This thematic issue of CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/ (ISSN 1481-4374), edited by a collective of editors, papers are invited to the editor of CLCWeb, Steven Totosy, at clcweb@purdue.edu , by 30 March 2006.

Culture policy is understood as all aspects of community-, institution-, government-, and international organization-based policy in theory and practice with regard to all aspects of culture: "A [culture] policy is a system of ultimate aims, practical objectives and means, pursued by a group and applied by an authority. Cultural policies can be discerned in a trade union, a party, an educational movement, an institution, an enterprise, a town or a government. But regardless of the agent concerned, a policy implies the existence of ultimate purposes (long-term), objectives (medium-term and measurable) and means (men [sic], money and legislation), combined in an explicitly coherent system" (Augustin Girard, Cultural Development: Experiences and Policies, 171-72).

Foci of the issue include aspects of culture and culture policy in the eastward enlargement of the European Union and ensuing issues between West Europe and Central and East Europe and issues in culture and culture policy within the cultures and countries of Central and East Europe.