Spreading global models and enhancing banal localism: the case of local government cultural policy development

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of how cosmopolitan consciousness coexists with persistent banal nationalism or localism. The argument put forward is that these two phenomena are reinvigorated by a single process, here called the domestication of transnational models. The newspaper media coverage of an R&D project aimed at developing local government cultural activities in Finnish towns and cities is the object of a case analysis. The results show that although the project contributed to standardizing local government cultural activities and spreading the idea of cities as strategic actors, through the way in which the project was covered in the local media, it strengthened a local viewpoint on the whole process. It drew on and constituted residents’ identification with their local domicile and the idea that local government citizens are members of a team that has to do well in global competition. Second, the comparative data made available was capitalized in local politics.