How do party programs talk about culture in the run-up to the September 25 elections?

Culture, it is well known, is not a campaign topic. And if it is not traditionally so in quieter periods than the one we are currently experiencing, let alone how much attention can be devoted to it in a campaign that the parties have had to prepare hastily, with just a couple of months separating the start of the electoral agon from the date of the elections, and in which for the moment issues related to the logic of leadership, alliances, and list compositions dominate in great prevalence, which certainly cannot be said to arouse the enthusiasm of the vast majority of people. There is little talk about Italy’s international positioning, there is little or no discussion of energy supply and inflation, much less discussion of issues concerning labor, research, the environment and climate change, i.e., issues that should be at the top of the list of priorities of any aspirant to the presidency of the council of ministers: natural, then, that culture is extremely distant from the concerns of the parties.

However, culture is often perceived as an indispensable point in electoral programs: it is, after all, considered to be one of the elements on which the goodness of a government’s action is actually measured (if only because culture distinguishes Italy in the world and, with its allied industries, also represents a significant economic sector), it is unthinkable for anyone to exclude it from programs given also the link that Italians have with their historical and cultural fabric, and by now all parties are also aware, at the very least, of the prestige and added value that culture can offer to an electoral program. Gone are the days when an economic expert like Giulio Stumpo, in the pages of Engramma, could write at the time of the 2008 elections that “culture is not in any of the electoral programs of the political parties in our country.” The reverse has happened: for the Sept. 25 elections, each party devotes a section of its program to culture. However, in most cases it seems to read simple wish-lists, with points that most often are not further outlined or elaborated upon, with no strategies specified for pursuing the goals or how to achieve the necessary coverage to support certain choices: however, this is understandable, given that the parties have objectively had little time to prepare their programs, so we will turn a blind eye to this. Here, for an analysis on the content of the programs, the parties that, according to the BiDiMedia Poll of August 19, would be above 0.5% as of today (PD 24.2%, Fratelli d’Italia 24%, Lega 13.6%, Movimento 5 Stelle 10%, Forza Italia 7%, Azione-Italia Viva 5.2%, Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra 3.9%, Italexit 2.4%, +Europa 2.1%, Noi Moderati 1.8%, Alternativa per l’Italia 1%, Impegno Civico 0.9%, Unione Popolare 0.9%, Italia Sovrana e Popolare 0.8%).

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The Democratic Party’s program states that it is the intention of the formation led by Enrico Letta “to invest in sports and culture as tools capable of creating openness, overcoming gender stereotypes, shared well-being, new spaces of sociality and new opportunities for personal fulfillment.” Culture, in the Dem program, is included in the same chapter aseducation, although it often does not go beyond expressions of intent: for example, there is talk of “promoting digitization” without further specification, or of strengthening the national museum system with “a strategy that increases autonomous institutes and enhances the museums of inland areas” (the only way indicated to favor territorial museums is the “recourse to multi-year loans of works of art from the deposits of major museums,” a project that has already begun in embryo with the ministry’s Hundred Works initiative, but obviously much more will be needed). On other points, the PD proposes nothing more than the continuation of the processes initiated by Franceschini: the strengthening of the plan for contemporary art (however, there is talk almost exclusively of support for the increase in public collections, when a sort of real New Deal for the contemporary, a grand plan involving several sectors, would be needed), the confirmation of the 18-year-old bonus, the plan for the revitalization of the boroughs, and the promotion of the Italian Capital of Culture, which is to become international.

No mention is made of the issue of work in culture, while for the suburbs there is a generic mention of “projects that combine social inclusion, territorial rebalancing, employment protection and enhancement of tangible and intangible cultural heritage.” Moreover, there is little mention of ways to promote access to culture. To be noted, however, in this regard, is the idea, which we have been proposing on these pages for at least a couple of years, of proposing forms of deductibility for cultural expenses, and that of lowering VAT on cultural products (so it will probably be a matter of eliminating it since on many products, such as books and records, it is already at 4 percent, while for others it is at 10 percent). On the other hand, the intention to establish a “National Fund for Pluralism, Quality Information and Countering Disinformation” seems rather confusing (moreover, there is already a “National Fund for Pluralism of Information”: it was established in the MEF in 2016), which is to be financed by revenues from online advertising for large digital platforms and which is to fund “young journalists and digital information start-ups.” The idea is too vague to be adequately commented on, but there are already as much funds for information as for start-ups: perhaps then it is a case of boosting what already exists, since in any case misinformation does not arise from a lack of supply (if anything, the opposite is true: it is the excess of fragmentation that fuels poor quality information). Good, finally, is the idea of promoting a “national Erasmus” related to cultural issues.

The center-right presented a "Program Framework Agreement," signed by Forza Italia, Lega, Fratelli d’Italia, and Noi Moderati. Of its fifteen points, one, the tenth, is reserved for “Made in Italy, culture and tourism.” However, it is a very generic list: “Enhancing the beauty of Italy in its recognized image in the world” is a necessary as well as vague purpose, and the same goes for “Supporting Italy’s presence in the circuits of major international events,” or for “Protecting and promoting the cultural, artistic, archaeological, material and immaterial heritage, and enhancing the cultural professionalism that constitutes Italy’s economic and identity driving force.” The protection of cultural heritage is a mission enshrined in the Constitution; therefore, it would have been interesting to find something more specific. There are, however, two positive elements: the fact that the center-right takes up the issue of “valorization of professionalism” (trying to paraphrase: should we expect government action that, for example, reduces the reckless use of volunteer work, initiates important hiring plans in the institutes of the Ministry of Culture, or promotes the professional updating of its workers?), and the “support for the digitization of the entire tourism and culture sector.” That of digitization is a process well underway, but not all parties have mentioned it in their programs, and the fact that it appears in such an epigraphic list bodes well that it is likely to be considered a priority by an eventual center-right culture minister.

The 5 Star Movement’s program is by far the least articulate among those of the forces that would cross the threshold. Barely three points are reserved for culture: “public recruitment plan to overcome the serious undersize of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and its peripheral institutions” (moreover, it has not been called the “Ministry of Cultural Heritage” for almost two years now), “curbing outsourcing and combating the distorted use of volunteer and cultural workers” (what does “distorted use of cultural workers mean?”), and “measures to protect [sic] and enhance the Italian cultural heritage.” A program, that of the party led by Giuseppe Conte, so stringent as to make any attempt at commentary futile: the hope is that behind the Pentastellata wishlist are ideas on how to pursue some sacrosanct goals. Also noteworthy is the fact that the 5 Star Movement is also the only one of the major parties where culture is included in a chapter where the leading part belongs to tourism and not culture (“On the side of tourism: to enhance our cultural and artistic heritage,” this is the title of the section).

Decidedly less laconic, on the other hand, is the program of Azione-Italia Viva, which with 68 pages, 4 of which are devoted to culture, tourism and sports, is the longest among those of political forces above the potential 0.5 percent. Some of the intentions appear very vague (read, for example, the points “to finance the print media,” “to strengthen cultural patronage,” and “to strengthen Italian cultural institutes abroad,” which stop at mere purpose), but there are also some concrete ideas of certain interest: the doubling with public funds of donations made by private individuals in favor of culture, the proposal to create a carnet of ten free admissions to museums, exhibitions and theaters to be given to families with ISEE less than 15.000 euros (a virtually no-cost proposal that is easy to implement), a free educational trip to Rome for all Italians under 25, funding for bookstores that organize reading courses for children. However, there is also a record that the program of Calenda and Renzi’s alliance lacks important and priority items: there is no mention of museums, no mention of cultural work, no mention of suburbs, no mention of contemporary art. In short, it is a program that, while it has several good points, struggles to express an organic underlying vision.

TheGreen and Left Alliance proposes a program in which a great classic of the 1980s, that of the comparison between culture and oil, returns, albeit subtly and in a nuanced way: “Italy,” the text reads in fact, “does not have oil deposits, but its great cultural and economic resource lies in beauty, beauty of the extraordinary hill and mountain seascapes (not always respected), beauty of the great heritage of works of art, farmhouses, walled cities, ancient villages, historic centers unique in the world, enclosed even in small remote municipalities.” The Alliance’s proposal is a single and very vague one: “we propose [...] that Article 9 of the Constitution be fully implemented, protecting the landscape and its constituent elements, from concrete and asphalt and unnecessary land consumption.” The only concrete implementation proposal is the amendment of Article 142 of the Cultural Heritage Code: the idea of the Greens and the Left is to extend the protections provided for the landscape to historic centers as well. Then there is a point in which they express their desire to protect cultural workers, among those most affected by the pandemic, from precarization.

Finally, among the parties that, according to the BiDiMedia survey, would not cross the threshold to date, the only one for which it is currently possible to find a programmatic document on the Web is Unione Popolare, which on the 15 pages of which the program is composed proposes, for culture, a single point, but a very bombastic one: the idea of allocating at least 1 percent of GDP to investment in culture, financing the increase in resources through general taxation and special purpose taxation. Outlining the proposal is the idea of defiscalizing investment in culture.

At the moment, with few exceptions, there is thus a lack of in-depth visions and proposals, and some areas of the culture sector have been completely left out: the word “archives,” for example, recurs only once in all the programs put together, the word “libraries,” on the other hand, barely three times, and always in incidental passages where it does not go into specifics. There is a lack of mention of the overall situation of the Ministry of Culture, which is in dire straits due to staffing shortages; there is no mention of some urgent issues such as the outsourcing of museum services, or the situation in which the contemporary art sector finds itself. More heartfelt, however, are some issues such as participation and reading, on which there are interesting insights. It will therefore be necessary that whoever emerges victorious from the elections will work right away to set a line that at the moment, also for contingent reasons dictated by the speed with which the parties have to work, is hard to see: this is perhaps the main wish that can be addressed to us in view of the next electoral round.

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