Cultural policy: Rodrigo Borja Cevallos

Abstract

Rodrigo Borja’s text analyzes Ecuador’s and the Third World’s cultural, scientific, and technological dependence on industrial powers. He argues that national sovereignty—understood as self-determination and independence—is undermined by a transnational cultural integration that homogenizes the values, tastes, and lifestyles of Latin American elites with those of dominant nations, while producing internal cultural disintegration. Borja identifies technology as the core source of modern domination, since economic, military, and cultural power stems from technological superiority. He calls for a national cultural policy to defend local values from cultural and scientific neocolonialism. The Democratic Left Party, to which Borja belongs, advocates for autonomous cultural, educational, and technological development aimed at democratizing access to culture, strengthening independent research, and adapting technology to national conditions. This approach seeks to prevent the perpetuation of external dependency and internal inequality through a sovereign and participatory cultural project.