Participation as policy in local cultural governance

ABSTRACT

This article takes on participation not as taking part in cultural activities per se but in cultural policy-making, by studying the transformation and institutionalisation of participatory processes. Focusing on Switzerland, a federalist country where local and private actors play key roles in cultural policy, several processes by which different actors participate in local cultural policy-making are explored. Top-down procedures, such as formalised mandatory consultation procedures or the inclusion of cultural actors in administrative expert committees, coexist with bottom-up grassroots initiatives that can complement or even supplant traditional participatory processes. Furthermore, certain alternative modes and concepts of participation, such as the “cultural council”, circulate between different cases, across levels of state and in time. Participatory processes in cultural policy-making need to be seen as public policies in their own right, which can aim to depoliticise policies and procedures. Furthermore, actors need certain resources in order to participate, and venues aimed at opening participation do so in a restrained framework, focusing mostly on artistic and cultural elites rather than encourage larger citizen participation.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural policy
• Switzerland
• participation
• policy-making
• local policy
• cultural actors

Notes on contributor

Lisa Marx is a postdoctoral researcher at the French Institute of Education. Her research interests lie at the intersection of public policy, art education and cultural sociology; recent publications focus on regional cultural policy-making processes, film teaching in schools and digital tools in museum education. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of Geneva and a MA in sociology from the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, and was a visiting scholar at the Centre for cultural policy studies at Warwick University.

Notes

1 This debate also exists, in a slightly different perspective, in the French literature, with the concept of non-audiences [non-publics] (Ancel & Pessin, 2004).

2 “Participation” is thus a polysemic term covering a wide range of realities, which Arnstein (1969) conceptualises on a ladder ranging from nonparticipation to tokenism (informing, consultation, placating) and finally citizen power (partnership, delegated power, citizen control).

3 In this paper, I do not distinguish between different subsectors, “cultural sector” covers thus a wide range of actors, cultural workers and artists, particularly those who seek to organise across disciplines. Empirically, these groups hail mostly – but not exclusively – from the performing arts (dance, theatre, music) and from the independent sector rather than large cultural institutions.

4 Federal statistical office, data for 2016: https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/culture-medias-societe-information-sport/culture/financement.html.

5 A total of 20 interviews with 17 people (10 in Geneva, 7 in Basel), in arts administrations, members of cantonal and city parliaments and governments, as well as cultural actors active in different groups and sectors (film, music, theatre).

6 Press articles were collected from different sources: (1) paper clips from the Swiss social archive from different Swiss newspapers covering the period from 1944 to 2006 (file “Kulturpolitik”, 10.01C); (2) online databases LexisNexis and Swissdox, covering mainstream local and regional newspapers for the period from the mid-1990s to the present (for Basel, mostly Basellandschaftliche Zeitung and Basler Zeitung; for Geneva, mostly Le Temps and la Tribune de Genève); (3) local alternative and cultural newspapers and magazines, drawn from their websites, from the mid-2000s to the present (ProgrammZeitung and Tageswoche in Basel; le Courrier and cultureenjeu.ch in Geneva).

7 This can be linked to the sector’s relatively recent legitimisation as a recipient of public funds.

8 This issue was highlighted by the incumbent cultural representatives in the Geneva cultural council at the election event for the second term in autumn 2018.