DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES AND CULTURAL POLICIES IN ROMANIA. THE CASE OF CLUJ-NAPOCA.

• Author: Tomiuc, Anamaria

1. Introduction

   In a continuous state of transition, after the fall of the communist regime, Romania is still working hard to reach the stability of Western European countries. Once with Romania's integration in the European Union a long series of structural reforms have been at the core of the national, regional and local policies, and successive strategic documents have tried to generate the necessary changes.

   Through literature reviews, document analyses and semi-structured interviews the present paper investigates the role attributed to culture in both national development strategies and local development strategies, with a case study on Cluj-Napoca (Romania), a city of an active population that comprises more than 410,000 inhabitants, at the moment a candidate for the European Capital of Culture 2021 title, and a winner of the European Youth Capital 2015), as well as the evolution of the cultural policies within.

   There are three major aims of this paper corresponding to its three major chapters. The first is to investigate the culture-oriented policies that have been envisaged in post-communist Romania, before and after joining the EU, in order to point out the correlation with the European cultural agenda and to observe the transition towards a more decentralized, instrumental vision on culture that would redirect the cities' contributions to their own urban development and could further contribute to the national development strategies. As Cluj-Napoca is the first city in Romania that has built up, through a serious research process and within a participative community effort, an important development strategy, the second aim of the paper is to analyze this strategy and the cultural policies that have been developed and implemented in the city. They frame a new vision on the city focused on a participative approach, which could generate a better quality of life for its inhabitants, and propose the concepts of 'participation, creativity and university' at the core of the transformation of the city. This approach intends to and has the potential to be further used for other communities as well, so to become a model of best practices at regional and European level. Closely related to the concept of cultural participation, the third aim is to question the role of the festival use as a cultural form that involves large participation, and to discuss the specificity of Cluj-Napoca where the enthusiastic support from local authorities (that endorse the city in terms of 'the city of events') for this type of actions is balanced by a more reasonable consideration within the cultural strategy.

2. Methodology

   The present research is based on qualitative methods that combine review of scientific literature (focusing on the evaluation of cultural policies at national level, on different global concepts such as 'quality of life', 'cultural vitality', 'urban regeneration', or discussing issues such as the role of the festival use, socio-cultural impact of festivals, etc.), document analysis (of national government plans, national cultural strategy, Cluj-Napoca development strategy and cultural strategy, reports and results of sociological investigations), and semi-structured elite interviews with representatives of the NGOs in charge with the elaboration of the 2014-2020 Development Strategy for Cluj-Napoca. During the five interviews, in order to get a clear view on the building up of local cultural policies, we have investigated (through 20 major questions) the following aspects: the cultural strategy and policies (their construction, their vision, their sustainability, their impact for the community), the connection between local authorities (municipality) and social actors (public and private institutions, NGOs), the candidature of the city to the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) title, the role of events and festivals within the local policy, the social transformation and the economic regeneration of the city through culture. The content of the paper is split into three main parts; the first one is based on document analysis and literature review, while the second and the third combine the document analysis with the interview results.

3. Cultural policies in post-communist Romania

   3.1. Cultural policies in South-Eastern European context The strive for internationalization

   When discussing the particular case of the cultural policies implementation in Romania, we need to consider the specificities of the cultural policies in Central and South-Eastern European countries that come from a long tradition of communism regimes. Scientific research in the field (Suteu, 2005; Dragicevic-Sesic and Dragojevic, 2005; Svob-Dokic, 2001; Svob-Dokic, 2005) points out the paradoxical logic that governs the cultural policies after the fall of communism from the administrative, legislative or strategic point of view. As Suteu mentions, before 2000's these countries were faced with the lack of cultural policies as such, and there were different endeavors that culture had to face. From the administrative point of view, Suteu observes the legacy of mammoth-like cultural institutions that had to answer the new liberal market logic, and to become cost efficient, but were still state administrated and, therefore, dependent on the central power of the state. From the legislative point of view, implementation of new legislation had to be quick and effective, but, unfortunately, it was both taking a lot of time (as dependent on the Parliament vote, while governments have been constantly changing due to political instability), and nevertheless inefficient. In the same time, consideration had been given to measures related to the audiovisual sector while the performing arts and fine arts legislation (as well as the heritage legislation, the sponsorship law) were thoroughly neglected. From the strategic point of view, two directions were identified: the drive towards modernity, and the openness towards European multilateral, modern, international values on the one hand, and the preservation of national traditions and identity, on the other hand, the focus on one or another depending on the type of socio-cultural-historical legacy of the respective country.

   In this context, the internationalization process seemed to be a commonly accepted direction of orientation for all countries in the region. An impressive number of cultural bilateral conventions have been signed, 'but beyond a very affirmative need and wish for cultural exchange, usually done with Western funds and Eastern human resources, the international cultural cooperation policies in Central and Eastern Europe did not succeed in creating a necessary framework for administrative and financial inclusion of national institutions in the rich network of European and world cultural and artistic organizations. Initiatives for exchange always came from outside.' (Suteu, 2005).

   However, these initiatives have not engaged real reflection on the potentialities and perspectives of cultural policies before 2000. Still, the initiation of creative cultural policies (instead of normative policies) that rethink the local cultural policies (within a highly decentralizing process) as boosters for a new life quality, rather than of a creation of a new symbolical metropolis (Katunaric, 2003), the encouragement of public private partnerships for cultural organizations, shaping the state's role as regulator, and the development of democratic institutions to ensure policies design and cultural sustainability, a larger perspective on the cultural sphere that includes media, education, creative industries have been strategic key points of orientation for cultural policies in the beginning of the new millennium.

   3.2. Cultural policies in Romania before joining the EU: The urge for a responsible cultural policy

   In this research context, complex analyses on cultural policies in Romania have been drawn by Dan Eugen Ratiu (Ratiu, 2012, 2009, 2005). He observes that the first national cultural strategy was formulated in 1997, and that the critical reflection on the principles of cultural policies, and their implementation was mainly manifested through public debates/discourse organized by cultural managers, experts, and leading members of nongovernmental organizations, yet in a technical language that tended to eliminate critical reflections on social, political and aesthetical values, on political ideology, or on the complex philosophical justifications that shape them.

   With this in view, Ratiu has investigated the inherent values of cultural policies in Romania (Ratiu, 2009) focusing on four main justifications for funding culture that represent the Romanian case. The first one, the grandiloquent justification for funding culture in terms of national interest and prestige is based on the identitarian conception, the patrimonial conception, and the celebrative conception on culture, all of them focusing on imposing Romanian identity, patrimony, and cultural events (with the aim of enhancing the country's image) on international level. The ineffectiveness of public actions under the banner of promoting culture and art in the name of national prestige, the nature of cultural supply in the service of diplomatic rigors, the heterogeneous cultural manifestations presented abroad have all contributed to the self-representation of the ministers more concerned with advancing their status as cultural administrators than with the artists themselves. This policy has been changed after the inauguration in 2005 of the Romanian Cultural Institute, as an autonomous body that took the responsibilities of promoting Romanian culture abroad. The second (the pragmatic) justification emphasizes the social and economic benefits of funding culture and the arts, focusing on the three reasons for investing in culture: economic growth, social cohesion, and the promotion of belongingness to Europe. Still, even if this...