The dilemmas of institutionalisation

Local cultural policies in France became institutionalised essentially over two decades: the 1970s and the 1980s. This institutionalisation process comprised the cultural specialisation of local administrative services, the professionalisation of local cultural agents and the promotion of culture as one of the mains sectors for local public policies, from the political as well as financial point of view. Based upon the case study of a middle‐sized town, this article shows that this was a conflictual process. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, association activists from the new middle classes, politically and culturally close to the political mobilisations of the post‐1968 period, launched programmes of cultural action. At first, the municipalisation of their policy was a success for them. However, progressively, this local cultural policy was driven less and less by these former activists, who were replaced by new professionals, and earlier socio‐cultural and political ambitions (revolving, for example, around a culture of everyday life designed to promote greater local democracy) were replaced by a more technical orientation. Finally, this institutionalisation process also consisted of the dispossession and disillusion of those who had believed they could change social and political relations through cultural involvement.