Cultural Traditions and Policy in Germany

THE DECENTRALIZED MODEL OF CULTURAL POLICY

• Culture and education in Germany are organized in a strict federal system.

• Within their fields of competence, the Federal Government, the Bundesländer and the municipalities are largely free to shape cultural policy as they see fit.

• This kind of system is posing questions to the centralised cultural policy model, typical for the most European countries.

QUESTION: Do you think that the decentralization of the system is an advantage or a disadvantage?

THE DECENTRALIZED MODEL OF CULTURAL POLICY

ATTITUDE TOWARDS MULTICULTURALISM

• The ethnical division in Germany is the following: Germans 91.5%, Turks 2.4%, other 6.1%;

• In 2007, the federal chancellor Angela Merkel held an integration summit, which was attended by representatives of all social groups but it was boycotted. In 2010 the Chancellor proclaimed the failure of multuculturalism in Germany.

QUESTION: What cultural policies should Germany have to change positively the negative attitude towards the minorities?

ATTITUDE TOWARDS MULTICULTURALISM

CULTURAL RELATIONS WITH THE ISLAMIC WORLD

• The Goethe Institute, Germany’s largest organization operating in the field of cultural and educational exchange, has been working in the Middle East and other Islamic countries for more than forty years;

• Goethe Institutes in Islamic countries have been leading an intense dialogue long before the disaster of September 11. The events of September 11 2001 have now led to an even more intensified dialogue.

QUESTION:Is the fight against terrorism effective enough with the means of culture?

CULTURAL RELATIONS WITH THE ISLAMIC WORLD

• Germany has the right to be proud with its well-developed cultural infrastructure, but wealth of culture fails to reach 50%of the people in Germany;

• Culture speaks primarily to the well-educated audiences;

• NGOs and institutions that serve to people of migrant background experience difficulties to get public funding, even if they reach audiences of millions.

WEALTH OF CULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURE –

BUT ONLY FOR HALF OF THE POPULATION?

QUESTION: How can the German states shape their cultural policies in order to facilitate the access to culture for all their citizens?

DIGITIZATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE

• German digitization projects reflect the country's federal system. Many digitization projects have been conducted independently on länders’ level, but there is no one single national policy on digitisation of cultural heritage in Germany.

• QUESTION: Can Germany implement a common policy towards the digitization of its cultural heritage and how?

CULTURAL AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND THE EUROPE 2020 STRATEGY

Key elements of the European strategy 2020 are:• knowledge through education, research and

creative industries, well-functioning IP system, digital economy (the European digital agenda);

• creativity and innovation skills  to empower people  - emphasizing the importance of skills, mobility, life-long learning , entrepreneurial culture;

• a competitive and green economy : making better use of resources ,  investing in digital broadband, transport and energy infrastructure.

• QUESTION: In what way will the EU Strategy “2020” affect the cultural industries in Germany?

GERMAN FOREIGN CULTURAL POLICY

• The German foreign cultural policies promote the "incoming" and "outgoing" mobility and encourage German artists to travel abroad or collaborate with foreign colleagues, but their opportunities for that are restricted by the fact that the German artistic insurance policy does not allow German artists to take up residency abroad.

QUESTION: How effective is the German foreign cultural policy?

NATIONAL HERITAGE PROTECTION

• Due to Germany’s federal structure and the fact that the states are responsible for the field of culture, Germany does not have a system of categories for monument protection. Depending on the legal basis and regional characteristics, the different states may apply the concept of cultural heritage in a different way.

• Under the German constitution “Grundgesetz” the law for protecting historic buildings is not within the legislative power of the federation, so it is up to the Länder to take responsibility for heritage conservation - consequently there are sixteen different laws which protect Germany’s historic buildings.

• QUESTION: Can Germany protect its cultural heritage?

ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN THE GERMAN SOCIETY

•In spite of the fact that women are better educated than men, they receive less payment than their male colleagues. Although this practice is common in Europe, in Germany it is given a name “made in Germany”.

•The percentage of women in the leading companies (100) is less than 1%. Female bosses are not that rare seen, but their salaries are with 30% lower than the male ones.

QUESTION : Can we achieve with the means of cultural policies greater gender equality and how?

TIME FOR CHANGES?????????

QUESTION: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ALTER IN YOUR CULTURAL POLICY?

PREPARED BY:

BG TEAM:

STAMENA PETEVAPETYA STANKOVASLAVINA TATARSKA

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!