Is Cultural Policy in Poland in the Process of Recentralization?

One of the key mottos of system transformation in Poland after the fall of communism in 1989 was far-reaching decentralization. These transformation processes encompassed also the sector of culture. Now, this strong trend towards decentralization has been mitigated or even reversed. This paper will review many of the concerns which have been articulated in relation to the centralization/decentralization conundrum. The main aim of this paper is to test the assumption that cultural policy in Poland faces recentralization, by means of political, fiscal and administrative indicators to track the dynamics of its recent shifts. To look at this tendency I conducted a comparative analysis of the cultural policy instruments in two periods: the coalition of The Civic Platform and Polish People’s Party 2007- 2015, and Law and Justice Party 2015-2017. The study contributes to knowledge of political, fiscal and administrative settings of cultural policy recentralization in Poland.


Introduction
 ere is an endless tension between centralization and decentralization in the contemporary states (Sahin, 1973;Cummings, 1995;Vestlund, 2015). Recent decades, in particular the fall of the communism in Eastern Europe at the turn of the 1980s, brought about the tendency towards decentralization which shaped a new facet of governance in transition and in developing countries as well (Bird and Vaillancourt, 1998;Sharma, 2005;Pollit, 2005;Shah and Shah, 2006). Decentralization was seen as a key element of the transition processes (Crook and Manor, 2000) motivated by disenchantment with previous centralized modes of governance (Bardhan and Mookherjee, 2006).  ere was a popular belief that bringing government closer to the people should result in enhanced effi ciency and accountability than its centralized counterpart (Rodríguez-Pose and Ezcurra, 2010; White, 2011;Pina-Sánchez, 2014).  e decentralization process, however, was not rarely hampered by fundamental problems including the lack of a clear conception of the role of the state, le over elements of the previous system that limit the possibility to re-orient budgetary allocations, low vertical coherence reducing reliability and predictability of government actions, weak inter-sectoral co-ordination limiting government abilities to adopt strategic reforms, and mechanical and technical approaches to public administration (Verheijen, Smirl and Kozáková, 2001). Most o en, the decentralization agenda has remained incomplete (Prud'homme, 1995; Litvack et al., 1998;Bahl and Martinez-Vasquez, 2006;Kaiser, 2006;Pritche et al., 2010;Panday, 2017), led to unconstructive implications including the growth of corruption practices (Rose-Ackerman, 2004), or reduced the quality in public service provision (Treisman, 2000).
Decentralization is a multifaceted, complex and ongoing process which has so far produced justifi cations of both failure and success (Breton, 2002).  is process is also highly connected with the understanding of a set of goals central government should strive to achieve. Under certain conditions decentralization might be seen as undesirable since it reduces the control power of the central government over the public sphere (Prud'homme, 1995). Vertical decentralization, measured by the number of sub-national government tiers, also tends to be ineffi cient (Dreher, 2006). At present, a number of indicators reveal the political tendency towards recentralization motivated by effi ciency arguments (Cole and de Visscher, 2016;Loewen, 2018).
 is study was designed to diversify this scholarship by providing an in-depth analysis assessing the condition of recentralization tendency of the cultural sector in Poland, but also by bringing a broad political context of decentralization in the cultural policy in Poland. By building on the theory of decentralization this contribution tests the projected reality of cultural policy in Poland.  is is important because recentralization contributes to the consolidation of the central government's control power over the public cultural sphere.
 e article is structured as follows. First, the literature review section describes the fundamental concepts of decentralization pointing at the heterogeneity of countries' decentralization and tribulations related to the implementation of the decentralization agenda. Second, the paper presents a broader perspective of recentralization process and its implications with a focus on European post-communist countries.  e methodology section introduces the research procedure to test the assumption that cultural policy in Poland faces recentralization by means of political, fi scal and administrative indicators to track the dynamics of its recent shi s. Next, the results are presented and discussed, concluding with implications for research and practice.

Decentralization in cultural policy
Cultural policy is a subsector of public policy (Paque e and Redaelli, 2015). Cultural policy 'is a large, heterogeneous set of individuals and organizations engaged in the creation, production, presentation, distribution and preservation and education about aesthetic heritage, and entertainment activities, products and artifacts' (Wyszomirski, 2002, p. 186). In this article I study explicit cultural policy, i.e. the policy suggestions that the parties themselves refer to as such (Ahearne, 2009).
Decentralization of contemporary cultural policy in Poland began in 1989, when signifi cant system changes were started a er 44 years of the socialist economy. In 1990, instead of undemocratic local structures (national councils), democratic communes ('gminy' -the lowest level of local government) with considerably greater powers were introduced. In 1999, the reforms were completed by introducing two additional levels of local government -districts ('powiaty') and provinces ('województwa').  ese transformations forced the new local government structures in Poland to formulate and implement cultural policy in a new reality that would take into account regional and local needs (Murzyn-Kupisz, 2010). However, the system of cultural policy management decentralized a er 1989 has still remained centralized in its nature.  e reason for 'more formal than substantial' decentralization lies (at least partly) in the way administrative reforms shi ed the responsibility for culture to regional and local governments (without adequate redistribution of fi nancial resources). Low level of fi nancial autonomy of cultural institutions resulted in their administrative dependency and politization that made it easier for those institutions to function (Głowacki et al., 2009).
Being aware that decentralization 'is an ambiguous concept, its borders not well defi ned' (Prud'homme, 1995, p. 2), when assessing each model of decentralization, questions appear about the eff ectiveness of the developed level of the decentralization of the cultural policy, that is raising questions about the rationality of the decisions taken in a given model, about the optimal proportions between what should be the center, and what lower-level authorities should deal with.
Decentralization in cultural policy is one of the most frequently mentioned goals of conducting cultural policy in many countries (Cummings and Katz, 1987, p. 367), including post-communist countries of Central and East Europe and Southeastern Europe (Weeda et al., 2005;Tóth, 2011;Tóth, 2014;Katunarić, 2003;Inkei, 2009). Decentralization gains specifi c weight in these transition countries which still carry the legacy of a centralized system (Alagjozovski, 2004). Despite the uniqueness of each of these countries they share comparable historical context of communism which strongly aff ects the shape of cultural policy.  e post-transition era has shown that political and state systems in countries of this region generally lack solid and eff ective guarantees for the representation of territorial interests, and the EU key idea of subsidiarity is underrepresented. It makes the implementation of decentralization fulfi ll only partially. In Bulgaria, the process of decentralization of cultural policy is seen as a fusion of inconsistent political decentralization and consistent shi of the fi nancial responsibility from the state to the municipal budgets (Yosifova, 2011). In Romania, the fi rst wave of decentralization was made under the society pressure, and was unsuccessful because neither the way of thinking was changed, nor the institutions were ready for this step (Chetraru, undated). In many transition countries of this region the speed of introducing decentralization moved too fast (Kovács et al., 2016). However, despite a strong drive to decentralize, the capacity for autonomous regional initiatives has been reduced (Suteu, 2012). Frequently, there was no clear strategy to understand and develop cultural policy (Bulgaria, Macedonia) (Alagjozovski, 2004). In consequence, to diff erent extent in every country, a new recentralization of the system was put in practice and cultural institutions entered once again under the central authority subordination (Chetraru, undated).
In literature, economic and political eff ects of decentralization or more specifi cally recentralization of cultural policies on the performance of this sector can be distinguished; however, the benefi ts of decentralization are not obvious (Prud'homme, 1995; Kovács et al., 2016).  ere are studies fi nding out both negative and positive correlation with traditionally assumed positive impacts of decentralization (Sharma, 2006). However, decentralization has been developed into the most favored policy priority which has been implemented very diff erently in diff erent countries.
In general, the key objective of cultural decentralization is spatial diff usion of arts-related facilities and organizations to benefi t audience and population at large (Kawashima, 2004). From the economic point of view, decentralization of cultural policy strives to equalize public expenditure regionally for the arts and culture (Kawashima, 2004). Decentralization makes it possible to distribute public funds effi ciently by different spending authorities among diff erent groups of cultural producers (Kawashima, 2004). From the political point of view decentralization allows to diff use political and administrative power to implement cultural policy by diff erent decision-makers, including horizontal diff usion of responsibilities among diff erent stakeholders of pub-lic, private and non-profi t sector (Kawashima, 2004). Prud'homme (1995) underlines possible negative eff ects (both economic and political) of decentralization including increasing disparities and corruption, harming stability, and undermining effi ciency. Frequently, a real challenge of successful decentralization is what functions to decentralize, in which sectors, in which regions and how to harmonize shared production of the service by the various levels (Prud'homme, 1995). Kawashima (2004) defi nes cultural decentralization as a fair distribution of cultural products among citizens by creating equal opportunities in the consumption of culture for every citizen irrespective of his/her gender, race, beliefs or income.  e following types of decentralization of cultural policy can be distinguished (Flejterski and Zioło, 2008;Kawashima, 2004): -political (system) decentralization assumes that lower-level entities operate through democratically elected executive and decision-making bodies.  e highest degree of system decentralization is expressed in the system independence of the local government from the central government. -fi scal decentralization (decentralization of public fi nance), which concerns the distribution of public expenditure on culture, with the proportions between expenditure from the central and local government level that ensure balancing the level of public expenditure on culture in the region.  is refers particularly to the transfer of public fi nancial resources from the central government level to local governments in order to guarantee fi nancing the tasks carried out by local governments and fi nancial independence of the local governments. -administrative decentralization, which consists in defi ning the scope of tasks of local governments of particular levels and equipping these entities with administrative tools enabling the implementation of the tasks entrusted to them. Administrative decentralization can be divided into: de-concentration (the lowest level of decentralization), delegation and devolution (the highest level of decentralization).

Method and data
 e primary aim of this research is to test the assumption that cultural policy in Poland faces recentralization by means of political, fi scal and administrative indicators, and to track the dynamics of its recent shi s.  ere is an important underlying refl ection that Polish cultural policy is an area in which decentralization has been rather formally than substantially developed.  e following research procedures are used in the article: (1) integrative literature review which looks at decentralization in the cultural policy with a special focus on European post-communist countries, (2) historical approach which shows steps made towards decentralization and critical insights on its implementation, and (3) policy discourse analysis which deals with the assessment of political, fi scal and administrative se ings of cultural policy decentralization/recentralization.  e policy discourse analysis is based on the theoretical framework developed by Ebel and Yilmaz (2002) to measure correlation between fi scal decentralization and economic growth. Out of three groups of indicators, three specifi c indicators relating to cultural policy have been specifi ed -one for each group.
-For the indicator of political decentralization -the scope of central government participation in the decision-making process, including state interventionism, which is refl ected in infl uencing the repertoire, as well as content and values in cultural activities. As this indicator is not subject to quantitative analysis, it will be discussed on the basis of declarations included in the programs of winning political parties in this period: Civic Platform in 2007 ('Poland Deserves the Economic Miracle') and 2011 (' e Next Step. Together'), and Law and Justice in 2014 ('Health, Labor, Family'). It consolidates and describes the approach towards decentralized cultural policy implementation. Election programs are temporal and declarative.  ey do not necessarily correspond with real undertakings; however, they do a empt at imposing selected politically driven narratives to be implemented a er winning elections.  e analysis looking at the decentralization/recentralization issue 'is not (or not especially) susceptible to quantitative research' (Manor, 2011, p. 1). Researchers (Ebel and Yilmaz, 2002) emphasize a great diffi culty in measuring the degree of decentralization based on the example of only one indicator of fi scal decentralization.  e idea to measure the degree of decentralization has been largely inconclusive mainly due to no consensus among scholars on its precise defi nition (Sharma, 2006). Many papers address this issue in economics, but no a empts have been made to measure the degree of cultural decentralization. A number of studies have developed qualitative research aiming at assessing the quality and the way decentralization in the cultural sector functions.  us, the aim of this paper is not to rigorously measure the degree of advancement of decentralization/recentralization, but to verify that cultural policy has been recentralized since 2015.  erefore, it contributes to the debate largely by providing knowledge on the complex process of decentralization in the cultural policy in Poland and its present condition. Below the analysis mostly relies on qualitative study and to some extent on quantitative evidence to look more precisely at some tendencies.
Two periods will be analyzed, taking into account three indicators: political, fi scal and administrative decentralization.  e second period covers the years 2015-2017. It began when the Law and Justice Party (PiS) came to power and formed a one-party government (it has been functioning until now -as of the end of 2019) -however, only the initial period was taken into account due to the availability of statistical data).  e comparability of the analysis of these two periods -the PO-PSL coalition government and the PiS government -is hindered by disproportionate time frames of these two periods, and the diffi culty in interpreting trends from 2015, which was a transitional period (the PiS government came to power on November 16, 2015). However, it was recognized that even such a short period (the data concerning the PiS government cover only two full years -2016 and 2017) may reveal interesting trends.  e obvious premise that the PiS government may constitute an interesting point of reference, or even a counterpoint to the governments of the PO-PSL coalition, is the fact that the continuity of the political system was to some extent broken with the negative evaluation of the entire legacy of 1989 by PiS politicians.

Political (system) decentralization
 e Civic Platform's programs from 2007 and 2011 both call for deetatization and strengthening the autonomy of self-governments. From the political point of view the Civic Platform's programs show the decentralization of cultural policy. In both programs culture was perceived as a carrier of pluralism, individuality and dialogue, but also as an element of economic development.  is made a clear link between trends in European cultural policies (Bieczyk-Missala, 2016), and the call to create favorable conditions for the development of the culture industry and strengthening civil society. According to the programs' vision, the responsibility for decentralized cultural sector was spread among the state, local governments and non-governmental organizations.  is kind of horizontal cooperation was visible in extensive grant programs designed to support diverse cultural NGOs. Partially adapted Anglo-Saxon solutions (e.g. arm's length principle, state lo eries) were highly a ractive for the Polish model, which was to be a step to strengthen the autonomy of the entities engaged in cultural activities and diminish the infl uence of the state on cultural institutions (a step towards the decentralization of the sector).  e call for diversifi cation of funding sources showed again the Anglo-Saxon way of thinking (e.g. the call for sponsorship) to be implemented in a country where philanthropy just started to revive a er a long break.
 e Law and Justice election program displays the characteristics of recentralization trends in this area. Its current implications are visible on various levels, and from the point of view of cultural policy they negatively aff ect the Polish cultural system (Kubecka, 2015).  e Law and Justice cultural policy is ideologically marked and realizes the vision of culture subordinated to the state.  ere is a very strong accent put on the role of the state in the sphere of culture (the state as a caretaker and guardian of culture). It clearly focuses on several areas: history and identity policy, supporting Polish heritage and traditions, participation of broad social groups in culture (Kubecka, 2015), promoting Christian and patriotic values.  is stays in contrast with the Civic Platform's vision that understood culture as a laboratory of the future, changeability, and pluralism.
 e Law and Justice party shows its clear preference to directly manage cultural sphere to instrumentally reach its centralist goals. Its cultural policy forces the implementation of centralized mechanisms giving the authorities the mandate to have a hold over nearly all the cultural sector by means of diverse instruments (including fi nancial or personal) to make the message consistent with the values articulated by the central authority. Again, as a result, there are ineff ective organizational structures and fi nancing based mainly on public subsidies to those organizations that implement the ideological vision of the Law and Justice party.  us, cultural institutions might be treated instrumentally, losing their autonomy in the fi eld of running cultural programs.  is recentralization trend is visible also in the excessive concentration of the public sector on the protection of cultural heritage instead of promoting new cultural values, while initiatives promoting other, liberal values are not supported.

Fiscal decentralization (public fi nance) decentralization
Public funding is one of the main sources of fi nancing culture in Poland, both for public and non-governmental organizations, where public subsidies compose 55% of their income (Adamiak et al., 2016). Cultural institutions organized by local governments constitute the dominant group in the landscape of cultural institutions in Poland, which also explains the prevalence of local government expenditure on culture in total amounts spent on culture.
In A particular a ention must be given to the fi gures in 2017. In 2017, museums were still an important chapter covered by the state budget, however, at that time it was the second largest expenditure (reduced level of fi nancing to 19.1% of the state expenditure on culture from the chapter 921, that is, in 2017 museums received subsidies in the amount of 559.346 thousand PLN whereas in 2016 it was 1.132.984 thousand PLN) (Report on the National Public Budget Execution).
 e largest expenditure in 2017 was exceptionally planned in the budget chapter TV and radio broadcasting -980,000 thousand PLN (that is, 30.1% of the state expenditure in the state budget chapter 921).  is resulted from the change of the Budget Act.  e argument for such a signifi cant expenditure was to recompensate public TV and radio the decrease in income from the broadcast receiving license in Poland in the period 2010-2017 (Report on the National Public Budget Execution). In the Polish reality it is a signal of political signifi cance to support a state-fi nanced media that are seen as a government propaganda tool (Klepka, 2017).
 e participation of the local and regional governments in fi nancing culture oscillated around 80% between 2007 and 2010, with a slight upward trend (although it was not a permanent trend). It was a sign of a gradual -though evolutionary -moving the accent in funding culture on the level of self-governments (see Figure 2). In 2014, the last full year of Civic Platform government, it was 81.4%.  is trend was rapidly reversed at the time the Law and Justice party came into power. During the next years, and especially in 2017, there was a sharp decline in the share of local governments in fi nancing culture, to 69.4%. Simultaneously, there was a signifi cant increase in the share of central budget expenditure. In the area of fi nancing, the centralization trend is clearly visible (see Figure 3).
 e implications of the tendency for growing expenditure on culture from the state budget include e.g. acquisition and creation of new cultural state institution of ideological profi le in 2015-2016, and a huge subsidy in the budget chapter TV and radio broadcasting in 2017.  is results from a political decision to establish and fi nance new national institutions which are subordinated to the center, also ideologically. In consequence, there is an apparent shi towards more extensive central funding of culture with an accent put on those initiatives which promote values important for the state.
 e belief of Law and Justice cultural statements is that it is required for state funded culture to meet standards set up by the government.  e eff ect is to limit the autonomy of the cultural sector. Decentralization might be seen as undesirable since it reduces the control power of the central government over the public cultural sphere.  is situation is assessed negatively (Musiałek et al., 2019), and its selected features remind of previous communistic autocratic system (lesser transparency of public funds spending, excessive dependence of cultural entities on public fi nancing, fi nancial subsidies given by public governance levels to public cultural institutions or NGOs following an ideological path of the Law and Justice, strengthening the controlling power of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage).

Administrative decentralization
 e Ministry of Culture and National Heritage fi nances or co-fi nances the activities of many organizational units subordinated to and supervised by the ministry, including approx. 300 budgetary units -holders of state budget funds, and about 100 organizational units subordinated to and supervised by the minister.  is period was of evolutionary type in terms of establishing new state cultural institutions -changes in this area were small.  ere is some regularity in spatial distribution -some regions have invariably the highest number of cultural entities or they have certain types of cultural entities. Some entities, due to the nature of their activities, usually operate in certain areas -theatres, music institutions (e.g. philharmonic 21 21  Subordination plays here the crucial role. Since the Law and Justice government, the center increasingly has participated in the cultural administration playing the role of the sole decisive body in the cultural policy. Its direct implication is that the center takes decisions that the periphery simply executes; it is clearly seen in the profi le of all cultural institutions established by the Law and Justice Party, promoting history policy, patriotism and Christian values, and omi ing references to European conditions and experiences; an example is the controversy related to administration of the Museum of the Second World War (Paszulka, 2019).  is profi le explains the nature of expenditure (a clear increase in state budget expenditure on museums, i.e. institutions implementing the above-mentioned postulates of the ruling party).
 e next important implication of administrative recentralization is the pressure to politically appoint or replace previous directors of cultural institutions (e.g. Again, from the point of view of cultural policy, those examples negatively aff ect the performance of cultural organizations that should meet diverse expectations of citizens and other stakeholders of cultural policy (Chaciński, 2019). At this recentralization trend, administrative power allows to diff use political and administrative power to implement cultural policy by diff erent decision-makers, as long as diff erent stakeholders pursue the ideological profi le of the cultural policy set by Law and Justice.

Conclusions
Not much research on recentralization trends in cultural policy of CEE countries has been conducted.  is study contributes to recent academic debates, reinforcing the view that decentralization of cultural sector in CEE countries was only partly successful, and brought a wave towards recentralization. Cultural policy analysts can be informed through this study about the conditions of running cultural policy in Poland.  is might enhance understanding of practical ma ers as far as cultural policy is concerned.
 is research allows to point at re-centralization wave in Poland since the Law and Justice Party came into power (2015). Poland is not the only country incorporating this tendency. In Hungary, Fidesz, a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party brought about fundamental changes also in cultural policies, that is, decision-making by high level functionaries (Inkei, 2016) and the discourse of patriotism-nationalism (Kristóf, 2017, p. 19).
In the Polish cultural policy, the trend toward decentralization in the 1990s (but it was the so called centralized decentralization) and presently towards recentralization has blurred the clear distinction between the responsibilities of diff erent actors and their functions (profi ling cultural service provision, its fi nancing, and supervising). It might result from le over elements of the previous system, which negatively aff ect horizontal and vertical coherence of the government actions and intersectoral cooperation.
 e possible implications of current recentralization trend might be seen as 'instrumental cultural policy' (Gray, 2007) that refers not to use cultural resources to implement purely cultural or artistic objectives but to an emphasis on secondary purposes such as developing right-wing narratives about the Polish identity and national pride or support other political purposes by means of various instruments. Current recentralization wave unveils not only increasing participation of the center in fi nancing culture (fi scal factor), but also retaining the central power to appoint representatives of regional authorities and infl uencing the decisions of regional bodies (administrative factor), as well as insisting on supporting a selected range of cultural projects to be implemented -the party opposes public funding of culture that is not perceived as part of the national (political factor). Recentralization contributes to the consolidation of the central government's control power over the public cultural sphere.
 is conclusion emphasizes the need to explore the capacity, implementation and policy constraints of this process. What is the quality of cultural services provided in the centralized and decentralized system? Do central government and also local governments have a long-term concept of what organization is going to provide, what kind of cultural services and to what extent? If a stronger role of the center has emerged in the consequence of recentralization, what role will non-governmental organizations and private sector organizations play in cultural policy? What are possible joint elements of recentralization process in CEE countries?