Two decades of a successful and challenging model

Following the effects of the New Public Management (NPM) trend - an effort to improve the efficiency of public services by using private sector management models and strategic partnerships - in the UK during the 1980s, the late 1990s in Brazil were marked by the emergence of partnerships between government and civil society in the field of arts and culture. Since 1998, the new public management model (also defined in Brazil as "non-state public management") has been applied to cultural spaces, such as museums, libraries, theatres, etc.; to artistic groups, orchestras and dance companies; and to long term artistic and educational programs and festivals.

 

This model is carried out in Brazil mainly through partnerships between states or municipal governments and non-profit entities, which are based on certain requirements and a public certification. After this selection procedures, the non-profit organization can receive public resources and use public venues. The government though continues to be mainly responsible for planning, financing and controlling public policy, unlike privatization policies. The control of partnerships is done through a Management Contract, in which goals, indicators and activities are defined according to the service or program.

 

 

The NPM in Brazil was actually envisioned as a strategy to improve the work of public institutions in other areas, such as health and technology, but since its creation has been increasingly applied to cultural institutions. It is a phenomenon clearly suitable for the challenges and problems faced by public funded cultural organizations in Brazil.

 

Historically, most of Brazil’s artistic production is dependent on governmental action, whether through maintenance of public cultural institutions, subsidies and support to private institutions, direct sponsorship of projects or, more recently, through tax exemptions and incentive laws. Although the vision and scope of cultural policies have expanded, the public management tools and legal framework remained the same. Every public cultural organization in Brazil has to adopt the federal general law for purchases and services, which means that from the point of view of public administration there is no difference between the specificities of the cultural sector and any other public activity, such as building a hospital or buying vehicles. Thus, the public management of culture in Brazil - like in many other countries such as Germany or the UK - has become an eternal clash between the organizational logic of public administration and the characteristics of the cultural field.

 

We tend to think that the main problems of cultural institutions are related to funding. But this is not exactly the case in Brazil. Besides and even before the existing financial challenges, the management of public cultural spaces, projects and programs was subject to many problems which are incompatible with cultural activity: slowness caused by excessive bureaucratic formalities for purchases and services, difficulties or even the impossibility of main activities such as fundraising, establishing international partnerships, hiring enough and specialized staff or creating long term budget plans. These and other issues have justified the implementation of new public management strategies in several Brazilian states.

 

However, beyond being just a form of optimization of public management, NPM in Brazil has been an important tool to enable the direct participation of organized civil society in the planning and execution of cultural policies - through involvement in the organization´s boards or executive positions and on assessment bodies supporting the government’s supervision and planning duties. This can also be seen as result of a new democratization process in Brazil. After 20 years of military dictatorship, in 1988 - a decade before the first initiatives of new public management - Brazil declared a new constitution, also known as the "citizen constitution." Therefore, the NPM for cultural institutions in Brazil was not only an administrative innovation but brought with it a conceptual change related to the role of the state and of civil society, and the benefits of public policies through partnerships between them.

 

 

Currently, nine of the 26 Brazilian states and four capitals, including the two major cities São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, use the NPM model for the management of dozens of cultural venues and programs. The state of São Paulo is an outstanding example: since 2004, 67 cultural organizations and programs are managed by 18 social organizations. They received investments of $ 3.9 billion Brazilian Real, directly created more than 4600 jobs and their activities reached more than 77 million people. Two major museums in Rio de Janeiro, the Museu de Arte do Rio - MAR and the Museu do Amanha, are also managed through partnership with civil organizations. In the state of Bahia, the fourth largest Brazilian state, the model was adopted in 2010 for the NEOJIBA Program responsible for the Youth and Children´s Orchestra of Bahia and several music centers.

 

Additionally, these numbers themselves are one of the benefits of the NPM model - before its implementation there have been no systematized data on cultural policies, arts organizations and their results. The advantages of the model go far beyond economic efficiency. Through management contracts with clearly agreed goals, cultural public policies became more transparent and open. The model also contributes to the professionalization of the management of cultural organizations through planning and continuous improvement tools and to the standardization of work contracts of artists and management staff, and brings more financial resources to the sector through the legal enabling of fundraising.

 

 

In 2015, the Bahia State Symphony Orchestra (OSBA), the only professional orchestra of the state, faced the highest point of a severe crisis and its future was threatened by the impossibility of hiring new musicians and by a lack of financial and administrative autonomy. The idea of changing its management model arose in 2007, when the world class pianist Ricardo Castro was invited to be OSBA´s artistic director and principal conductor, a position he occupied until 2011. It took a few more years, during which there were a clear deterioration of the institution´s activities and a strong public pressure, until the management model of the orchestra was finally modified in 2017. 

 

Its management is now executed by the Association of Friends of Castro Alves Theatre. "Since the change, the orchestra has been experiencing a period of increase in the quality and quantity of its activities. The new management model has made possible more adequate conditions for the Orchestra's artistic development, as well as for its greater insertion in our community", Fabiana Pimentel, executive director of the orchestra, explained to me.

 

Data from the first two years since the introduction of the new management model indicate the new vitality of the orchestra. Prior to the change, it had 46 permanent musicians (and needed to hire external musicians for each performance, generating extra costs). In the first year of the contract, 35 new musicians were hired, including foreign musicians (previously not possible due to public hiring procedures).

 

Between 2017 and 2018, the orchestra performed 102 concerts and more than 380 educational and outreach activities to more than 107,000 people. It has also created two new series of concerts and special projects such as "OSBA Summer” and "OSBA Movie Club”.

 

 

Despite the successes of the two decades of NPM in Brazil’s cultural field, the arts institutions still face several challenges. NPM is still often misunderstood by the media, by some politicians and even by cultural professionals as privatization policies and its multiplicity of control mechanisms can lead to new forms of bureaucratization and a wrong focus of control - instead of analyzing the actual policy’s results, they tend to focus on a downsizing of the processes.

 

In order to promote New Public Management as a solution for public cultural policies and to defend the interests of organizations and society, non-profit institutions that have partnerships with governments created the Brazilian Association of Social Organizations of Culture (ABRAOSC) in 2013. In April 2019, the association played a key role in the state of Sao Paulo fighting against the cut of $ 148 million Brazilian Real (35 million euros) - about 25% from the Secretary of Culture´s budget. The reduction would have resulted in exhibition cancellations, dismissal of employees, extinction of pedagogical projects, and so on. After strong popular pressure and press coverage, the government stepped back and currently is negotiating ways to ensure the continuity of the cultural programs. According to Paulo Zuben, ABROSC´s president, "the partnership between civil society and the government is a sum of efforts to ensure quality services for the population. The participation of civil society also helps to ensure that the broader interests of the population are ensured and that the resources are invested in public programs and equipment of culture."

 

 

Along two decades, the new public management model has contributed to the development of the cultural sector in Brazil and should continue to be improved. However, the recent episode in Sao Paulo shows that threats to the continuity and existence of public cultural policies are not only related to the choice of the best management model, but also to the very importance of culture as a sector and its legitimacy among governments and society. For a government which considers investment in an orchestra, museum or theatre an unnecessary expense, not an investment, culture will always be at risk and society must always be alerted to defend its interests.