Objective/context:

based on dialogues with Radical and Plural Democracy in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, I will focus on the concept of Cultural Democracy, in opposition to the notion of the Democratization of Culture, to reflect on cultural public policies and, ultimately, defend the need for paradigmatic changes in the formation of such policies. As part of this effort, that also becomes a task for the State and its institutions, I will seek to problematize the need for effective political participation through critical involvement with the institutions (Mouffe 2014). To do so, my starting point is based on Lopes (2007, 59), who maintains, “To speak of cultural public policy is to speak of conditions of freedom and citizenship in democratic societies”. The context of the considerations that I will present based on Lopes' assertion involve sensitivity to a i) contemporary democratic environment of cultural plurality, and ii) a political project of the radicalization of democratic plurality. It is in this sense that I take up Radical and Plural Democracy to explore the possibilities of theoretical openings and its possible developments in reflections on concrete policies.

Methodology:

this work is theoretical-normative-essayistic in nature and its methodological instrument is a bibliographic review.

Conclusions:

by highlighting the role and importance of the State throughout the article and thinking about effective political participation and the relational nature of democratic policy, I seek to differentiate a “simple participation” within a limited political model, to point to possibilities of a change of the institutions and of the hegemonic model itself. In addition, based on dialogues with different authors, I present a number of principles adapted to a cultural public policy project based on the concept of Cultural Democracy.

Originality:

the relevance is in the reflective, and why not utopic, exercise of discussing cultural public policies beyond the mere analysis of results: the central element here is a political project.