PUBLIC GOVERNANCE OF ARTS ORGANISATIONS IN SWEDEN: STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS

The article investigates public governance of arts organisations in Sweden by examining the relationship between these public principals and arts organisations and by illustrating how this connection affects the strategic action of individual arts organisations. Two case studies provide the basis for the analysis: Nationalmuseum, the national museum of older fine art and crafts located in Stockholm, and Edsvik konst och kultur, a kunsthalle, or gallery, located in the municipality of Sollentuna. The article concludes that public governance does affect strategic planning and action in the individual arts organisation by presenting it with opposing logics of control and evaluation and by creating economic and political vulnerability for the organisation through budget and management controls.     

Cashing in on Cetourism: A Critical Ecological Engagement with Dominant E‐NGO Discourses on Whaling,Cetacean Conservation,and Whale Watching1

Abstract: This paper engages critically with the monolithic presentation of whale watching as the antithesis of whale hunting. It begins by tackling the reductive and homogenized portrayal of whale watching in mainstream environmental discourse as diametrically opposite to whale hunting and argues that such discourse likely obscures the existence of bad whale watching conduct. Next it reveals significant continuities between whale hunting and whale watching, especially the fetishized commoditization of cetaceans and the creation of a metabolic rift in human–cetacean relations. In both contexts nature is produced first and foremost according to capitalist principles, which problematizes the pervasive assumption that whale watching correlates primarily and directly with conservation. Finally, the paper examines two different business models and the production of distinct ecological and community development effects. The results of the comparison justify the need for more critical and effective environmental non‐governmental organization approaches to cetourism vis‐à‐vis nature conservation goals.     

Contact,conflict and geography: What factors shape cross-border citizen relations?

Political geographers frequently argue that European borderlands, due to geographical proximity and cross-border contact, are sites of particularly good citizen relations. However, they have not put forward any general theory of the effect of cross-border contact on perceptions. This paper shows that social psychological contact theory, if applied to borderlands studies, can uncover the factors that influence citizen relations across national borders and under what conditions.Using opinion poll data from the Czech–German border region as an example, this paper shows that the Saxon and Bavarian regions bordering the Czech Republic are areas of high interaction density. Mediator analysis is used to decompose the direct and indirect effects of geographical proximity and contact on attitudes towards the Czech neighbours.Contact in the Saxon border region produces more favourable attitudes than elsewhere in Germany. However, contact does not have the same effect in the Bavarian border region: Bavarian attitudes are less favourable than elsewhere in Germany. The paper shows that Bavarian–Czech relations are weighed down by historical stumbling blocks, notably the influence of the post-World War II expellees from Czechoslovakia who are an important political force in Bavaria. The expellees issue demonstrates the need to take into account cultural factors when applying contact theory to the borderlands context.     

The role of resident-city identification in building residents’ city commitment

This paper examines how elements of perceived city marketing mix influence residents’ city identification and city commitment. The study also tests the role of resident-city identification in building residents’ city commitment. The research model, along with the hypotheses, are developed from the literature, and tested based on the data collected through a survey on a representative sample (residents of Ljubljana – capital city of Slovenia) of 402 respondents. Among the elements of city marketing mix, ‘City as a management system’ and ‘City as people’ have direct influence on city commitment, while the elements ‘City as people’ and ‘City as physical evidence’ have direct influence on city identification. The partly mediating role of city identification is also revealed between ‘City as people’ and ‘City commitment’. The paper also shows that city identification has the strongest influence on city commitment, as well as that both concepts are distinctive, and not theoretically interchangeable.     

A Spectacular Eco‐Tour around the Historic Bloc: Theorising the Convergence of Biodiversity Conservation and Capitalist Expansion

Abstract: The simultaneous proliferation of protected areas for biodiversity conservation and neoliberal market expansion has sparked a growing body of work, which suggests that these are mutually reinforcing processes that reflect alliances between conservationist and capitalist agendas. Because this alliance is so counter intuitive to the ways in which biodiversity conservation is popularly understood, theoretical perspectives concerning these relationships have been slow in emerging. Drawing from Gramsci's ideas of hegemony and historic bloc, we propose a theoretical framework systematically to inform understandings and investigations of these transformations. We suggest that they are driven by the convergence of networks of interests, which work to resolve the apparent contradictions between demands for continued economic growth and growing concerns about what it portends for the future of our planet. These in turn rely on spectacular presentations of conservation interventions, conservation success stories, and their putative linkages to ecosystems and the global economy.