Cultural Policy in Portugal

Strasbourg, 7 October 1998 CC-Cult (98) 17A [PF: CC-Cult/17e réunion/Documents/ecc-cult(98)17A] COUNCIL FOR CULTURAL CO-OPERATION CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT POLICIES IN MEMBER STATES CULTURAL POLICY IN PORTUGAL NATIONAL REPORT Abridged version - 2 - - 3 - CULTURAL POLICIES IN PORTUGAL NATIONAL REPORT Abridged version of the original report Report written at the request of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture by a Working Party of the Observatorio das Actividades Culturais (Lisbon) Co-ordination: Maria de Lourdes Lima dos Santos Contributions by: Lina Antunes, Idalina Conde, António Firmino da Costa, Eduardo de Freitas, Rui Gomes, Carmen Gonçalves, Helena Seita Gonçalves, João Miguel Teixeira Lopes, Vanda Lourenço, António Martinho, Teresa Martinho, José Soares Neves, João Sedes Nunes, Elsa Pegado, Isabel Pires, Francisco Silva. 1998 - 4 - CONTENTS FOREWORD.............................................................................................................................6 PART I: CONTEXT...............................................................................................................10 1. INTRODUCING A COUNTRY: PORTUGAL .......................................................11 1.1. POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL ORGANISATION ....................11 1.2. GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY - AN OVERVIEW...................................11 1.3. RECENT DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS.........................................................12 1.4. CHANGES IN SOCIETY...............................................................................12 1.5. ON THE MARGIN? .......................................................................................13 2. CULTURAL POLICIES - APPROACHES AND INSTRUMENTS .....................14 2.1. STAGES IN CULTURAL POLICY..............................................................14 2.2. PUBLIC FUNDING OF CULTURE .............................................................17 PART II: SECTORS...............................................................................................................19 1. PLASTIC ARTS..........................................................................................................20 2. MUSIC .........................................................................................................................22 3. DANCE.........................................................................................................................24 4. THEATRE ...................................................................................................................27 5. CINEMA, TELEVISION AND RADIO ...................................................................30 6. BOOKS, PUBLICATIONS AND LIBRARIES .......................................................32 7. HERITAGE, MUSEUMS AND ARCHIVES...........................................................35 8. SOCIO-CULTURAL ACTIVITIES..........................................................................38 PART III: ISSUES..................................................................................................................40 1. THE STATE, THE MARKET AND CIVIL SOCIETY..........................................41 2. TRAINING AND PROFESSIONALISATION........................................................44 3. THE PUBLIC AND CULTURAL RECEPTIVITY ................................................46 4. CULTURAL INDUSTRIES, THE MEDIA AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES........48 - 5 - 5. DECENTRALISATION, PARTICIPATION AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES ....50 6. ETHNIC MINORITIES, EMIGRATION AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY........53 7. INTERNATIONALISATION AND CO-OPERATION .........................................55 FINAL REMARKS.................................................................................................................57 1. Continuity, innovation and new departures.............................................................57 2. With regard to the three key topics ...........................................................................58 BIBLIOGRAPHY (SEE ORIGINAL VERSION) APPENDICES MAPS (SEE ORIGINAL VERSION) GLOSSARY - 6 - FOREWORD This report has been produced as part of the Council of Europe’s programme of national cultural policy reviews, a programme that began in 1986 and which has already seen the participation of a large number of countries. The aims of the programme are: - to collect information on the different areas of cultural policy in the various countries; - to further knowledge of the various problems, results and shortcomings of such policies; - to promote a common methodology for analysing and evaluating cultural policy (statistics, indicators, etc); - to contribute to the launching of new joint activities in the field of cultural co-operation. Three major areas were singled out at the programme’s inception as key topics to be dealt with in the reports: - measures to promote creativity; - the decentralisation of responsibilities and activities; - measures to encourage broader participation in cultural life. In its guidelines for the production of national reports, the Council for Cultural Co-operation makes a distinction between three levels of evaluation: - identification of the aims of cultural policies; - analysis of the means employed to achieve those aims; - study of the results obtained. In accordance with the programme’s methodology, any review process necessarily entails the following stages: - drawing up of a National Report; - drawing up of an International Report (review produced by a Group of European Experts on the basis of the National Report and the Group’s own experience); - debate within the Culture Committee of the Council for Cultural Co-operation in the presence of the Minister for Culture of the country concerned, the delegation representing that country, and the Group of Experts. - 7 - The production of the Portuguese report was entrusted to a group of sociologists from the Observatory of Cultural Activities, commissioned by the Minister for Culture to produce a Review of National Cultural Policy. The founder members of the Observatory, an association established in 1996, include the state, through the Ministry of Culture, the Institute of Social Sciences of Lisbon University and the National Institute of Statistics. Its aims are to conduct research and disseminate knowledge in the field of cultural activities. The methodology employed to produce the National Report entailed drawing on a variety of information sources and adopting a variety of procedures. In addition to the main sources used in devising cultural indicators - statistics of the State Secretariat for Culture (SEC), the Ministry of Culture (MC) and the National Institute of Statistics (INE) - other information was also drawn on, whether the result of talks with key informants or gleaned from various studies in the social sciences field dealing with Portuguese society, and more specifically, the field of culture (including surveys, dissertations and case studies). Furthermore, in addition to the working sessions between the national team and the team of European experts, a whole series of encounters, meetings and round tables took place in various parts of the country (mainland Portugal and the Autonomous Regions) involving a wide range of local cultural players who provided the two teams with valuable first-hand information on various facets and problems of the cultural sector, as regards: - central and local government; - the arts “scene” (in different fields and in different locations); - associations and trade unions. Policy review reports cover different periods in different countries. In the case of Portugal, the review takes 1985 as its starting point, ending on a date as close as possible to the writing of the report. It spans a period that has seen four different governments, three Social Democratic governments and one Socialist government (the most recent). With regard to this latter, which took office towards the end of 1995, the analysis of information available was obviously affected by the very brief period that elapsed between the start of its mandate and the beginning of work on the report in 1996. As the Council of Europe itself acknowledges, the production of national reports places very heavy demands on both human and financial resources. The weight of such demands is all the more keenly felt in countries with little experience in the area of assessment studies (this is the case in Portugal where work of a similar nature had never been conducted hitherto). The Observatory’s team therefore had to explore more or less uncharted waters in an attempt to collate scattered information, fill in the gaps and reconcile conflicting data, side-stepping some initial reservations and distrust. The results obtained, which are put forward here, are structured around three major headings. Part I is divided into two chapters, the first of which paints a quick portrait of the country for the purposes, in particular, of the foreign reader none too conversant with Portuguese reality, while the second chapter, already looking ahead to the question of cultural policies, provides a summary of the various approaches and instruments employed during the period under consideration. The changing nature of cultural policies is reviewed - 8 - from the time of the Salazar dictatorship to the present day. The report provides a general overview of current administrative structures in the area of cultural policy as well as a summary of the relevant legislation. General information is provided on public authorities' spending on

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