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.     

Hollywood,the MPAA,and the formation of anti-piracy policy

Combating piracy is fundamental to the policy ‘priorities’ of the Motion Picture Association of America, the trade association representing the major Hollywood entertainment corporations. As the MPAA implements a multitude of actions to fight piracy, it is impossible to locate the formation of the Association’s anti-piracy policy in any single source. Instead, this article sees MPAA anti-piracy policy as formed across three fronts: the legal, through anti-piracy litigation; the political, by the MPAA joining with other trade groups from across the copyright industries to lobby for stronger domestic copyright laws and influence US trade policy; and the discursive, seen in the production of statistics to evidence the value of copyright to the US economy and consequent harms caused by piracy. Examining these actions confirms the cultural and economic influence of MPAA policy but the article is also concerned with how Hollywood’s anti-piracy efforts are challenged and contested from various directions.     

Film policy under globalization: the case of Mexico

The changing economic and technological conditions often referred to as ‘globalization’ have had a deep impact on the very nature of the state, and thus on the aims, objectives and implementation of cultural policy, including film policy. In this paper, I discuss the main changes in film policy there have been in Mexico, comparing the time when the welfare state regarded cinema as crucial to the construction of national identity, and actively supported national cinema at the production, distribution and exhibition levels (about 1920–1980), and the recent onset of neoliberal policies, during which the industry was privatized and globalized. I argue that the result has been a transformation of film production, from the properly ‘national’ cinema it was during the welfare state – that is, having a role in nation building, democratization processes and being an important part of the public sphere – into a kind of genre, catering to a very small niche audience both domestically and internationally. However, exhibition and digital distribution have been strengthened, perhaps pointing towards a more meaningful post-national cinema.     

Emplacement and the politics of heritage in low-income neighbourhoods of Marseille

Recent scholarship addressing efforts to celebrate heritage in low-income neighbourhoods and housing estates has stressed the importance of attending to the continuity of place-based social relationships as a key factor in residents’ understandings of heritage, and, drawing on Smith’s conception of an ‘authorised heritage discourse’, the ways these understandings differ from hegemonic and generalised expert discourse emphasising the deficiencies of the material environment. In this article, I examine a new object of state intervention in France, ‘the heritage of popular neighbourhoods’, and describe points of convergence and conflict between local heritage work in Marseille and the recent discursive framework established to employ heritage as a tool in reorganising French state policy towards urban peripheral neighbourhoods (the politique de la ville). Drawing on ethnographic research (2007–2014), this article identifies emplacement as a key feature in residents’ performances of neighbourhood heritage, a feature often absent or poorly elaborated in heritage work promoted by French urbanist policy in the past. I describe the ways emplacement has been expressed aesthetically in arts projects, trace the range of social networks and relationships enacted, and describe the political implications of these performances as a tool for promoting solidarity across time and space in Marseille.     

Applying Policy Termination Theory to the Abandonment of Climate Protection Initiatives by U.S. Local Governments

A considerable amount is known about the factors that influence policy adoption and implementation across different issue areas. Less is known, however, about the factors that influence governments to abandon programs or policies prior to reaching their stated objectives or originally specified end‐points. This article applies termination theory to local climate protection initiatives and examines cities’ withdrawal from the dominant sustainability organization facilitating these efforts. In the face of national government inaction, large numbers of U.S. municipalities voluntarily committed to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and joined the ICLEI's Climate Protection program. After steady membership increases for nearly a decade, ICLEI attained its largest size in 2010 with 565 city members. Over the next 2 years, this number plummeted by 20 percent. Positioned in the literature on policy change, we empirically test three hypotheses for why a substantial portion of cities ended their affiliation with this organization and terminated the explicit climate protection objectives associated with it: (1) political ideology and interest group pressure, (2) fiscal constraints, and (3) perceived program ineffectiveness. Analytical results support the first and third hypotheses. We identify factors that influence the termination of local GHG reduction initiatives and discuss theoretical implications of these findings.     

Institutions,Incentives, and Policy Entrepreneurship

Policy entrepreneurship is often used to explain agenda setting through reference to the behavior of individual “change agents.” But there are still gaps in our understanding of what motivates entrepreneurs. Rational choice theory emphasizes the importance of material and nonmaterial incentives; however, it remains unclear what role institutions play. This article aims to empirically examine the relationship between incentives and institutional encouragement of innovation. Using a case study of the federal government of Canada, I find evidence that incentives matter. Government agencies with many incentives are more likely to encourage innovation than agencies with few incentives. These results underscore the importance of institutions in determining the motivations of policy entrepreneurs, and suggest future research should focus on the interplay among individual, political, and institutional factors.     

The Impact of Temporary Immigrant Workforce Growth on Employee Verification Policies in the United States

The U.S. Department of Labor admits temporary immigrant workers to address labor shortages in local markets. Yet, do elected officials make it less difficult for some immigrants than others to secure employment in a state? Using U.S. temporary immigrant labor admissions data between 2006 and 2014, I examine the extent to which growth rates of main foreign‐born subgroups influence E‐Verify policies that require employers to authenticate the legal immigration status of employees. I find that state policymakers are less likely to enact E‐Verify policies in response to the growth of immigrants who work in specialty occupations (H‐1b visas). In contrast, the growth of immigrants working in nonspecialty occupations (H‐2a and H‐2b visas) increases the likelihood of enacting E‐Verify policies over time. The results suggest that policymakers release strict rules for employment only for highly educated immigrants who work in specialty occupations that offer higher paying salaries and career advancement opportunities. Disaggregating a monolithic foreign‐born population indicator into more specific class components provides an important contribution to public policy studies. Scholars will likely overlook the contrasting effects of specialty and nonspecialty immigrant workforce growth on policy decisions relating to immigrant employment.     

CLOSED WINDOWS, OPEN DOORS: GEOPOLITICS and POST-1949 MAINLAND CHINESE IMMIGRATION TO CANADA

Since 1949 there have been dramatic changes in the flow of migrants from Mainland China to Canada, which existing structural models of migration, emphasizing factors in the destination country, do not fully capture. Conditions in the country of origin, and geopolitical relationships between China and Canada, played a decisive role in this migration. Even though Canada in theory opened a window for family reunification in the postwar era by removing long-standing discriminatory clauses blocking Chinese immigration, in practice cold war geopolitics led the Chinese to shut that window, blocking nearly all emigation. Changing geopolitical circumstances led China to develop an open-door policy between 1973 and 1989, leading to increasing flows of migrants to Canada. The political response in Canada to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 was to allow all Chinese students and workers in Canada to stay, if they so wished, under the om-is-399 Policy. The result was a large inflow making mcis the third-largest group of immigrants to Canada in the early 1990s. Des mutations dramatiques aux flux des immigrants de la Chine au Canada ont eu lieu depuis 1949 qui ne sontpas entierement expliqués par les modèles actuels de la structure de migration. Des circonstances dans le pays ?origine ainsi que des rapports géopolitiques entre la Chine et le Canada ont joués un role decisif dans ces fluxs. Bien que le Canada ait commencéà enlever des dispositions discriminatoires qui bloquaient ?immigra-tion de ?après-guerre aux chinois, permettant théorique-ment la réunion des families, en pratique la géopolitique de la guerre froide a persuadé la Chine de refuser cette occasion, en barrant le chemin à presque tous les émigrants. Entre 1973 et 1989 des changements aux circonstances géopolitiques en Chine ont encouragé une ouverture vers ?extérieur, qui à entraîné une augmentation des émigrants au Canada. La réponse du Canada au massacre de la Place Tiananmen en 1989 a été de per-mettre à tous les étudiants et travailleurs chinois qui se trouvaient au Canada ?y rester, s'ils le voulaient, sous la proposition om-is-399. Le résultat a éte un grand flux ?immigrants au Canada, ce qui a mis les chinois conti-nentaux au troisième rang au début des années quatre-vingt-dix. Mots-clés: migration, géopolitique, réunification de famille, la République populaire de Chine, ?incident de la place Tiananmen, la politique OM-IS-399.     

Screening The Social Face of Denmark to the Nazis

Looking into the state-sponsored creation and presentation of a German-language film on the Danish social state, this article discusses the complexities of Danish–German relations during the German occupation of Denmark, 1940–1945. The film, Das soziale Gesicht Dänemarks, was screened in Berlin to a full house, including a number of Nazi notables, and followed by a presentation by the Danish Minister of Labor and Social Affairs. Based on archival research and film analysis, the article argues that the screening in Berlin informs an understanding of an asymmetrical power relationship between occupiers and occupied, in which the promotion of the Danish social model countered the hegemony of the dominant Nazi state. It did so by seeking to assert Danish sovereignty on social policy in accordance with German intentions to respect Danish sovereignty as stated at the very beginning of the occupation; in other words, for the Danish state, social policy became a means for an intentional but subdued resistance – even a form of counter-power – to the power of the German occupier.     

The Geopolitics of the ‘Future Return’: Britain's Century-Long Challenges to Norway's Control over the Spitsbergen Archipelago

Within the context of Arctic geopolitics, the article focuses on British policies toward Spitsbergen or Svalbard over the past century. The 1920 Spitsbergen Treaty accorded Norway sovereignty over the archipelago, but it gave other signatories, including Britain, non-discriminatory access to its natural resources. It is argued that while geopolitical interests have played a role in Britain's policy-making, its main rationale has been a determination to use international law to protect pre-existing mining rights and potential future oil rights in the Svalbard area. Apart from Russia, Britain has been most active in challenging Norway's interpretation of its sovereign rights, especially the view about the treaty's non-applicability to Exclusive Economic Zones and continental shelves. It is shown that the Britain's economic focus was tempered during the Cold War by the need for Western solidarity and for supporting Norway's resistance to Soviet Spitsbergen claims. But having been instrumental in watering down Norway's sovereignty provisions in the negotiations on the Spitsbergen Treaty, Britain has never been prepared to abandon its interpretation of the treaty's stipulations on natural resources and equal access to the archipelago's maritime areas.