Participatory Governance and Cultural Development An Empirical Analysis of European Capitals of Culture

This book analyses the impact of participatory governance on cultural development, explaining why cultural participatory practices can lead to positive sustainable effects or to unexpected and controversial ones. It focuses on four projects realized in the two European Capitals of Culture of 2013 - Marseille-Provence (France) and Košice (Slovakia) – within the Programme ‘Quartiers Créatifs’ and the SPOTs Programme. By combining different strands of the Democratic Theory and applying the process tracing methodology, the book argues that participation produces cultural developmental processes only when a certain intensity of trust is reached among the various stakeholders. In the presence of fully-fledged trust, participation activates a reinforcing chain of capacity-building and social capital that nurture long-term cultural networks. On the contrary, in the absence of fully-fledged trust, participation can generate contestation movements or isolated cultural production. Uniquely, the book challenges the ‘optimistic aura’ of participatory governance of culture, showing its conflicting but always productive nature.

1. Introduction.- 2. The Impacts of Participatory Governance through the Perspective of the Democratic Theory.- 3. Participatory Governance and Cultural Development: A Framework of Causal Mechanisms.- 4. Participatory Governance in Marseille-Provence and Košice 2013.- 5. Participation in the presence of fully-fledged trust: Explaining Cultural Development in the Project PARCeque and in the Exchanger Obrody.- 6. Participation in the absence of fully-fledged trust: Contestation in the Project Jardins Possibles and Lack of Social Cohesion in the Exchanger Važecká.- 7. Conclusion.

Desirée Campagna is a researcher in policy analysis and evaluation, focusing on the cultural and social sectors. She specializes in cultural rights, intercultural and educational policies, participatory governance, and impact evaluation methodologies.