The role of local self-government in financial support for cultural policies in Poland between 1990 and 2015

This article describes the changes in cultural policies in Poland which were triggered by the introduction of autonomous local self-governments in 1990 and 1998. The paper begins with a short presentation of the history of the decentralization of public authority and public funding of culture. Then competences of the Ministry of Culture and local governments in various cultural areas are compared. In the third part the authors focus on the accessibility of EU funds and its influence on the cultural sector. In next part the budgetary plans of local government units and actual expenditure on culture are compared. The concluding remarks present an overview of the changes which took place between 1990 and 2015. The article includes analysis based on data from the Central Statistical Office of Poland and from the Ministry of Finance