The international transfer of creative industries as a policy idea

Abstract

This article examines the transfer of creative industries as a policy idea to Lithuania. Tracing the stages of the transfer and analysing its consequences in the local cultural policy field, this paper argues for the importance of studying cultural policy process. The findings reveal that the process of the international transfer of creative industries mattered, because it generated wider transformations in cultural policy field by having ambiguous effects on local power relations. The policy idea of creative industries opened the cultural policy field to new actors. As a result, competition for scarce state funding increased, but cultural organisations gained access to the European Union structural funds. In all, creative industries as a policy idea significantly transformed Lithuanian state cultural policy, in that it led to a reassessment of both the practices and identities of cultural organisations.