Cultural Planning in German Municipalities. The case of Karlsruhe.

Abstract

The aim of this research is to understand the phenomenon of concept-based cultural policy in Germany and to analyze the ways in which municipalities can manage to pursue a cultural policy that adapts to social and cultural challenges, involving both stakeholders and citizens in decision-making processes for a long-term policy. Since today's municipal, concept-based cultural policy is the result of a Germany-specific development, this research will elaborate the German understanding of the concepts "culture," "politics," and "cultural policy" and analyze the role of municipalities in the cultural policy system. This is done by drawing on the research literature on cultural policy and cultural studies. After tracing the historical development of cultural development planning and their influences, the key terms most often used to describe cultural development planning, namely practical transformational work in the sense of participatory, concept-oriented cultural policy, are considered. The example of the city Karlsruhe is used in the last chapter to show that German cities resort to participatory, concept-oriented transformation processes to implement a sustainable, comprehensible policy which makes optimal use of the available resources. All this has been analyzed to verify how cultural development planning is used today and what advantages such a participatory, concept-based cultural policy can have in the future as well, especially in light of society’s advancing challenges.