Institutional change and the creative industries: the Colombian case

This chapter provides a description of a top-down process by which the arts and culture sector has been strengthened and legitimised in Colombia, a Latin American middle income country. The central argument of the chapter turns around the structural changes made to the country’s institutions as the result of the promulgation of the Constitution in 1991, introducing the cultural dimension in the definition of the national identity. Historically, Colombia has been marked by significant inequalities, reflected in the existence of two or more different ‘realities’ in the society, with contrasting forms of logic and own dynamics of development. This duality shapes the development of ‘industrial’ activities within the field of arts and cultural. The chapter concludes by using statistical information to describe the evolution of these subsectors, illustrating the way in which their development has, up to now, contributed to generate more social than economic value.