PUBLIC GOVERNANCE OF ARTS ORGANISATIONS IN SWEDEN: STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• arts management
• museum
• governance
• financing
• public
• principal

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The study and this article would not have been possible without the consent and generous sharing of time and information of key persons involved in the management of Nationalmuseum and in the establishment and management of Edsvik konst och kultur. I warmly thank all interviewed and especially Maria Fridh and Professor Solfrid Söderlind for their important contributions to this research. I am also thankful to Professor Per‐Olof Berg and Anita Radón for comments on a previous version of the article and to Museum Director Lars Amréus for comments on an earlier version of the article and for sharing with me his personal reflections and comments on the Swedish national museum world and its relation to government.

Notes

1. The German notion Kunsthalle is used here, in English without capitalisation, to refer to a gallery without its own collections. The Swedish equivalent is konsthall.

2. For a comparison of conditions of cultural organisations in Italy, cf. Zan (2006).

3. The Museum of National Antiquities in Sweden first raised the discussion of free entrance to national museums in 2002 (Amréus et al. 2006).

4. LKP, löne‐ och kostnadspåslag, is a compensation for general wages and cost increases added to the annual allocation of the museum. A percentage of the compensation, corresponding to estimated rationalisations, is subtracted from the compensation, and therefore the compensation is less than actual increases in wages and costs.

5. 1 million SEK = roughly 93.000 Euros.

6. Market is defined as an area of activity.

7. Edsvik konst och kultur and the Museum of World Culture are just two Swedish examples. The latter is a partial rearrangement of previously separate museums.

8. This is a vulnerability different from that of organisations whose earnings are made up of self‐generated income.