Accomplishing Cultural Policy in Europe

Book excerpt: 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.