Local cultural administration
The municipal cultural administration is part of the municipal administration in Germany and a matter of self-government for the municipalities. The concrete distribution of tasks within the communities and the designation of the responsible bodies are regulated differently. Many municipalities have set up authorities under the name of Kulturamt . The local community center for administrative management recommends subordinating them to the “School and Cultural Administration ” department.
Legal basis and organization within local government
The municipal self-government in Germany has constitutional status through the self-government guarantee in Art. 28 Paragraph 2 Clause 1 of the Basic Law. Since the Basic Law came into force, this guarantee of self-government has determined the local cultural policy . Political decisions on cultural policy at local level are made by the local council or city council, which can delegate some of them to the culture committee for advice or decision-making, while the cultural offices are part of the administration. These resolutions are implemented by the Head of Culture, who is usually an electoral officer as an alderman or, in cities with a lord mayor, also mayor. It is at the discretion of the municipal bodies to delegate this function to their own department head or, which is often the case with smaller municipalities in particular, to the respective mayor as the only elected electoral officer. The cultural office, which in larger municipalities is headed by the head of the cultural office, serves to implement the resolutions. In many municipalities, he is also a sports and / or education department head. In smaller municipalities, often without a specially named cultural office, this can also be the main administrative officer .
In the meantime, different organizational structures of cultural policy have emerged in German local administrations to carry out the tasks. These differ in a different degree of centralization. In addition to the centralized approach of bringing all specialist and administrative tasks together in one cultural office, sometimes only the specialist tasks are centralized, while the administration is divided up decentrally into independent offices, for example for adult education centers, museums or theaters. Such an approach is followed even further if the cultural department only looks after various offices that also perform the specialist tasks. In some cases, cultural tasks and facilities are also privatized (mostly within the framework of an association or a GmbH) and thus legally withdrawn from the specialist supervision of the municipalities.
Cultural Policy in Germany
In contrast to countries like France, Italy or Great Britain, in which central cultural institutions and museums are under state sponsorship, such a national cultural offer can hardly be found in Germany. In contrast, you will find a large number of small and medium-sized museums, libraries, theaters and concert halls, which are also characterized by their relationship to the respective location. As a result, the municipalities are the direct reference point for cultural policy and less the state or the Federal Republic.
literature
- Hilmar Hoffmann, Dieter Kramer: Cultural offices and authorities in Hermann Rauhe, Christine Demmer: Cultural management: Theory and practice of a professional art , Walter de Gruyter, 2012, ISBN 978-31108-5047-5 , pp. 351-365
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Armin Klein : Cultural Policy: An Introduction , Springer-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-35319-1677-4 , p. 152
- ↑ Armin Klein: Cultural Policy: An Introduction , Springer-Verlag, 2010, pp. 154/55
- ↑ Joachim Musholt: Freizeitkulturelle Breitenarbeit , Waxmann Verlag, 1995, ISBN 978-38309-5314-2 , p. 241