Participation in cultural legislation

ABSTRACT

This article examines the recent legislative process concerning the funding of cultural institutions in Finland. The drafting of the bill was opened up to participation by artists and other professionals and facilitated by an outside partner. The text draws on research conducted to evaluate the participatory element in the law-drafting, and further analyses it in the wider framework of participatory decision-making and governance. The research shows that within the confined scope of the participatory phase of the law-drafting, the deliberative process succeeded in creating positive experiences of participation. However, set in the wider framework of the legislation, the effect of participation remains limited. A notion of ‘placebo participation’ is suggested to explain this perceived empowerment despite a lack of strong evidence for effective participation. The process is further interpreted in terms of incompatibility of interests between political participation and institutionally led participatory governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizen participation
• participative legislation
• participatory governance
• public funding of culture

Acknowledegement

The writer would like to thank Maaretta Jaukkuri Foundation for the residency grant that enabled the finalising of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The low numbers may at least in part be explained by the fact that many people from the list of nearly 500 names only took part in one of the workshops and meetings and therefore did not feel able to assess the whole process. It should also be noted that the list of names is much larger than the number of participants in any gathering (max. 200). In addition, the survey was sent out at the end of the whole process, almost 18 months after the first workshop.

2. The plan was since aborted.

3. These two incidents, along with some other material, were omitted by Sitra from the evaluation report.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kaija Kaitavuori

Kaija Kaitavuori received her PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, in 2015 and now works as a postdoc researcher at the University of Helsinki where she also teaches. She is a visiting lecturer at Aalto University (Helsinki). Previously, she worked as the Head of Education at the Contemporary Art Museum Kiasma, Helsinki, since the museum’s opening in 1998 to 2008.