Towards Culture 3.0 – performative space in the public library

The aim of this article is to analyse and discuss the development of performative spaces in public libraries from a cultural policy perspective. First, a framework of three concepts of culture, 1.0–3.0, is used as a tool to analyse the overall development of public libraries. Against this background, we introduce the notion of performative spaces in public libraries by highlighting Nordic examples. The tendency can also be seen on a broader level in European and North American libraries, where a ‘performative turn’ can be seen as the relationship between the library and its users, especially the younger ‘digital natives’. The rationales behind the emergence of performative spaces in public libraries are analysed and discussed: democratisation, empowerment and economic impact. This article concludes that the performative spaces are legitimized by multiple rationales in the same way as cultural policies and cultural institutions are legitimised today.     

The fuzzy limits of self-reliance: US extended deterrence and Australian strategic policy

As a close US ally, Australia is often seen as a recipient of US extended deterrence. This article argues that in recent decades, Australian strategic policy engaged with US extended deterrence at three different levels: locally, Australia eschews US combat support and deterrence under the policy of self-reliance; regionally, it supports US extended deterrence in Asia; globally, it relies on the US alliance against nuclear threats to Australia. The article argues that in none of these policy areas does the Australian posture conform to a situation of extended deterrence proper. Moreover, when the 2009 White Paper combines all three policies in relation to major power threats against Australia, serious inconsistencies result in Australia's strategic posture—a situation the government should seek to avoid in the White Paper being drafted at the time of writing.     

The Return to Social Policy and the Persistent Neglect of Unpaid Care

The failure of orthodox economic policies to generate growth and eradicate poverty has led to renewed interest in social policies. The return to ‘the social’ has seen contending conceptualizations of social policy, premised on different values, priorities and understandings of state responsibility, vying for influence. This article argues that the currently dominant agenda of social sector restructuring is likely to entrench gender inequalities in access to social services and income supports because of its failure to recognize the structures that underpin those inequalities, which are pervasive across labour markets and the unpaid care economy. Despite the ‘pro‐poor’ and occasionally ‘pro‐women’ rhetoric, the design of social policies remains largely blind to these gender structures. Addressing them would require a major rethinking of dominant approaches, placing redistribution more firmly at the heart of policy design, valuing and supporting unpaid care, and providing incentives for it to be shared more equally between women and men, and between families/households and society more broadly.     

Italy and the development of European energy policy: from the dawn of the integration process to the 1973 oil crisis

This article analyses the history of Italian energy policy as well as that of Europe from the beginnings of co-operation until the bust of the first oil crisis. The difficulties in realising a united policy as well as the energy status of Italy and Europe until the eve of the 1973 oil shock are underlined. Then, the answers to the crisis as well as the attempts to address the energy difficulties in a united way are analysed.     

Social enterprises in regional innovation systems: a review of Finnish regional strategies

The aim of modern innovation policies is to enhance the innovation capability of regions, their organizations and people. Regional innovation system (RIS) theory has been one of the most popular frameworks for realizing innovation policies. Yet, adopting the perspective of sustainable innovation policy where innovation is also seen as a solution to various societal and environmental problems has been slow. Social enterprises (SEs) are discussed here as a means to address those problems, particularly through collaboration between sectors and focusing on social sustainability. The aim of this paper is to identify whether and in what way SEs are communicated as an innovative solution and as a source of innovations for economic and development activities through regional strategies. The data consist of regional innovation and business strategies from all Finnish regions, analysed using qualitative content analysis. We argue that there is a need to go deeper and include effective support mechanisms for SEs in these documents. Better inclusion of SEs as part of innovation systems and communicating this through regional strategies would help to develop SEs and to have them perceived as potential innovators and active entrepreneurial actors in innovation systems contributing to economically, environmentally and socially sustainable development.     

Finnish Mosaic of Regional Innovation System—Assessment of Thematic Regional Innovation Platforms Based on Related Variety

The emphasis of Finnish innovation policy has very much been on promoting actions that can be labelled as science–technology–innovation mode of innovation, which is based on the production and use of codified scientific and technical knowledge. However, recent research has emphasized also the importance of more experienced-based mode of learning and innovation, which can be labelled as doing–using–interacting mode of innovation. This study is an attempt to shed light on the current development phase of Finnish innovation system facing the new paradigm. The Finnish innovation system is seen as a mosaic of regional innovation systems. The regional innovation systems are analysed through a developed framework including elements of theories of innovation systems and cluster theories as well as two recent national-level strategy documents. One of the main concepts of the study is related variety in regional innovation platforms. This study also aims at creating a pragmatic framework for describing related variety at the regional level by combining aspects from two theoretical frameworks. The empirical data were gathered in a series of workshops in all the Finnish regions during the year 2008. The result maps Finnish thematic regional innovation platforms fuelled by related variety.     

Discourse Yes,Implementation Maybe: An Immobility and Paralysis of Sustainable Development Policy

Sustainable development policies are on the move. Cities the world over are repositioning, repackaging and remarketing themselves as green and sustainable, and sustainable development is the moniker imported to spark the process. At the same time, sustainable development, as a normative point of departure, is itself going through cycles of reinterpretation and re-composition. The research in this article aims to understand this process by mapping the trajectories of sustainable development policies, and understanding sustainable development as a contextually grounded policy in motion. In Luxembourg, as planners are confronted with finding ways to manage growth, sustainable development has come to permeate all levels of the planning system. To understand how this came into being, research methods were employed that included document screening and a series of conversational interviews that were later transcribed and coded. In so doing, the discourse around sustainable development policy could be reconstructed and analysed. The results showed that the multi-scalar, cross-national, and simultaneously micro-level governance structures pose many obstructions to the implementation of sustainable development policies that are imported from abroad. Thus, policy is ultimately immobile, and a policy paralysis can be considered.     

FROM POLICY SCIENCE TO POLICY ANALYSIS: A QUARTER CENTURY OF PROGRESS?

This essay on the intellectual history of policy analysis traces the field from Merriam's concept of “intelligent planning” and Lass-well's vision of “policy sciences” to the present. Lasswell's vision is seen as a relevant if unrealized one in general dimensions. It is argued that the tie of policy analysis to traditional issues in political science is unbreakable and, because of this, attempts to develop an interdisciplinary policy science premised on the supposed unifying force of a common methodological core have led to fragmentation, not theoretical integration. The emergence of the synoptic/empirico-rational tradition and anti-synoptic/neo-pluralist traditions in policy analysis in the 1950's and 1960's are discussed and strengths and weaknesses noted. Divisions over the question of values and normative theory are highlighted. A concluding section discusses alternative views on the proper scope of policy analysis as an emerging discipline, contrasting the “handmaiden” and “ivory tower” alternatives. A six-dimension outline of a map for policy analysis as a field is presented and the continued utility of Lasswellian concerns emphasized in contrast to the stalemated debate between synoptic and anti-synoptic viewpoints in American policy analysis.     

An Empirical Enquiry into the Impact of Urban Planning Policy on Urban Growth

Recent research has stressed the need to evaluate the economic implications of urban planning policy. In this article, we present empirical evidence on the impact of this policy on the population growth of towns and cities. A simple theoretical model serves to highlight the mechanisms whereby this policy may affect urban growth. The model yields a reduced-form equation which we estimate for the towns and cities of Andalusia (Spain). The empirical model strongly supports the claim that urban planning policy considerably affects urban growth and thus, the distribution of population across space. Our results suggest that urban planning policy is contributing to the reduction of diseconomies of agglomeration in larger cities. On the negative side, we find that urban plans are subject to obsolescence, which slows down growth.     

Local Media and Experts: Sources of Environmental Policy Initiation?

Research on the process of policy change often involves a direct or indirect analysis of the roles of policy entrepreneurs and the mass media. In Colorado, beginning in 1998, twelve communities decided to obtain water rights for recreational in-channel purposes such as kayaking and whitewater rafting. These water rights stirred political controversy within some communities in Colorado related to spending public money, appropriate uses of water, and the role of recreation in local economies. Using a comparative case study research method, this research analyzes the role that policy entrepreneurs and local media coverage of recreational water rights played in initiating policy change in local communities. The most critical finding from this study is that in communities where citizens acted as policy entrepreneurs there was more controversy, less positive media coverage, and more media coverage early in the process. This case contradicts the assumption that local media coverage helps to highlight policy problems within communities. It supports the idea that experts wield higher levels of influence than citizens in promoting policy agendas.     

Conceptualizing the Regional Roles of Universities,Implications and Contradictions

The impact of universities on the economic wellbeing and innovative potential of regions has been the object of intense scholarly and policy interest in the last years. Despite this interest, a clear picture is missing in relation to the roles universities are seen to play, the benefits of university activities and the mechanisms through which they occur. This paper proposes a review and a critique of current views on the role of universities and their associated policy implications. To achieve this, the paper identifies five “models” for universities as they are reflected in the literature, each advocating different set of roles of universities, different spatial aspects of interactions, as well as different mechanisms for university engagement. National and regional innovation and research policies tend to explicitly or implicitly reflect one or a combination of several of these models, giving rise to potential contradictions or conflicts of policy rationales and objectives.     

‘Now they’re coming after our schools’: interrogating urban intimacies of children and displacement

ABSTRACT

Education scholars grappling with policy issues related to community and identity issues may pay attention to the work of emotion. Rationalist, psychological frameworks that bound many educational researchers’ policy analyses are limited in scope: the policy process is seen as a linear cause-and-effect process. A feminist geographic attention to this research offers a more complex understanding of the experiences of policy. Using children’s displacement by gentrification as an example, this commentary will show how a feminist geographic understanding of place attachment offers a more complete understanding of the effects of gentrification. Specifically, using the concept of the ‘intimate city’, I show how the global process of gentrification is entangled with the intimate embodiment of emotions. And in order to effectively study education policy, we must be attuned to how children embody their emotions.     

America as a European power: the end of empire by integration?

Is the postwar partnership between Europe and America now a historical artefact? Much depends on whether the notion of America as a ‘European power’ still holds. The US attained this status through a strategy of ‘empire by integration’, extending its postwar ‘empire’ through negotiation and support for European integration, and envisaging a collectively powerful Europe as fundamental to the health of its most important security alliance. The election of George W. Bush, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the war in Iraq are often seen as producing deep ruptures both in American policy towards Europe and the transatlantic alliance. Yet, the embrace of a new US policy of ‘disaggregation’ of Europe is unproven, and in any event unlikely to mark a permanent shift. The US and Europe are surprisingly close to agreement on ends for the international order. Conflict over Iraq has obscured a significant increase in policy cooperation and convergence of strategy in the war on terrorism.     

Enacting parenting policy? The hybrid spaces of Sure Start Children's Centres

This article draws on research in three UK Sure Start Children's Centres which explored them as particular kinds of spaces, with the intention of understanding how policy imperatives and discourses interact with other dynamics. The role of the material spaces of the buildings, of ambivalent interactions of users with staff, and friendship groups among users are seen as key to understanding the centre as a ‘hybrid’ space in which policy intentions were exceeded by other aspects of everyday life. This has implications not only for understanding policy programmes in action, but also for how academic analysis and theory positions itself in relation to these spaces.     

Hollande and Africa Policy

Studies of French Africa policy have traditionally focused on its neo-colonial basis and the often corrupt nature of the relations it engendered because of the connivances of semi-official and unofficial networks and covert practices that characterised it. These are often referred to in the literature as la Françafrique. In seeking to understand François Hollande's Africa policy this article moves away from a neo-colonial, Françafrique analytical framework and instead seeks to engage with the continuity versus change debate in French Africa policy through the lens of geopolitics. The three central themes of Hollande's Africa policy—security, partnership and trade—are analysed, focusing firstly on the French interventions in Africa, notably in Mali, since 2012, before discussing French engagement with African regional organisations, such as the Economic Community of West African States, and the increasing importance attached to economic and trade links. The article ends with a brief survey of some of the challenges facing French Africa policy.     

Amsterdam in the Red Queen's Country: Interorganizational coordination and EU‐local interaction in spatial planning and policy

This study tests alternative models of EU policy evolution, using the municipality of Amsterdam's interaction with the EU as a pilot case. Amsterdam's activities in European resource acquisition and developing EU policy are reviewed, and the coordination structures concerting these activities are analysed and evaluated. Conclusions are: Local‐EU interaction is mainly sectoral, undertaken at local line agencies’ initiative, with little intersectoral coordination; networking is the universal medium of local — EU interaction, dismissing the intergovernmental model in favour of a modified communautarianism; interorganizational networks linking EU institutions to their environments imply a growing supranationalism with significant implications for European integration.     

RESPONSIBLE ACTION AND THE PROBLEM OF REIFICATION

This paper elaborates a “personal,” as opposed to an institutional, view of administrative responsibility. The idea of personal responsibility is better suited for appreciating the cognitive, conceptual, and interpersonal dynamics of policy processes than is the institutional view of responsibility as accountability. From the perspective of personal responsibility, the primary impediment to responsible action by policy makers, policy analysts, and administrators is not that they may act in ways that are ethically or morally wrong. Rather, the problem is that such actors may either not perceive that important choices are available to them or, when choices are perceived, their moral, as opposed to their instrumental, content may not be appreciated. Responsible action should thus be seen as a conceptual or cognitive issue, not simply one of adherence to or departure from institutionally objectivated standards of correctness. Inability to appreciate the moral nature of action may be explained by the cognitive tendency to reify policy making and administrative institutions, roles, rules, and situations.     

Social engineering and cultural policy – theoretical and empirical reflexions from Swedish cultural policy in a historical perspective

This article explores the influence of social engineering in various forms within Swedish cultural policy, seen in a historical perspective. In social engineering cultural policy measures, reforms and projects are justified by scientifically based research rather than party based ideological arguments. Karl Popper’s classification of the utopian and the step-by-step engineering make up the starting point, redefined as paternalistic engineering, welfare state engineering and utilitarian engineering in order to apply these ideas to cultural policy. Social engineering was predominant in Swedish cultural policy mainly during the post war period. In the 1950s as well as in the 1970s this engineering takes on a paternalistic character, in the struggle against injurious culture, such as video violence. Current practice of paternalistic engineering is directed at revealing and identifying invisibles structures in the field of cultural heritage. The welfare state engineering had its highlights in the planning era of the 1960s and the 1970s, and today culture as a beneficial factor for both citizens and society is labelled utilitarian engineering.     

Culture, Class and Urban Policy: Reconsidering Equality

This paper considers the emerging policy agenda for urban–social renewal in relation to academic debates about equality and difference. Signalling problems with prevailing political and geographical approaches to class, the possibilities offered by a poststructuralist engagement with issues of equality are discussed. Policies for social regeneration and inclusion are analysed with regard to their approach to working–class cultures and are argued to be reductive and contradictory in core respects. More progressive and integrated understandings of class–cultural relations, such as those presented in the work of Nancy Fraser and Pierre Bourdieu, are identified as necessary to a meaningful concept of social justice for contemporary urban social policy.     

A Behavioral Theory of Policy Feedback in Tobacco Control: Evidence From a Difference‐In‐Difference‐In‐Difference Study

Public policy scholars argue that in highly tangible policies, such as tobacco control, the public learns from the direct experience of the beneficial effects of the policy. Empirical evidence supports this argument, suggesting that in the United States the introduction of tobacco control measures makes people more inclined to further regulation. By relying on a set of cases which allows testing the effects of the introduction of tobacco control measures across European countries on a series of relevant variables, this study confirms that the introduction of tobacco control measures makes the public more inclined to further regulation. Yet, when the effects of these policies are disaggregated between smokers and nonsmokers, results show that these positive effects are driven by smokers. This puzzle suggests that different effects than mass attitudinal policy feedback effects, driven by learning from direct experience, might explain the positive reaction to tobacco control. This study puts forward a behavioral theory of policy feedback, which suggests that smokers react positively to the introduction of tobacco control measures because they see these measures as commitment devices, which can help them quit smoking. Evidence for this argument is found by demonstrating that the introduction of tobacco control measures increases smokers’ welfare.