Liberalism and Cultural Policy in Indonesia.

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    • Abstract:
      The beginning of contemporary cultural policy in the West is tied to the emergence of liberalism and its formulation of the subjects of governance as free individuals. Culture was judged a field where the state could teach its subjects to exercise a 'responsible and disciplined' freedom without impinging on that freedom. In colonial contexts, indigenous subjects were judged incapable of exercising freedom responsibly and the state considered them to require a degree of state control thought inappropriate for Western subjects. In this paper, I explore how cultural policy in Indonesia has been influenced by engagement with these two applications of liberalism from the late colonial period until the present, against the background of a changing international climate and political events in Indonesia. I also address the post-Suharto period where, due to the absence of a strong political movement for reform to drive change and the decentralisation of a number of policy areas including culture, a variety of cultural policies reflecting a variety of engagements with these interpretations exist together. I demonstrate that understanding the complexity of the application of liberal methods of governance in a colonial and postcolonial context is central to appreciating the cultural policy of that location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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