Beyond the State’s Cultural Action. Notes for an evolution of cultural policies in Chile

Abstract

Even though the Chilean State has developed sustained activity in culture since the founding of the Republic, these advances have not necessarily crystallized in a formal development of public policies in culture, especially when the legislative, financial and administrative decisions the State has made are not subject to known mechanisms of evaluation or accountability. This is true even when taking into account the creation in 2003 of the Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes. At the most, what some governments have presented are occasional public balance sheets of cultural actions that are carried out using public funding. This essay proposes the division into separate periods of the evolution of public action on the part of the Chilean State in culture, exploring some reasons why there has been little or no advancement towards a more modern conceptualization of cultural policies.