This book investigates the activities undertaken by the variety of actors that contribute to accomplishing cultural policy in Europe. These range from policy formulation and administration at the national and local levels, to artistic and cultural production activities to institutional governance.
Arts and culture are an essential component to individual and collective quality of life. States, regions and municipalities increasingly recognize this intrinsic importance, as well as the instrumental values of the arts and culture. This has led to an increased interest in cultural policy, usually focusing on the policy process and policy effects. How cultural policy is accomplished is a matter of correspondingly increased importance, but less researched and understood. This volume shows how accomplishing cultural policy encompasses a vast expanse of activities, all unique but bound together as part of the continuous process of producing publicly subsidized art and culture for social and aesthetic purposes. The chapters also explore a range of thematic tensions that commonly arise in accomplishing cultural policy, such as the commercialization of arts and culture and counter-reactions; the challenges and means of promoting inclusiveness; the politics and effects of funding of the arts and culture; and good governance and vested interests in the arts and culture. Read together, these vivid case studies present a broad and unique picture of the wider and interconnected accomplishing process by expounding on the middle-ground between the policy formulation process and artistic and cultural production.
Adding a novel conceptual formulation to studies of cultural policy, this book will appeal to practitioners, scholars and advanced students with interests in the sociology of the arts and culture, arts and culture management, cultural policy and cultural governance.
"Chapter 1: Accomplishing Cultural Policy in Europe: connections and illustrations Chris Mathieu and Valerie Visanich Section 1: The commercialization of culture and counter-reactions Chapter 2: Cultural policies in Madrid and Barcelona during the ""governments of change"" (2015-2019): Towards a post-creative city? Mariano Martín Zamorano Chapter 3: The rise and fall of cultural and creative industries policy in Sweden Katja Lindqvist Chapter 4: Emerging rationalities in urban cultural policy making processes: challenging market-centred cultural policy in the city of Barcelona Victoria Sánchez Belando and Matias Zarlenga Section 2: Processes for social inclusion in cultural policies Chapter 5: Crisis as change: new paradigms in cultural policy. The case of Greece. Olga Kolokytha Chapter 6: Sounds of a Porte Ouverte: How Cultural Policies Encounter Musical Diversity in Southeastern France Aleysia Whitmore Chapter 7: Mainstreaming Ageing in Austrian Cultural Organisations and Cultural Policy Vera Gallistl, Gerhard Geiger and Tasos Zembylas Section 3: Follow the money? The politics and effects of arts funding Chapter 8: Comparative study of European policies for ethical fundraising in museums Marie Ballarini and Marek Prokupek Chapter 9: On subject’s side: negotiation of objectives and urban imaginaries in two community projects in the island of Malta Virginia Monteforte Chapter 10: Developments in visual arts policy: grant distributions, applicants’ characteristics, types of art, and legitimations for grant money in Flanders (Belgium), 1965-2015 Julia Peters and Henk Roose Section 4: Good governance and vested interests in cultural policies Chapter 11: The German theatre system and the limited impact of cultural policy on governance and management of public theatres Thomas Schmidt Chapter 12: Artistic quality in the audit society Sigrid Røyseng"
Chris Mathieu is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology at Lund University, Sweden. His research is primarily in the fields of the sociology of work and organisations, and the sociology of the arts, especially where these fields intersect. He has studies and written on film production, film schools, film institutes, and photography, as well as jury-based prize allocation processes at film festivals. He is the editor of Careers in Creative Industries (Routledge) and is Coordinator of the European Sociological Association’s Research Network 02 (RN02) on the Sociology of the Arts. Valerie Visanich is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Malta. She is one of the authors of Malta’s National Cultural Policy (2020-2025) and the co-founder of the Malta Sociological Association. Valerie held the position of coordinator of Research Network Sociology of the Arts (RN02) within the European Sociological Association (ESA), between 2017-2019, to which she is currently a board member. She is the author of Education, Individualization and Neoliberalism, Youth in Southern Europe. Her research interests are within the field of Sociology of the Arts, Cultural Policy, Generational studies, and Sociology of Emotions.
