Urban Development and Cultural Policy “White Elephants”: Barcelona and Valencia

The importance of culture in defining new models of local development has been increasingly emphasized. However, less attention has been paid to the influence of local development models on local cultural policy. This article will focus on analysing two cities that have used culture as a central element in their economic and urban development. In both cases, they have followed different strategies but the two have finally finished generating two “white elephants”: the Universal Forum of Cultures in the case of Barcelona and the City of Arts and Sciences in the case of Valencia. From a comparison of the two cases, the paper analyses the causes of this urban phenomenon, which combines cultural legitimation, wasteful investments, financial and social unsustainability and, last but not least, corruption. These four characteristics of cultural white elephants express the depletion of a neoliberal city model based on real estate speculation and tourism, which de facto relegates culture – in spite of discourses about social cohesion and sustainability – as an instrument of urban branding and elite socio-economic domination.     

The ‘Liverpool model(s)’: cultural planning,Liverpool and Capital of Culture 2008

Within the UK, the ‘Liverpool model’ is being celebrated as the new template for Capital of Culture festivals, and culture led urban regeneration in general. This paper will question this celebration and argue that there are, in fact, two ‘Liverpool models’: the first, outlined in its bid and developed within its initial planning strategy, represented the apogee of a New Labour informed ‘cultural planning’ framework for urban development; the second, developed post-2008 within the impact analysis Impacts08, is a more sober and realistic reflection of the role of culture in urban regeneration. This paper will demonstrate how this first model, while politically expedient and rhetorically seductive, was both theoretically unstable and practically unrealizable. Its subsequent abandonment represents an indictment of cultural planning as a nostrum for the complex structural, social and economic problems of the post-industrial city.     

‘Culture’, ‘sustainable development’ and cultural policy: a contrarian view

Abstract

This essay offers a critical analysis of the ‘culture and sustainable development’ discourse, notably among cultural activists and in actually existing cultural policy. It interrogates the utility of the narrative, seeks to uncover the semantic manoeuvres it employs and challenges the conventional wisdom it represents. The essay first explores the itinerary of the ductile notion of ‘sustainability’, the ways in which it has been stretched far beyond the original intent of those who coined the term, and identifies the conceptual discontents that this semantic multiplication has entailed. It hypothesizes that precisely because the term ‘sustainable’ and its derivatives are so acceptable and malleable at the same time, they have been easy to yoke to the bandwagon of the many-faceted and totalizing process that is ‘development’, allowing many different actors to project their interests, hopes, and aspirations under this composite banner. The essay then analyses the campaign to make culture ‘the fourth pillar of sustainability’ under the banner of the movement called ‘Agenda 21 for Culture’. It concludes with a plea for a return to the original ecological focus of the term ‘sustainability’ – notably as regards climate change – and outlines some cultural policy responses such a focus can and should generate.     

Can national cultural policy approaches be used for sub‐national comparisons? An analysis of the Québec and Ontario experiences in Canada

There has been relatively little comparative research undertaken on sub‐national cultural policy. This article aims to contribute to the development of sub‐national comparative studies by assessing the utility of national cultural policy approaches for comparative research at the sub‐national level in Canada. Drawing on studies of national cultural policy, the authors develop three main approaches to cultural policy and administration – the French, British and hybrid approaches – and explore their applicability to the origin and evolution of cultural policy and administration in the Canadian provinces of Québec and Ontario. This exploratory research suggests there is room for optimism in drawing on national‐level experiences to undertake sub‐national comparative cultural policy research, particularly for comparisons over broad time periods. The study also suggests that it will be important in subsequent research to further elaborate the models for present‐day comparative analysis and to refine and adapt them to reflect specificities at the provincial level of analysis.     

Why does cultural policy change? Policy discourse and policy subsystem: a case study of the evolution of cultural policy in Catalonia

Culture has come to play a fundamental strategic role in the territorial development that seeks to integrate knowledge economy with social cohesion, governance and sustainability. However, cultural policies have been unable to respond to the dilemmas and expectations that this new order presents. In order to appreciate the consequences of this process, it is essential to gain a better understanding of cultural policy change dynamics. This article develops a framework for analysing cultural policy stability and change and applies it to the evolution of cultural policy in Catalonia. Both policy continuity and change are conditioned by the evolution of policy discourse on culture and the characteristics of the cultural policy subsystem. Within this framework, this article also takes into account the role of factors that are exogenous to the cultural domain. Lastly, this article addresses particular characteristics of cultural policy change in regions or stateless nations.     

Conceptualizing Greek cultural policy: the non‐democratization of public culture

This paper concentrates on several of the most significant moments of Greek cultural policy since World War II, together with its key concepts. It traces the cultural policy of the country, its main changes and its relationship with politics through a socio‐cultural analysis and a look at the political and cultural events which occurred. The concepts of national identity, hegemony, civilizing mission, democratization, and cultural democracy are applicable in this framework. Despite various attempts at reforms, the country's cultural policy could be characterized as ‘path dependent’; it connected unwaveringly to its two main objectives: heritage and the arts.     

Delivering a national spatial development strategy: a success story?

The Slovenian national planning policy has been in a renewal process since 2014. The process required an evaluation to reveal to which level the defined measures have been delivered and discuss the policy’s future role. The mixed-methods evaluation approach consisted of a document analysis, a questionnaire with local communities and interviews with representatives of the ministries. Implementation of measures depends on multiple factors: capacity, personal priorities of actors, interpretation skills, financial support, political will for co-operation, etc. The potential to mitigate the influence of factors on implementation through a co-evolutionary trend of planning is elaborated in the light of Europeanization.     

协调民族关系促进民族地区和谐发展

在新的历史时期,党的民族工作面临着许多新的情况和问题。要切实解决这些问题,必须认真贯彻落实党的各项民族政策,积极协调民族关系,努力化解各种矛盾,促进民族地区“三个文明”建设的高度发展,真正实现各民族之间的共同繁荣与团结和睦,促进民族地区的和谐发展,这将最终影响到我国构建社会主义和谐社会的总体进程。     

论纳西族民族文化生态

纳西民族生态文化是纳西族与自然环境相互调适的结果。本文对纳西民族的天人感应、祭天民俗、白地圣地的环境优选及宗教信仰等文化生态现象进行了探讨。     

国民休闲计划与旅游弹性消费——基于旅游应对危机的政策选择

国际金融危机对我国旅游业的冲击具有自身的阶段特性、传导路径和影响领域,在“突机破危”的特殊环境下,出现了从“大众旅游”向“国民休闲”的转变趋势,而国民休闲计划也随之成为旅游减危排危、扩大旅游弹性消费的有效途径。为此,必须充分认识国民休闲的消费约束,重点撬动四类旅游市场,扩大旅游弹性消费空间,并适时出台一系列有效的杠杆政策,以推动国民休闲计划的顺利实施。     

Cultural retaliation: the cultural policies of the ‘new’ Front National

This study examines the conception of culture and the cultural policies of the French Front National. Tracing the developments of the party’s cultural agenda before and after Marine Le Pen took over the leadership of the party from her father, I show how the Front National has adapted its discourse on cultural policy to its wider programmatic profile. In the context of a strategy of de-radicalisation promoted by Marine Le Pen, recent years have witnessed focussed efforts by the party leadership to professionalise and modernise the party’s cultural policy programme. However, the analysis of the party’s current cultural policy agenda reveals a remarkable continuity in the way the party leadership conceives of national culture and of what cultural policy should promote. This programmatic continuity becomes apparent in the analysis of the local cultural policies of municipalities won by the Front National in 2014. Exploring the cultural agendas of ten local governments with a Front National majority, I argue that the cultural policies of the Front National remain deeply rooted in a nativist understanding of culture and a dirigiste approach that wilfully excludes postcolonial minorities.     

马克思主义民族观中国化、当代化的几个问题

马克思主义民族观是马克思主义者及其政党解决民族问题、制定民族政策的理论基础和指导思想,要以科学的态度和创新的精神坚持马克思主义民族观。马克思主义民族观在中国化过程中经历了四个阶段,其中,在科学发展观统领下创建的以＂各民族共同团结奋斗、共同繁荣发展＂为核心的民族理论、政策体系,是马克思主义民族观中国化、当代化的最新成果。     

Territorial development,planning reform and urban governance: the case of Ireland’s second-tier cities

The increased emphasis within Europe on the role of second-tier cities has implications for the ways in which these urban centres are considered within national spatial planning strategies. In centralized, monocentric states such as Ireland, there has been a general ambivalence towards urban policy for cities outside the capital city, and historically, this has prevented the development of a strong, diversified urban hierarchy undermining prospects for balanced regional development. This paper examines the extent to which a new found emphasis on Ireland’s second-tier cities which emerged in the ‘Gateways’ policy of the National Spatial Strategy was matched by subsequent political and administrative commitment to facilitate the development of these urban centres. Following a discussion of the position of second-tier cities in an international context and a brief overview of recent demographic and economic trends, the paper assesses the relative performance of Ireland’s second-tier cities in influencing development trends, highlighting a comprehensive failure to deliver compact urban growth. In this context, the paper then discusses the implications of current development plans for the second-tier cities and proposals for Irish local government reform for securing compact urban development.     

论陈垣先生的民族文化史观

以中华民族文化为本是陈垣民族文化史观的主导思想。在数十年的治史过程中 ,他以中华民族文化为本 ,深刻揭示中华文化在中外文化交流中的重要作用 ,阐释中华文化对外来宗教、外来民族的巨大影响。他大力弘扬中华民族的优良传统 ,在抗日战争中 ,激发起人们的爱国热情和抗日斗志 ;他一生致力于发展民族的新文化 ,念念不忘推动中国学术赶超世界的先进水平。陈垣以中华历史文化为本的民族文化史观 ,强调了文化的个性和以此为基点的文化进化的包容性 ,对于 2 1世纪的中国史学 ,仍具有重要的学术价值和意义。     

Home-rule versus non-territorial autonomy? Western European national movements and their views on the minority question, 1919–1939

The leading elites of the ethnonationalist movements that developed in the aftermath of World War I in Western Europe usually refused to see their nations and territories as ‘national minorities’. In their view, they were stateless nations or nationalities. However, in the aftermath of World War I, the prior international discussion on the nationality principle was increasingly replaced with the notion of ‘minority rights’, enhanced by the implementation of the Minorities Treaties by the League of Nations. Thus, the term ‘national minority’ emerged as a label that permitted ethnonationalist activist to present their claims on the international stage. This became evident in the participation of some Western European national movements in the activities of some transnational non-governmental organisations, such as the Congress of European Nationalities (1925–1939). However, the general programme advocated by the most influential leaders of East-Central ethnic minorities, based on the extension of the personal principle and the implementation of non-territorial autonomy all over Europe, was hard to accept for ethnonationalist elites from Western Europe, which were interested in territorial home-rule and believed that their homelands did not fit in the category of ‘minority’. This article explores the modalities and limits of that cultural and political dialogue.