"We have no politics involved in government subsidies!"
Civil servants as political actors within the cultural administration
Keywords:
Cultural policy, administrational politics, policy instrument, state subsidy policiesAbstract
State subsidy activities are an integral part of Finnish social policy. Besides ministries, a significant portion of subsidy allocations are implemented by performance steered agencies. Our article examines civil servants’ power in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s subsidy policy. Key material consists of interviews with cultural administration officials (n=15) both from the ministry and agency levels. In the article, we analyse the implementation structures of cultural policy from the viewpoint of political action. We interpret civil servants as active policymakers and highlight practices and structures that are key to the exercise of power. Within the framework of policy instruments, we look at the administrative politics, both as a struggle between civil servants and as a relationship with policymaking and organizations applying subsidies. The current cultural policy steering system is a complex entity which emphasizes the specialized knowledge possessed by civil servants. According to our article, the interpretation of civil servants as sole executors of policies decided by politicians is simplifying. Power relations are also not one-way. Civil society, for example, influences governance solutions. State subsidy activities are not a linear, administrative process, but a continuous, cyclical political activity.
