Making Geography Matter in Cultural Policy Research: The Case of Regional Cultural Policy in Sweden

Abstract

In Sweden, like in most late modern Western societies, contemporary cultural policy is considered to be permeated by and inseparable from globalization processes. Such processes are understood in this chapter as parallel processes of internationalization and decentralization, which contribute to shifting the allocation of power both within the political-administrative organization and between this organization and its surroundings (cf. Johansson 2000; Mitchell 2003). The local, regional and transnational levels of government are from this perspective given opportunities of becoming more self-sufficient agents, threatening and transforming—but certainly not eliminating—the hitherto dominant position of the nation-state (Smith 2001). Thereby, changes in the organization of political practices—here delimited mainly to policy making and policy implementation—can be identified. Rather than succumbing to formal rules applied in easily discernible sectors, policy making and policy implementation are increasingly portrayed as a muddy affair; a set of social practices enacted by a number of different agents, including not only politicians and civil servants from a number of different policy fields, but also professionals and business people (Beck 1994; Halonen 2005).KeywordsNational GovernmentCounty CouncilPolicy FieldCultural PolicyAdministrative OrganizationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.