Designing a Network for Interactive Implementation of National Cultural Policies

The stage of implementation enjoys a crucial significance in the process of policymaking, for the real fruits of the policy are borne at this stage. The present paper is an attempt to offer an interactive implementation network through which the national cultural policies can be implemented more successfully. Thematic analysis method, consisting of three stages, i.e. descriptive coding, interpretative coding and development of universal themes, has been used. In order to develop a model for the implementation of national cultural policies, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the experts, policymakers, and cultural executives until data saturation was achieved. The results of the research included 548 codes categorized into 72 descriptive codes, 43 interpretative codes and 20 universal themes. Establishment of relations between these themes led to the development of a network for interactive implementation of national cultural policies. In the proposed model, the implementation of policy takes place in two stages: “planning and establishment of a support network”, and “launching of the plans”. In the first stage, which contains four steps, i.e. “decision-making”, “decision-taking and adjustment of operational plans”, “establishment of software support network” and “establishment of hardware support network”, four actors, i.e. cultural policymakers, cultural elites, cultural managers, and governmental cultural experts, play their roles. In the stage of launching the plans, the governmental cultural executives, private cultural organizations, non-governmental organizations, promoters of culture and finally the society (people), through their cordial cooperation and using all the capacities of the country, engage in interactive implementation of cultural policies. The roles of the said eight actors have been clearly explained. In this model, people, as the ninth actor, through playing four roles, i.e. executive, observer, objective and index, participate in the implementation of the cultural policies.