and intermediaries – dispossessed or relegated endowed it with a political aura that made by the emergence of cultural policy, it much more than the simple product of an because of their exclusion, are eager to administrative specialisation. Political in polemicize the debates around the shaping the partisan sense, indeed, with a strong of this policy. presence of Gaullist networks, but also in

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Because it is the bone of contention of the government and the cultural field, heated struggles, the definition of the within the political field, and between object of state cultural policy is administrations. There was not much of a characterized by denial and euphemisms, preformed project, but there was an and the principles and objectives assigned opportunity to grasp, which was not done to it are very broad and give it an uncertain according to a programme but in a politico- form. The “big shift” through which administrative “improvisation”. Despite cultural problems built against the State major uncertainties, this innovation, which become problems of the State is bound up even its promoters thought temporary and with the more specifically political fragmentary, progressively settled within conditions of the advent of the Fifth the bureaucratic field and little by little, Republic. Thus, cultural policy, from its deeply changed the terms of the first institutionalization in the early 1960s, culture/State relationship. is much more vague and ambiguous that most other so-called sectoral policies, as case studies of the two main operators of Chapter V this policy will show us: the creation of the The contradictions of cultural planning Ministry of Cultural Affairs (Chapter IV) and the elaboration of cultural planning From the organisation of the Sixth Plan between 1960 and 1965 (Chapter V). in 1961, French planning started taking cultural issues into account. The “Cultural equipment and artistic heritage” Chapter IV commissions and working groups that were A Ministry for culture developed during the elaboration of the Fourth and Fifth Plans (which respectively The creation of a Ministry of Cultural cover the years 1962-1965 and 1966-1970) Affairs can be seen as a political coup were at the time a key locus of production taking the form of an institutional and legitimisation of cultural policy. This innovation.56 It is possible to assume that was made possible by the fact that the this innovation was one of many tactical Ministry of Cultural Affairs had very few manoeuvres from the protagonists of the resources – the Plan was able to provide conflicts that led to the advent of the Fifth assistance, to some extent, in terms of Republic – precisely, among those that credits, qualified staff and the constitution played up the newfound grandeur of the of a capital of information and expertise State, and in particular of its new leader, that was until then nonexistent. The Plan thanks to the change of regime. This new commissions allow for the accumulation of ministry can be seen as the invention of a the credit provided by its members, who “new figure of the State-society very often have leading positions in their relationship”, in Pierre Rosanvallon’s respective areas. Expertise is combined words, more than the result of one of the with democratic consultation in the three typical factors of the creation of a production of a “doctrine” of cultural ministry according to him: “administrative action that largely contributes to the logics of specialisation”, “management of legitimisation of this new policy. emergencies” or “requirements of clientelism”.57 It is however necessary to As it was the locus of the production of discuss the precise conditions and the principles, objectives and limits of cultural practical modalities of this invention: it policy, cultural planning was a decisive comes within a framework of multiple operator of its objectivation. The Plan relationships and competitions – between commissions produced texts that set a

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general framework of intervention and inevitably transformed the way culture was scheduled measures and medium-term discussed: it was adjusted to the principles expenditures. 58 The conditions of the in use in the definition of public action, as production of these texts – the formal rules the systematic use of statistics and reliance on planning and writing a report – on experts show. Furthermore, cultural consolidated this task of objectivation, commissions provide platforms for a very which entailed a carefully argued general discourse on the social world that, presentation of the action carried out, beyond issues of cultural infrastructure, making it visible and understandable: defines legitimate ways of considering current situation, issues to resolve, social issues. There are two contradictory objectives, resources. In this perspective, aspects of cultural planning: On the one the Plan commissions’ reports are more hand, with the application of technical elaborate and numerous than documents procedures, the selection of agents produced by the Ministry. Indeed, many according to their presumed skills and the important texts – due to their normative importation of supposedly scientific scope and diffusion – elaborated by the systems of thought, it limits the group of leaders of Cultural Affairs were precisely the agents who are entitled to talk about presented before the commission or one of cultural policy and culture in general. On its working groups. 59 The Plan reports, the other hand, it triggers endless debates more than mere administrative documents, on the definition of culture, the role of the were the main and most widely available State, the desirable model of the society to texts on cultural policy. They were come and therefore blurs the boundaries of frequently mentioned in the press, and it the policy that it is supposed to define. was mostly on the basis of the Plan reports that governmental cultural policy was commented and discussed.60 They served as a reference – admittedly sometimes a PART THREE negative one – for anybody (local officials, The institutionalisation of intellectuals, civil servants, parliament vagueness members, etc.) who wanted to have a say on cultural policy issues. Professionalisation of cultural At the same time, the Plan’s cultural action and cultural broadening commissions framed the area of the public agents who were authorized to produce this policy. This area organized the When Minister of Culture Jack Lang intervention of new categories of agents in took office in 1981, he declared: “twenty- the treatment of cultural issues – senior two years after its birth, it is time that this civil servants, experts, sociologists – as Ministry reach adulthood and be a well as the exclusion of numerous complete Ministry, with a proper budget 61 categories of agents who, like artists, had and administration”. The period little weight in the Plan’s institutions, even following the arrival of the new majority in though they played a major part in the 1981 seems to confirm this statement. construction of cultural problems. The Plan, Between 1981 and 1982, the Ministry’s supposedly an institution of “consultation”, budget unprecedently grew by 74% - a also shaped the selection of State-approved trend that continued over the following 62 agents who were entitled to intervene in years. The Ministry’s resources and, cultural issues. more generally, the resources of the public This recomposition of the group of cultural institutions increased significantly agents entitled to talk about culture and drawing up cultural policies became a

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fully-fledged administrative and/or accomplished in its name: cultural action, professional task. The issues linked to originally a product of political change, them generated higher political efforts than becomes a symbol of political change. One ever before and were largely visible in the remembers Jack Lang’s declarations media. Culture therefore played a new role announcing the ‘transition from darkness within the political and administrative to light” in 1981, referring to the first fields. The opposite is also true. Public actions and projects accomplished by the finance in the survival of the arts is new government – assistance to developing essential. As part of local and national countries, reduction of working hours, cultural policies, new structures were abolition of the death penalty – and stating created (such as the Fonds régionaux d’art that the government has forty Ministers of contemporain, media libraries, etc.) while Culture. Beyond this rhetoric, culture others were developed or redefined (such constituted de facto one of the means to as museums), considerably broadening and confront and contrast a past made out to be transforming what was then known as the weighed down by traditions, hierarchies, cultural offer. In short, the Minister’s wish uniformity, conservatism with a future full came true as the Ministry and its cultural of imagination, creativity, liberty, youth, policy appeared to be reaching adulthood. diversity and open-mindedness, to quote As with the first phase, this critical some of words used at the time.69 second phase of cultural institutionalisation as a category of public policy is linked to In this new step towards major political change. The following are a institutionalising cultural policy, two brief reminder of the intensity of these phenomena – mutatis mutandis – similar to bonds. The increase of cultural public offer the ones observed in the previous period and its promotion as an essential political are again brought into play. While the concern is linked to the social structure of space of public agents who produced this the new majority’s support base. Apart policy is shrinking, the object of this policy from intellectuals and artists, greatly is expanding and becoming more mobilised during François Mitterrand’s fragmented. Concerning the first election campaign, 63 members of the phenomenon, the development and socialist party (PS) were also, to a larger institutionalisation of cultural policies led extent, active supporters. They were to an exclusive redefinition of the mainly recruited from the middle class legitimate producers of these policies, which had an important cultural capital and starting from a professionalisation process. benefited the most from public cultural Specialised university curricula and action.64 The “cultural” construction of the degrees were created, downgrading in the presidential role by François process both “cultural activists” and other Mitterrand, 65 his ties to the Minister of volunteers. “Professional” references and Culture 66 and, finally, the fact that the rhetoric gained more and more importance President had more political and media- at the expense of the past experience of friendly capital and titles which allowed public agents, stigmatised as “ideological” him to discuss culture 67 than his post- and “naive”. Regarding the second Malraux predecessors 68 also show the phenomenon, the “cultural relationship between political change and democratisation” proselytism is combined the development of cultural policy. These with the strategies of rehabilitating hugely relationships are explained by the fact that diverse objects and practises, which until public treatment of culture is a powerful then were excluded.70 Cultural policy was expression of political change that gives no longer to be concerned only with meaning to the numerous acts traditional art forms but worked towards

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legitimising culturally “minor”, “popular”, “offer” by cultural professionals and the or “marginal” art forms such as rock music, inability of elected officials to take comic books, circus, photography, fashion, responsibility for defining priorities. Just industrial architecture, etc. like these policies, it is more the definition of culture as a category of public policy The two major aspects of the cultural that seems controlled by the “inflationist policies of the 1980s - the vicious circle” of the “cataloguing game”, professionalisation of culture and the which results from the specialisation of broadening of the definition of the word professional roles in this area. 73 The “culture” – may seem contradictory but expansion of public cultural intervention they are, in reality, intertwined. In fact, if linked to the so-called cultural constituting cultural policies as a market in rehabilitation policies not only comes from which “professionals” compete leads to the the conversion of administrative and shrinking of the space of agents political leaders to cultural relativism or empowered to intervene, then their the ethnographical definition of culture. potential scope of action is also increased. Above all, it was propelled by the rapid First of all, following a classical process,71 development of the professions of cultural the creation of a group of specialists comes “mediators” or “administrators” and the with the development of distinction relationships in which these agents were strategies leading to more and more involved.74 differentiations between “cultural projects”. In the words of one of the leading “cultural This second defining moment of the managers”, “everyone knows that the race institutionalisation of culture as a category for results and distinction began when of public policy confirms and reinforces economics and communication became an the first stage of the process: it is a vague integral part of the profession”.72 Then – category that has been institutionalised and this is directly linked to this race – the only because of this vagueness. 75 The competition between these specialists – professionalisation of functions linked to special assistants at the Ministry of Culture, public cultural action is less characterised managers of cultural institutions, local by the clear definition of positions and heads of Cultural Affairs, etc. – roles than by the increase of their encouraged them to look for attractiveness. They incorporate “opportunities”, “gaps” and alliances, all of heterogeneous forms of work status, them becoming more numerous and varied, recycling rather than excluding social linking cultural action with tourism, agents from diverse backgrounds and their economical development, incorporating accompanying principles and references. cuisine or ethnographical heritage for the This attractiveness is huge, given the elderly or prisoners, etc. These strategies to ability of the production of cultural broaden the market were all the more policies to enable access to positions of efficient and unrestrained as no one – “specialists of the general”. These including political “decision-makers” – positions articulate and merge the social was in a position a priori to close the field universes of culture, media, administration belonging to culture by separating the and politics and, with them, their possibilities of public cultural policy. The privileged modes of representation of the local cultural policies analysed at the social world, from the aesthetic field to beginning of the 1980s by Erhard political engagement and communication Friedberg and Philippe Urfalino “grew techniques (Chapter VI). The extension of more than they have been managed”. This the “field of objects” (Foucault) of cultural is due to the monopoly of the definition of policy does not so much harden boundaries

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by filling the gaps as it maintains the salvation”, cultural administrators are like uncertainty of its limits and finalities. magicians and prophets, acting according Moreover, this “excrescence of Cultural to their personal commitment, talents or Affairs”76 again stirs up controversies on charisma. 80 Voluntary functions have the definition of culture instead of creating become permanent and paid activities; a relativist consensus. These controversies specialised university curricula in culture are all the more intense that they are in line administration and management have with larger competitions – mainly between appeared; socialisation and representation “intellectuals” and government spaces such as specialised workshops have representatives – for the definition of been developed. Labels, norms, and legitimate representations of the social professional vocabulary have gradually space and the pretension to embody taken over, changing the habits and, universal values (Chapter VII). therefore, the style of public intervention.

However, this professionalisation takes Chapter VI on specific forms that only partially A paradoxical professionalisation of correspond to the usual criteria used by the cultural policies sociology of professions.81 First of all, this process does not rely on the more instituted The title of a “manifesto for a new positions of public management of culture, conception of cultural action” - Profession: such as librarians and museum curators cultural engineer77 - the title of a magazine whose professions are more established,82 for “cultural administrators, mediators, but promotes generalists who want to fulfil managers” – Cultural Profession – or the the criteria for professionalism. Secondly, title of an article on the executives of the it affects numerous public agents of Ministry of Culture78 - “Culture: the rue de varying status and position more than a Valois professionals” are a few examples specific body of agents, such as civil of the significant professionalisation of servants from local and national cultural administration functions, which administrations, heads of institutions and was a major transformation during the mediators with “on-site experience”. 1980s.79 Thanks to the increase of public Finally, if this process is based on the cultural budgets, the traditional positions development of knowledge and specialised of the cultural field (artists, authors, film- skills – particularly with regard to makers, etc.) benefited from conditions administration and management – it is also that favoured the permanent exercise and about rhetorical affirmation and the effects recognition of their profession. of belief. The frequent use of the words Furthermore – and this is what shall be “profession” and “professionalisation” by examined in greater detail – the cultural the people concerned testifies to this. The mediators who form the heterogeneous change in progress is due to objective ensemble (administrators, heads of elements as well as the growing claim for departments and institutions, animators, professional identity by agents who often etc.) of agents who base their position on have poorly-established positions in the drawing up of cultural policies and are comparison to their counterparts in closely located at the centre of their production, related sectors of public action, such as the assert their professional qualification – in educational or social sectors. both senses of the term – and then contribute to it by modifying the praxis of If this professionalisation bears the public cultural action. Just as priests are clear hallmark of the conspicuous “members of an organised firm of manipulation of the external signs of

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professional status, it is still real in its a definition of public cultural policy (in a modes and consequences. By claiming a sense, it has been the opposite), it has, professional identity, the agents who have however, affected its forms. The the combined and non-codified functions imposition of the professional reference as of “mediation” or cultural administration an all-encompassing imperative has de contribute to the definition of a facto hugely transformed the content of professional identity, incorporating a set of national and local cultural policies.87 It is positions, even if they remain objectively more the area of possible actions that has heterogeneous. As is often the case, this been modified, especially in the attempt to individually and collectively claimed replace ideological principles and militant professional identity is defined primarily in imprecision with the “quality” and opposition to various antagonists: the ‘thoroughness” of professionals. This amateur who does not comply with the management-oriented evolution, tangible requirements of “professional quality”; the at the time in the cultural activities of both “opportunistic” politician who neglects the the private and the public sector88 - as in rigour and coherence necessary for a “real many other social realms and within public cultural project” or the socio-cul, 83 administration in general – gives the necessarily opposed to la culture exigeante impression of a “depoliticised” public (high culture) and reduced to pottery and policy, where the political and the social basket-weaving. By defining themselves as can only be expressed in the terms of the specialists of cultural administration, these new rhetoric of professional neutrality.89 agents create new paths: from theatre to a Opposition no longer takes place between municipal department of culture; from elite and popular culture, but between public cultural institutions to a Direction productions of “good” or “bad” quality. régionale des affaires culturelles; from the The social inequalities regarding access to Ministry of Culture to a public or private culture are henceforth considered from the cultural institution, etc. Envisioning and perspective of “cultural communication” presenting these successive positions as and marketing techniques. In other words, different positions in the same career,84 this change in the perception of culture and they map out a single professional world. cultural action has only obscured the links Finally, the claim for professionalism, if it between social and cultural hierarchies, affects the way the producers of cultural thus contributing to the transformation of policy see their posts, also transforms their the forms of domination linked to the practices: the progressive constitution of a complication of social relationships due to peer group leads to the establishment of an increasingly elaborate differentiation of norms 85 which, though rarely codified, social spaces.90 must be respected. In times when professional positions have yet to be defined, and for those who have yet to fill Chapter VII them, one understands that cultural The state versus culture? administrators might have to over-invest in conformity with the drawing-up of these One of the unexpected effects of the professional standards, contributing to the professionalisation of cultural creation of a movement towards administration is its contribution, through professionalisation and, in any case, to the strategies of market expansion, to the strengthening of its practical outcomes.86 extension of the domain covered by public cultural policy. More than the boundaries Therefore, while this specific between public, private and social spaces, professionalisation process did not lead to it is the boundaries of “culture” that have

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become more uncertain. Public cultural government, or in public administrations, policy – initially based on a proselyte often held precarious positions, and their strategy of “democratising” the legitimate practices remained rather unrecognized. culture – was from then on composed of Furthermore, the main cultural issues – strategies of rehabilitation and explicitly conditions of creation, relations between became a means for cultural legitimisation culture and people – were to a great extent and for social legitimisation through directed against the State, by artists and culture.91 Just as “cultural inflation” makes intellectuals who intended to embody its object increasingly inaccessible, the universal values through opposition to an combination of these two strategies order established by the state. complicates and obscures the objectives of It is only from the early 1960s cultural policy. Moreover, the policy of onwards that culture emerged as a state cultural broadening faces huge obstacles domain. Contrary to what had been done that jeopardise the efficiency of these until then, governmental institutions were “magical” operations of adding value by created and stabilized, as well as public attaching a “cultural” tag. 92 The “state positions, and a state cultural policy was magic” clashes with the difficulty of State established. The state slowly became a key administrations to be accepted and element in the cultural field, and its agents recognised as legitimate institutions of actively – and often decisively – took part cultural legitimisation. Thus, as well as the in formulating related questions. The restoration of cultural forms not recognised genesis of culture as a field of public as such until then, State relativism feeds intervention marks a “big shift”, as cultural controversies on the definition of culture, matters, constructed against the state, the authorities’ legitimacy to define it and, became state matters. finally, on the very foundations of cultural Cultural policy is a relatively stable policy. field of public intervention. However, public intervention remains uncertain. It is regularly called into question; its foundations are complex, unclear and Conclusion unstable. It is a rather vague category, unspecified (what is specific to it?) and 94 “Is there an arts department in the human above all undefined (what is its scope?). brain?” The analysis of the main stages of its - In the current state of knowledge, my institutionalization proves it. And it is answer to the question is no.93 precisely because of the shift that marks its birth that cultural policy is so undefined. An undefined yet successful category As the social space of culture became autonomous before public authorities It has not always been possible to intervened, the latter must show respect turn culture into a field of public policy. and recognition of its autonomy, with, for The assertion of an autonomous cultural instance, a rejection of an “authoritarian” production in the late 19th century delayed definition of culture by the state, which the appearance of a formalized policy in leads to a skilfully maintained uncertainty this area for a long time. The weak as to the scope of state cultural policy. “I attempts at intervention from the public had made quite a sensation when I declared sector were denounced as contrary to the at the Conseil des ministres that I was the necessary separation of Art and State. only minister who didn’t know what Those who dealt with fine arts in the third culture was”, writes André Malraux in Le French Republic, whether in parliament, Miroir des Limbes. To know that it is

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impossible to know and define “what the development of cultural equipment and culture is” seems to be the first its integration in cities, Beaubourg being requirement for a culture state official. The the epitome of this idea. 95 This “de- shift constituted by the birth of culture as a sanctification” was to be carried out by field of state intervention nonetheless erasing distinctions between disciplines revives the rivalry between artists and and different moments of social life. intellectuals and state agents, focused on It was even more the case during what is the problem of defining culture. Cultural known as “the Lang years”, when cultural policy can thus be seen as the opportunity relativism ruled, though this relativism for a public controversy and open itself should be put into perspective. questioning. Recent trends in French cultural policy, All of this goes to show that the especially towards fighting exclusion and undefined and scattered aspect of cultural re-weaving social bonds, are a policy, resulting from the circumstances of confirmation of this characteristic of its its birth, cannot be considered as the history. Cultural policy producers often failure or the limit of its institutionalisation; present themselves as political and this aspect is both the condition and the bureaucratic managers of Antonin Artaud’s consequence of institutionalisation. The cultural programme of who protested in lack of precision is really meant to make The Theatre and its Double “against the the participation of public authorities in the widespread idea of culture as something definition of culture less visible, and separated, as if there was culture on one therefore more acceptable. The best proof side and life on the other side”. thereof is probably the contradictory Besides this ideology of injunctions continuously addressed to the decompartmentalization, there is a producers of cultural policy ever since it structuring and structural contradiction: the became institutionalized: support a field of assertion of the anti-institutional aspect of intervention and avoid any kind of cultural policy institutions, and therefore of classification; create institutions against this policy itself. When the cultural policy conservatism, which is inherent in all characteristic of the new ministry was institutions. invented, institutions were created to fulfil In all the stages of its definition, this “project”: the Houses of Culture. But cultural policy has been de facto elaborated little by little the very definition of these in the name of an ideology of institutions contrasted them with already decompartmentalization, the aim of which existing institutions, and even with the is to break up existing boundaries, be they concept of institution. A House of Culture vertical – between social categories – or is, as one of its first managers puts it, “a horizontal – between different areas. It was machine against machines”. 96 This the case in the early 1960s, when André opposition regularly reappeared, as with Malraux and the self-proclaimed pioneers regional funds for contemporary art, from the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and created in the early 1980s against the the Plan rejected the social character of concept of museum.97 Is it not the destiny cultural hierarchies and practices in the of the Ministry of Culture itself, as Jack name of a new mission of the state – to Lang said several times, to disappear once make culture more accessible – and its goal – “to impulse cultural creation” - worked on suppressing the classifications has been achieved, and this administrative set up by the Beaux-Arts. It was the case structure has become useless or even again, after this heroic stage, when there counter-productive? Criticisms of the risks was talk of “de-sanctifying” culture and created by the cultural apparatus bringing it into everyday life, and even into mentioned by Jean-Claude Passeron are

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assimilated and repeated, not only It shows “the strength of this weak rhetorically, in the very “apparatus”. aggregate” and the power of attraction of this category “that would have tended to Even though they were denied, the weaken if it had been composed of clearly appearance and the institutionalization of separate units or if relationships between culture as a field of public intervention did the components of this heterogeneous revive the controversies over the definition aggregate had been explicitly ruled by of culture and the legitimate relationship to stable and transparent systems of culture, which were all the more intense evaluation and anticipation”.100 and wide-ranging as they confronted agents in competition over the definition of universality and who was entitled to From cultural policy to cultural represent it. These conflicts and the practices historical elements they convey – notably the history of social habits of culture as a The object of this book is to show vector of the representations of the social how culture became institutionalized and space and a bridge to universality- help legitimized as a field of public intervention. locate cultural policy and the definition of The processes of legitimization and its object at a crossroads of a myriad of institutionalization fall within the double conflicting issues. Cultural policy is the framework of practices and representations. field of both practical and symbolical Our survey has been focused on the interaction between numerous institutions, practices and representations of cultural social groups and areas, between artists policy producers and their closest and state agents, intellectuals and the lower “constituency” of opponents or authorized classes, those who possess cultural commentators, such as artists or cultural legitimacy and politicians, the media and professionals. The practices of social civil servants… Cultural policy can also be agents towards whom politics/policy and seen as a crystallisation and a culture are normally directed, be they symbolization of these interactions at a called people, audience, non-audience, given time in history. Therefore cultural citizens, etc., were only approached policy and the related issues can be through the distorted vision of political and considered as “more than topics, more than cultural regulators. This analytic bias is institutional elements, more than complex linked to our construction of the object, institutions”, as a social phenomenon which is neither an assessment of cultural which “represents all sorts of institutions at policy nor an analysis of its reception in the same time”. In other words, “a various social groups. The aim is to complete social phenomenon”98 as Marcel understand how cultural policy was Mauss famously wrote. constructed and established as a policy. The preceding pages provide This bias was also justified insofar as, as numerous examples of this phenomenon, often happens, the people, or audience, etc., from André Malraux’s prophetic to whom cultural policy is supposed to be “attestations charismatiques”, or directed, is very often absent from it, or charismatic tokens, in the de Gaulle years, has a very limited presence as something to the rise of cultural careers in the 1980s, else than an object and an instrument of at the time of a confused conflict between those who pretend to professionalisation, or the role Jack Lang speak in its name. This research, through played as the incarnation of governmental an insight into the practices and spirit. 99 The over-abundance of cultural representations of specialists, is policy is not necessarily a sign of weakness. nevertheless aimed at better understanding

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those of non-specialists. The preceding What is exactly “to democratize”? What is developments should be seen in this light. to be “democratized”? Our aim is to The link between cultural policy consider other ways of viewing this issue and cultural practices is at first glance and to go back more precisely to the object obvious: politics should be a means to of the book, which considers the democratize practices. The assessment internalization of state cultural categories made from this point of view is quite by non-specialists and relationships simple and confirmed in many surveys, between these categories and non- especially those carried out under the specialist practices. patronage of the Ministry of Culture. The To paraphrase Marx,103 one could rise in “cultural supply” due to public say that implementing a policy does not intervention only had a limited impact on only create an object for the subject, but democratisation, defined as an increase in also a subject for the object. Is the the proportion of “practising recipients”. invention of a new field of public action Between 1973 and 1988, the proportion of not accompanied by the definition of a new French people visiting places of legitimate domain of practices? Does the elaboration culture did not move, while the number of of cultural policy not create its own these places increased steeply with the recipient, and bring about the necessity of development of public intervention. 101 practice? Does it not convey patterns of Among the practices defined as cultural in practices and of relationships to practices? these investigations, the most immune It is true that cultural practices existed long from official cultural action, such as before cultural policy appeared, but they individual radio-listening or television- were not necessarily regarded as part of the watching, experienced the sharpest same category. With cultural policy, they increases. Democratization also remains are duly registered, classified and low when defined as access to cultural numbered.104 Defining this area of practice practice (or consumption) for social groups amounts to deciding that some practices that were not culture users. The social are cultural while others are not and to origins of culture users have hardly prescribing as well as describing.105 This changed in the last thirty years. However, categorization falls within the frame of the development of cultural policy has political and statistical representation, but been a key factor in intensifying the also institutional divisions, different practices of groups that were socially categories of agents, expected behaviour... predisposed to practice, i.e. the middle in short, the frame of practices.106 We can class, increasingly integrated in the school therefore say that by creating or facilitating system. Cultural policy is the cultural specialization and institutions accomplishment of Flaubert’s programme, specific to cultural matters, cultural policy rather than Antonin Artaud’s. Flaubert helped underscore, despite the apparent urged “to bring culture to the bourgeois, will to “decompartmentalize”, the rather than turn the people into the object separation between “art” and “life”, as of cultural proselytism”.102 early 20th century artists and later Antonin While this approach can be useful – Artaud used to say. even when taking literally a policy whose Secondly, while everything points main legitimizing principle is to the fact that reference to democratization – to consider the relations “democratization” gave cultural policy, between cultural policy and practices in which is mainly confined to a policy of such terms presents the risk of transposing culture supply, a rallying cause rather than to this analysis a political schema with all precise modalities, we can also say that the the ambiguities and issues it conveys. success of the myth of cultural

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democratization yielded effects on culture. The aesthetic interpretation of practices, if only because it contributed to graffiti proposed in the above-mentioned assert the need for practice. “To make exhibition did not necessarily fit with the culture available to all” is a ground concept painters’ interpretation and how they of cultural policy that could well be shifted. wanted it to be viewed. “Rock policy”, One could wonder whether the aim is not which consists in fostering the assimilation to make all citizens “available” to culture, of technical savoir-faire and the integration as defined by the agents of to a professional market, does not “democratization”, and according to the necessarily correspond with how this modalities they prescribe. Regarding the musical practice is considered, lived and lower classes, to which “democratization” practiced by those who devote themselves is supposed to be chiefly directed, to it. The professionalisation of culture, populiculteurs 107 always condemn self- brought about by the cultural policy exclusion and “it’s not for us” attitudes that analyzed in the preceding pages, it is not help set up the symbolic barriers shutting without consequence on the relations to out access to culture. The development of practice. The split between professionals cultural policy only had limited effect on and amateurs that marked the birth of widening access, but it made it possible professionalisation, which public and necessary. There has been a shift in the intervention in culture had helped create, feeling of cultural unworthiness. led to a devaluation of amateur practice, Externalization towards practice (“it’s not which is now hailed by cultural policy for us”) has maybe given way to a feeling producers. 109 The institutionalization of of guilt for not practicing (“it’s made for us cultural policy and the professionalisation and we don’t take advantage of this of cultural activities are also linked with opportunity”). The systematic the decline of practice in collective overestimation of cultural practices in structures – clubs, associations, cultural investigations – similar in that aspect to movements – in which practices such as underestimation of abstention in election outings, visits, debates, participation to surveys – or the fact that the people programming, etc. were organized. One surveyed feel they have to justify the low can see a link between the kind of relation level or the absence of practice, allow us to to the public that slowly came to be the posit this hypothesis.108 norm in public intervention in culture – Lastly, some patterns of cultural cultural marketing and the media tend to practice and relationships to practice are replace proselytism “in the field” – and the prescribed, organized, and made more or often regretted evolution of practices less desirable and possible in public towards attitudes described as passive, cultural action. We need to rely on an as- individualistic, and consumerist. If, as of-yet unavailable social history of practice Jean-Pierre Changeux writes, there is no patterns that would show the role played “arts” department in the human brain, the by public agents in instilling legitimate way this “department” is established in the ways of practicing, in library, museum and state – Durkheim’s “cerebral-spinal system theatre regulations, for instance. in the social body” – could very well have In the absence of studies, we will merely an influence on the way we see culture and give a few facts on the latest period. The consider our own practices. Ministry of Culture’s legitimizing of marginal, minor, working-class, young people-oriented practices took place at the cost of a reshaping of these practices according to the requirements of legitimate

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Table of contents (Book)

INTRODUCTION CHAPTER V: THE CONTRADICTIONS OF CULTURAL PLANNING PART ONE: AN IMPROBABLE CATEGORY A field of production of cultural policy Culture and politics before “cultural policy” The invention of cultural planning Space of positions and the creation of a policy – a CHAPTER I: CULTURE VERSUS THE STATE selective participation Art and the State: the construction of an antagonism The social conditions of the legitimisation of The separation of the fine arts and the State cultural policy The production of a political incompetence A scientific policy – statistics and cultural actions Art and the people: the invention of a counter- The conditions of a collaboration policy A mobilisation for research – the Bourges Pretenders against the official policy conference A literary policy Institutionalisation of science, institutionalisation through science? CHAPTER II: AN IMPOSSIBLE POLICY From the shaping of a policy to a public debate The internalised illegitimacy of a monitored The elaboration of a “doctrine” of cultural action intervention The existence and the boundaries of the cultural A limited intervention policy under review A “delicate” topic From discussion on boundaries to boundless Incidental forms of justification discussion An institutionalised illegitimacy within uncertain state forms PART THREE: THE INSTITUTIONALISATION OF Aborted republicanisation attempts VAGUENESS Institutional constructions and legitimacy deficit Professionalisation of cultural action and cultural Ill-established positions of the agents of fine arts broadening administration CHAPTER VI: A PARADOXICAL CHAPTER III: THE REPETITION OF AN ABSENCE PROFESSIONALISATION OF CULTURAL POLICIES (1920-1958) A professionalisation policy Cultural movements and public authorities The conditions of professionalisation Mobilisations for the people’s culture The policy of cultural work The limits of a convergence – cultural movements The emergence of a vocational training market and the authorities A policy of professionals? in the beginning of the Popular Front Strategies of reconversion and uncertainty Jeune France under the Vichy regime – a State Social technologies of the administration of culture movement against the State? Peuple et Culture at the time of the Liberation CHAPTER VII: THE STATE VERSUS CULTURE? – Towards the production of a “public sector”? The extension of a registered designation Story of a not very institutional history From the diffusion of rare goods to a certification Appendix: When the State gets involved in theatre. policy A controversial attempt of cultural legitimisation PART TWO: A BIG SHIFT “Defence of culture” and criticism of the cultural Origins and ambiguities of the cultural policy policy

CHAPTER IV: A MINISTRY FOR CULTURE CONCLUSION The conditions of innovation and their The success of a vague category consequences From policy to cultural practices A political coup The uncertain delimitation of a territory NOTES A policy of rupture Installation and oppositions INDEX A Ministry “like the others”? An institution that produces debates

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Notes la culture ? L’Italie entre traumatisme, tutelle et tentation”, Le Débat, May-August 1997, no. 95. 8 The Department of National Heritage and then the 1 These are only a few examples that have been Department for Culture, Media and Sports were specifically analysed to highlight categorisation successively created in 1992 and 1997. As in the issues. See LASCOUMES Pierre, L’éco-pouvoir. Italian case mentioned above, these innovations Environnements et politiques, Paris, La Découverte, have stirred up intense oppositions and were also 1994; LENOIR Rémi, “Politique familiale et ridiculed for the unlikely pairings they created. The construction sociale de la famille”, Revue française Department for National Heritage was for instance de science politique, vol. 41, no. 6, December 1991, referred to as a “Joke Ministry”. p. 781-807; PINTO Louis, “La gestion d’un label 9 WANGERMÉE Robert, “Tendances de politique : la consommation”, Actes de la recherche l’administration de la culture en Europe en sciences sociales, no. 91-92, March 1992, p. 3- occidentale”, Revue française d’administration 19; JOBERT Bruno, DAMAMME Dominique, “La publique, no. 65, January-March 1993, p. 11-24. politique de la ville ou l’injonction contradictoire 10 For a general and official presentation of cultural en politique”, Revue française de science politique, policy in Québec, see ARPIN Roland, Une vol. 45, no. 1, February 1995, p. 3-30. politique de la culture et des arts, report for the 2 See SUREL Yves, L’État et le livre. Les politiques Ministry of Cultural Affairs of Québec, Québec, publiques du livre en France (1957-1993), Paris, Gouvernement du Québec, 1991. L’Harmattan, 1997. The case of graffiti is studied in 11 See VAN CAMPENDHOUDT Luc, “Le marché the last chapter of this book. unique contre la culture”, Liber, no. 31, June 1997, 3 3 For a legal and institutional perspective, see p. 12-14. Attempts of unification of a Community MESNARD André-Hubert, L’action culturelle des cultural policy are in progress, with the pouvoirs publics, Paris, LGDJ, 1969 and Droit et establishment of the unique “Culture 2000” politique de la culture, Paris, PUF, 1990. For a programme in 1998. historical analysis, see POIRRIER Philippe, 12 MENGER Pierre-Michel, “L’État-providence et Histoire des politiques culturelles de la France la culture. Socialisation de la création, prosélytisme contemporaine, Dijon, Bibliest, 1998 (1996). et relativisme dans la politique culturelle publique”, 4 Substantial centralisation and state control in in CHAZEL François (ed.), Pratiques culturelles et France but substantial decentralisation in Germany politiques de la culture, Bordeaux, Maison des and Italy, reference to the arm’s length principle sciences de l’homme d’Aquitaine, 1987, p. 46. See and use of a quango with the Arts Council in Great also the similar comments of FRIEDBERG Erhard, Britain, etc. URFALINO Philippe, Le jeu du catalogue, Paris, 5 See VESTHEIM Geir, “Instrumental Cultural Documentation française, 1984; SAEZ Guy, “Les Policy in Scandinavian Countries: A Critical politiques de la culture” in LECA Jean, GRAWITZ Historical Perspective”, European Journal of Madeleine (ed.), Traité de Science Politique, Tome Cultural Policy, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 57-71; GRAY 4, Paris, PUF, 1985, p. 387-422; SAEZ Guy, L’État, Clive, “Comparing Cultural Policy: a la ville, la culture, State thesis in political science Reformulation”, European Journal of Cultural Université Pierre Mendès-France, IEP Grenoble, Policy, vol. 2, no. 2, 1996, p. 213-222. There are no 1993, p. 63 and following. studies that provide an international comparison of 13 For a general overview on municipalities, See cultural policies, only institutional summaries by d’ANGELO Mario et al., Les politiques culturelles countries, published by the UNESCO or the des villes et leurs administrateurs, Paris, Council of Europe. Documentation française, 1989; URFALINO 6 LABORIER Pascale, Culture et édification Philippe, “La municipalisation de la culture” in nationale en Allemagne. Genèse des politiques de CHAZEL François (ed.), Pratiques culturelles et la culture, doctoral thesis in political science, IEP politiques de la culture, op. quoted p. 53-73; Paris, 1996. Cahiers de L’IHTP, “Les politiques culturelles 7 The intense debates between the advocates and municipales : éléments pour une approche opponents to the establishment of a Ministry of historique”, no. 16, September 1990; POIRRIER Culture following the French model in Italy and the Philippe et al., Jalons pour L’histoire des politiques nickname given to this institution – minestrone, to culturelles municipales, Paris, Documentation emphasize the heterogeneity of its components, française, 1995; DUBOIS Vincent (ed.), Politiques similar to the ingredients of the Italian soup – locales et enjeux culturels : les clochers d’une clearly show the reluctances to imagine culture as a querelle (XIXe-XXe siècles), Paris, Documentation unified field of public action. See française, 1998. Information on departmental and MONSAINGEON Guillaume, “Un ministère pour regional levels can also be found in these two last books.

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14 The Ministry of Culture was able to establish that 22 On the affirmation of the autonomy of the artistic more than twenty ministries other than the Ministry field at the end of the 19th century, see of Culture contributed to “culture” State BOURDIEU Pierre, Les règles de l’art, Genèse et expenditures up to a total of 42.7% in 1984 and structure du champ littéraire, Paris, Seuil, 1992. 55% in 1993. See Développement culturel, “Les 23 On the creation of the “intellectuals” group, see dépenses culturelles des ministères en 1984”, no. 69, CHARLE Christophe, Naissance des intellectuels, March 1987; “Les dépenses culturelles des Paris, Minuit, 1990. On intellectual mobilisations ministères autres que le ministère de la Culture en for culture, see RITAINE Evelyne, Les stratèges de 1993”, no. 116, March 1997. It is possible to la culture, Paris, Presses FNSP, 1983. consult the complete results of these budget studies, 24 MONNIER Gérard, Des Beaux-Arts aux arts in Documentation française. plastiques, une histoire sociale de L’art, Besançon, 15 Created at the beginning of the 1980s, the La Manufacture, 1991. Direction du développement culturel (Direction of 25 URFALINO Philippe, “Les politiques culturelles : Cultural Development) was dissolved in 1986 and mécénat caché et académies invisibles”, L’Année then re-established in the more modest form of a sociologique, vol. 39, 1989, p. 104. Delegation for Development and Training. For 26 For more information on these topics, see information on the first period, see LION Bruno, Raymonde Moulin’s works, which since the 1960s “La prise en compte du développement culturel par have helped to understand the scope of this change. les institutions administratives”, Politix, May 1987, The results in Le marché de la peinture en France, p. 25-32. Paris, Minuit, 1967 can be compared with the ones 16 Directions of theatre, music and dance, archives, presented 25 years later in L’artiste, L’institution et heritage, edition, museums, Centre national de la le marché, Paris, Flammarion, 1992. cinématographie (CNC) (National Centre for 27 It is the case in musical research, a key element Cinematography), Délégation aux arts plastiques of policies on contemporary music. See MENGER (DAP) (Delegation for the Plastic Arts). Pierre-Michel, Le paradoxe du musicien. Le 17 The central services of the Ministry of Culture compositeur, le mélomane et l’Etat dans la société are located in fifteen different sites (rue de Valois, contemporaine, Paris, Flammarion, 1983; Les avenue de l’Opéra, rue Saint-Dominique, rue Jean- laboratoires de la création musicale, Paris, Lantier, rue des Pyramides, etc.) Most of them Flammarion, 1989. VEITL Anne, Politiques de la should be gathered in one building. See musique contemporaine. Le compositeur, la “Regroupement des services centraux du ministère “recherche musicale” et l’Etat en France de 1958 de la Culture”, Lettre d’information du ministère de à 1991, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1997. la Culture, no. 402, December 21, 1995. 28 DUBUFFET Jean, Asphyxiante culture, Paris, 18 See Lettre d’information du ministère de la Minuit, 1986 (1968), p. 11-12. Culture, no. 19, December 3, 1997 and no. 32, July 29 URFALINO Philippe, “Les politiques culturelles : 1, 1998. For a good overview of these hostile mécénat caché et académies invisibles”, art. cited p. reactions – and more generally of the criticisms 82. levelled against the actions of Catherine 30 See for example about plastic arts and the Fonds Trautmann’s Ministry regarding shows – consult Régionaux d’Art Contemporain (Contemporary Art the numerous articles published at the time in Le Regional Collection): FOUR Pierre-Alain, “La Monde newspaper about these reactions. compétence contre la démocratisation ? Création et 19 See Pierre Lascoumes’s similar comments on re-création des Fonds Régionaux d’Art environment. LASCOUMES Pierre, L’Éco-pouvoir, Contemporain”, Politix, no. 24, décembre 1993, p. op. cit. p. 15-22. 95-114 and Intervention publique et art 20 LINDBLOM Charles, The Intelligence of contemporain : la création des Fonds Régionaux Democracy, New York, Free Press, 1965, quoted in d’Art Contemporain, leur insertion dans le monde CROZIER Michel et FRIEDBERG Erhard, de L’art et leurs politiques d’acquisition, Thèse de L’acteur et le système, Paris, Seuil, 1977, p. 311; Science politique, IEP Paris, 1995; URFALINO PAGE Benjamin, “The Theory of Political Philippe, VILKAS Catherine, Les Fonds régionaux Ambiguity”, American Political Science Review, no. d’art contemporain. La délégation du jugement 70, 1976, quoted in MARCH James G., Décisions esthétique, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1995. et organisations, Paris, Editions d’organisation, 31 See BOURDIEU Pierre, La distinction, Paris, 1991, p. 78. Minuit, 1979. 21 POLANYI Karl, La Grande Transformation. Aux 32 PINTO Louis, “La vocation de l’universel ? La origines politiques et économiques de notre temps, représentation de l’intellectuel vers 1990”, Actes de Paris, Gallimard, 1983 (1944). The preface of Louis la recherche en sciences sociales, no. 55, 1984, p. Dumont makes me prefer the phrase “big shift” to 23-32. the original English title: The Great Transformation.

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33 For information on the “monopolisation of the 46 See BOURDIEU Pierre, Les règles de L’art, op. universal” by State agents, see BOURDIEU Pierre, cit. For further reading on the reduction of the La noblesse d’Etat, Paris, Minuit, 1989; “Esprits vigilance threshold of artists regarding the risks for d’État. Genèse et structure du champ their autonomy, see BOURDIEU Pierre, HAACKE bureaucratique”, Actes de la recherche en sciences Hans, Libre-échange, Paris, Seuil-Presses du réel, sociales, no. 96-97, mars 1993, p. 65-85. 1994. 34 CABANNE Pierre, Le pouvoir culturel sous la Vè 47 See BOURDIEU Pierre, La distinction, op. cit.; République, Paris, Olivier Orban, 1981. BOLTANSKI Luc, Les cadres, op. cit. 35 LAURENT JEANNE, La république et les 48 For further reading, see NEVEU Érik, Une Beaux-Arts, Paris, Julliard, 1955. See André société de communication ?, Paris, Montchrestien, Malraux’s main speeches in MALRAUX André, 1994, p. 133 and following. “Discours inédits”, Espoir, Revue de L’Institut 49 We are following the methodological approach Charles de Gaulle, no. 2, janvier, 1973; La consisting in not trying to find the “causes” at all politique, la culture, Paris, Seuil, 1996; André costs but rather focusing on the “activity of actors Malraux ministre. Les Affaires culturelles au temps thought through ‘structural’ contexts” formulated d’André Malraux, 1959-1969, Paris, by DOBRY Michel, Sociologie des crises Documentation française, 1996. politiques. La dynamique des mobilisations 36 VAISSE Pierre, La troisième République et les multisectorielles, Paris, Presses FNSP, 1986. peintres, Paris, Flammarion, 1995. 50 The notions of institutionalisation, formalisation 37 GENET-DELACROIX Marie-Claude, Art et État and critical juncture are borrowed from LACROIX sous la IIIè République. Le système des beaux-arts, Bernard, LAGROYE Jacques (dir.), Le président de 1870-1940, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, la République, Paris, Presses FNSP, 1992. 1992. 51 For further reading, see GAITI Brigitte, De 38 FUMAROLI Marc, L’État culturel. Essai sur une Gaulle prophète de la cinquième République (1946- religion moderne, Paris, de Fallois, 1991. 1962), Paris, Presses de sciences Po, 1998. Also 39 CHARLE Christophe, Naissance des intellectuels, useful on the developments following the arrival of op. cit. the Fifth Republic. 40 AYNARD Édouard, “Les Beaux-Arts et 52 See DULONG Delphine, Moderniser la politique. l’économie politique”, in SAY Léon, CHAILLEY Aux origines de la Ve République, Paris, Joseph (ed.), Nouveau dictionnaire d’économie L’Harmattan, 1997. politique, Paris, Guillani, 1890. 53 For further reading, see JOBERT Bruno, 41 To quote the spontaneous interpretations of the MULLER Pierre, L’État en action, op. cit. apparition of a public policy. See MÉNY Yves, 54 To quote the terminology of MULLER Pierre, THOENIG Jean-Claude, Politiques publiques, op. Les politiques publiques, op. cit. cit., p. 159-166. 55 For further reading on Malraux’s speech, see 42See the elements of the model genesis of a policy MORIN Violette, “La culture majuscule : André presented in BOURDIEU Pierre, CHRISTIN Malraux” Communications, n° 14, 1969, p. 70-83. Rosine, “La construction du marché. Le champ 56 For further reading on the notion of “coup”, see administratif et la production de la “politique du DOBRY Michel, Sociologie des crises politiques, logement”, Actes de la recherche en sciences op. cit., especially p. 21 and following. sociales, n° 81-82, mars 1990, especially p. 66. 57 ROSANVALLON Pierre, L’État en France, op. 43 PINTO Louis, “La gestion d’un label politique”, cit. art. cit. 58 Rapport général de la commission de 44 LASCOUMES Pierre, L’éco-pouvoir, op.cit.; L’équipement culturel et du patrimoine artistique. CHARVOLIN Florian, L’invention de IVe Plan, Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1961; L’environnement en France (1960-1971). Les Rapport général de la commission de L’équipement pratiques documentaires dagrégation, L’origine du culturel et du patrimoine artistique, Ve Plan, Paris, Ministère de la protection de la nature et de Documentation française, 1966. During the L’environnement, thesis in political science and preparation of the Fifth Plan, the work group sociology, IEP Grenoble-École Nationale reports were published as well. Supérieure des mines de Paris 1993. 59 e.g.: “L’action culturelle”, exposé de Pierre 45 Except the lone article by Robert Briché Moinot, loc. cit.; “L’action culturelle. Principes- published in 1956, “Pour un ministère des Arts” Réalisations-Projets”, document réalisé par Émile (“For a ministry of the Arts”, art. cit. In a 1996 Biasini, directeur du Théâtre, de la musique et de interview, the author declares that “Marcel Waline, L’action culturelle, octobre 1962, Archives du a law professor at the University of Paris, made Département des études et de la prospective, Michel Debré read the study, who really enjoyed it”. ministère de la Culture. Unless mentioned, all the non published sources originate from this fund.

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60 Here is a non-exhaustive list of articles directeur de l’Administration générale du ministère specifically dedicated to cultural planning: Le (1992-1993). Monde publishes in 1962 and 1965 a series of 70 See PASSERON Jean-Claude, “Figures et articles (18, 19, 20 October 1962, 28 May, 13 contestations de la culture...” art. cit.. Also see August, 31 October, 13 November, 29 and 30 MENGER Pierre-Michel, “L’État-providence et la December 1965). This book is especially dedicated culture...”, art. cit. to this topic: BENSAID Georges, La culture 71 This process has been highlighted in BOURDIEU planifiée ?, Paris, Seuil, 1969. An official Pierre, Les règles de l’art, op. cit., especially p. 221. presentation of “the cultural policy in France” is 72 DJIAN Jean-Michel, Profession Culture, n° 1, almost entirely dedicated to the Plan: Cahiers November 1992, editorial. Français, n° 138-139, October-December 1969. 73 FRIEDBERG Erhard and URFALINO Philippe, 61 Quoted in “Un bilan culturel du septennat. Les Le jeu du catalogue, op. cit. voix sacrées de la rue de Valois”, Le Monde, March 74 The link between “the broadening of the notion 3, 1988, p. 15. of culture” and the strategies of professional 62 “Le budget du ministère chargé des Affaires recognition is suggested in URFALINO Philippe, culturelles de 1960 à 1985”, Développement “Les politiques culturelles : mécénnat caché et culturel, October 1986, n° 67. académies invisibles”, art. cit. 63 PINTO Diana, “La gauche, les intellectuels et la 75 On the hypothesis of the “cohesion through culture” in HOFFMAN Stanley, ROSS George, vagueness” and the “strength of a weak aggregate”, (ed.), L’expérience Mitterrand, Paris, PUF, 1988, p. see BOLTANSKI Luc, Les cadres, op. cit. p. 474- 275-290. 475, p. 480 and following. 64 For further reading, see SAWICKI Frédéric, Les 76 To quote the polemical title of FUMAROLI Marc, réseaux du parti socialiste, Paris, Belin, 1997. On “De Malraux à Lang, L’excroissance des Affaires the intensification of cultural practises of the culturelles”, Commentaire, vol. 5, n° 18, Summer middle classes due to the development of public 1982, p. 247-259; vol 8, n° 30, Summer 1985. cultural action, see PASSERON Jean-Claude, 77 MOLLARD Claude, Profession : ingénieur “Figures et contestations de la culture. Légitimité et culturel, Paris, Charles Le Bouil, 1989 (1st edition relativisme naturel” in Le raisonnement La Différence, 1987). sociologique, op. cit., p. 291-314; DONAT Olivier, 78 From ROUX Émmanuel, SCHMIDT Olivier, Le Les Français face à la culture, de L’exclusion à Monde, December 31, 1993. l’éclectisme, Paris, La Découverte, 1994. 79 This chapter is about the transformations that 65 See LEHINGUE Patrick, PUDAL Bernard, took place during the 1980s and their “Retour(s) à l’expéditeur. Éléments pour la manifestations as they were seen in 1994, when this déconstruction d’un « coup » : la « Lettre à tous les research was completed. The more recent inflexions Français » de François Mitterrand, in La of these different processes are not taken into communication politique, Paris, PUF-CURAPP, account. 1991, p. 163-182, in particular p. 168. 80 WEBER Max, Économie et société, volume 2, 66 Regularly emphasised in the media, and Paris, Plon, 1995 (1971), in particular p. 172-175 sometimes compared to those of de Gaulle and and 190-203. Malraux, especially in Alain Duhamel’s book on 81 These can be summarised as follows: “the the two “big” presidents of the Fifth Republic. existence of a theoretical knowledge and 67 See the – mediocre – biographies of Jack Lang: specialised training, the appreciation of the DESNEUX Richard, Jack Lang, la culture en competence of the profession’s members through mouvement, Paris, Favre, 1990; HUNTER Mark, formal examinations, the establishment of a Les jours les plus longs, Paris, Odile Jacob, 1990/ professional organisation, the emergence of a 68 From 1969 to 1981 Edmont Michelet (1969- professional code, the provision of an altruistic 1970), André Bettencourt (1970-1971), Jacques service”. PAICHELER Geneviève, L’invention de Duhamel (1971-1973), Alain Peyrefitte (1974), la psychologie moderne, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1992, Michel Guy (1974-1975), Françoise Giroud (1976- p. 42-55. See also CHAPOULIE Jean-Michel, “Sur 1977), Jean-Philippe Lecat (1978-1981). l’analyse sociologique des groupes professionnels”, 69 See RENARD Jacques, L’élan culturel, Paris, Revue française de sociologie, vol. XIV, n° 1, 1973, PUF, 1987. Former student of the École Nationale especially p. 89; MAURICE Marc, “Propos sur la d’Administration (ENA), Jacques Renard has held sociologie des professions”, Sociologie du travail, different positions within the Ministry of Culture n° 2, 1972, p. 213-225. between 1975 and 1981, and in Jack Lang’s cabinet 82 For further reading on the librarian profession, in 1982-1986 where he later became assistant see SEIBEL Bernadette, Au nom du livre. Analyse director (1988-1992) before being appointed sociale d’une profession : les bibliothécaires, Paris, Documentation française, 1988 and the

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contributions of Isabelle Charpentier and Olivier 91 PASSERON Jean-Claude, “Figures et Tacheau in DUBOIS Vincent (ed.), Politiques contestations de la culture”, art. cit.; MENGER locales et enjeux culturels... op. cit. On curators, see Pierre-Michel, “L’État-providence et la culture”, art. OCTOBRE Sylvie, “Dilemme de la cit. professionalisation : le cas des conservateurs de 92 BOURDIEU Pierre, DELSAUT Yvette, “Le musée”, communication au groupe de travail sur les couturier et sa griffe : contribution à une théorie de politiques locales, Comité d’histoire du ministère la magie”, Actes de la recherche en sciences de la Culture, 23 janvier 1998. sociales, n° 1, 1975, p. 7-36. 83 Derogatory term used from the early 1980s, short 93 CHANGEUX Jean-Pierre, Raison et plaisir, Paris, for socio-cultural. Odile Jacob, 1994, p.123 84 According to Everett Hughes, in HUGHES 94 On the distinction between unspecified and Everett C., “Institutional Office and the Person”, undefined, see BOLTANSKI Luc, Les cadres, American Journal of Sociology, 43 (3), 1937, p. volume cited, p.482. 409-410. 95 See PINTO Louis, “Déconstruire Beaubourg…”, 85 Governing the scheduling of shows or exhibitions, article cited. the style given to projects by financial partners, the 96 For such an analysis, see URFALINO Philippe, terminology used to present them and even the L’invention de la politique culturelle, volume cited, presentation of folders, documents, posters, etc. in which Gabriel Monnet’s expression is quoted. 86 An ongoing criticism against the cultural effects 97 See the cited works of Pierre-Alain Four. on development of public action in this area is, in 98 MAUSS Marcel, “Essai sur le don”; in Sociologie fact, due to the standardisation and conformism that et anthropologie, Paris, PUF, 1985, p.275 and 145 would have resulted. respectively. 87 For further reading on a local illustration, see 99 One could also mention the role Philippe Douste- PONGY Mireille, “Politiques culturelles Blazy and Catherine Trautmann claimed to play as territoriales : une approche en termes de référentiel’, moral safeguards against the far right. in Papiers du GRESE, n° 6, Autumn 1989, p. 19- 100 BOLTANSKI Luc, Les cadres, volume cited, 32 ; Approches de la la production culturelle p.474. territoriale, GRICC, Toulouse, 1989 ; SAEZ Guy, 101 At these dates, proportions were 12 and 14% “Le règne des professionnels” in Villes en respectively for theatre, 7 and 9% for a classical recomposition. Les politiques culturelles à music concert, 27 and 30% for a museum. The Grenoble et à Montpellier, Grenoble, CERAT, survey was carried out on a representative sample 1990. of the French population over 15. The survey takes 88 Eve Chiapello shows that, due to the into account answers given in the last 12 months. transformation of the social position of artists and See DONNAT Olivier, Les Français face à la management practices and references, the “artistic culture, volume cited, p.156. There is no need for critics” of management and administration have an examination of methodology, as would be the considerably lost importance in favour of a case if the figures were really used. The latest “reciprocal hybridisation” which can be seen in the figures are available in the last edition to date, Les “artistic organisations” (publishers, orchestras, pratiques culturelles des Français. Enquête 1997, post-production audiovisual societies) of the Paris, Documentation française, 1998. commercial domain but also within modern and 102 FLAUBERT Gustave, letter to Louise Collet, aesthetic innovations domains. CHIAPELLO Eve, cited in COMPAGNON Antoine, La troisème Artistes versus managers. Le management culturel République des lettres, Paris, Seuil, 1983. My face à la critique artiste, Paris, Métaillé, 1998. thanks to Bernard Pudal for having drawn my 89 This “professional and “administrative” change attention to this text. of public cultural intervention is not unique to 103 MARX Karl, Introduction générale à la critique France. It can be seen in Germany, for example. de l’économie politique, (1857), reproduced in LABORIER Pascale, Culture et édification Philosophie, Paris, Gallimard, 1994, p. 443 and nationale en Allemagne… op. cit., p. 625 and following. following. 104 On statistical classifications, linked to and by 90 For a general presentation of an analysis of the analogy with state classifications, see transformations of the domination modes linked to DESROSIERES Alain, La politique des grands the social spaces” differentiation and the hypothesis nombres. Histoire de la raison statistique, Paris, La of the “extension of the legitimisation circuits”, see Découverte, 1993. BOURDIEU Pierre, La noblesse d’État, op. cit., p. 105 BOURDIEU Pierre, “Décrire et prescrire, Actes 548-559; CHAMPAGNE Patrick, Faire l’opinion, de la recherche en sciences sociales n°38, 1981, p. Paris, Minuit, 1990, p. 276 and following. 69-73.

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106 LACROIX Bernard, “Ordre politique et ordre social”, in LECA Jean, GRAWITZ Madeleine, Traité de science politique, volume 1, Paris, PUF, 1984, esp. p. 503. 107 From “people” and “culture”, refers to a movement that aims at bringing out culture to the people. 108 On this subject see the survey carried out by ARSEC on how the absence of cultural practice is justified. 109 See recent surveys published in Développement culturel and the articles and declarations of the minister related to the subject in Lettre d’information, published by the Ministry of Culture.

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