Expert Knowledge Mediation in the Relationship between Cultural Stakeholders,Politics and the State

This article is based on the general hypothesis that in Chile, as in many other parts of the world, politics has professionalized and the State has been transformed into an institution that possesses rational government knowledge (Joignant 2004). This has occurred within the framework of specific historical and social conditions that provide increasing differentiation and autonomy in both the political field and within specific government agencies. The cultural arena has also been impacted by these transformations. In this work, we will concentrate on the specific case of the cultural institutional framework that Chile has built over the past 20 years, upholding that the genesis and subsequent operation of Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes (National Council of Culture and the Arts) was determined by the inter-relationship between certain consecrated knowledge, cultural actors and the political world, where the intellectual/expert had an active participation in the whole process.