This book develops the first integrated, critical-historical examination of the terms, narratives and assumptions constructing present day notions of participation and value, and the relations between them. Histories of Cultural Participation, Values and Governance proposes a radical re-evaluation of these relationships, organized in two inter-related sections, on political discourses of participation and value, and on culture and governance. The essays collected here provide an in-depth historical understanding of the development of definitions, assumptions and beliefs around the nature and value of cultural participation, their place in contemporary cultural governance and exploitation in local socio-economic development strategies. They also bring a novel perspective to current policy, practice and scholarly debates on the connections between culture, place-making and the creative economy. As such, the essays provide vital historical insight that sheds light on contemporary issues of cultural participation, value and governance.

This open access book examines how and why the UK's approach towards increasing cultural participation has largely failed to address inequality and inequity in the subsidised cultural sector despite long-standing international policy discourse on this issue. It further examines why meaningful change in cultural policy has not been more forthcoming in the face of this apparent failure. This work examines how a culture of mistrust, blame, and fear between policymakers, practitioners, and participants has resulted in a policy environment that engenders overstated aims, accepts mediocre quality evaluations, encourages narratives of success, and lacks meaningful critical reflection. It shows through extensive field work with cultural professionals and participants how the absence of criticality, transparency, and honesty limits the potential for policy learning, which the authors argue is a precondition to any radical policy change and is necessary for developing a greater understanding of the social construction of policy problems. The book presents a new framework that encourages more open and honest conversations about failure in the cultural sector to support learning strategies that can help avoid these failures in the future.

This book concerns the values and practices of participation in municipal public parks, and the connections they have with cultural policy, urbanism, and social life. Adopting a critical cultural policy lens, it identifies the park as a mundane but extraordinarily treasured place for the production and exchange of cultural values, regulation, resistance, and the practising of citizenship. Drawing on extensive mixed-methods research on everyday participation in diverse local cultural ecosystems in England and Scotland, the book examines the social lives of parks and their users, and the important public values that are generated through their common stewardship and usership. It presents case studies of parks and co-located museums as cultural public spheres, which promote both commoning and commodification. These are contextualized by histories of municipal parkmaking from the nineteenth century to the present and related to the making of local government and to other civic and cultural institutions. The book highlights contemporary issues of austerity, marketisation and de-municipalisation within local government in the context of urban development. It positions the public park as fundamental to democratic cultural governance and makes the case for the primacy of public trust, ownership, and park equity in safeguarding the right to the city.

This book concerns the values and practices of participation in municipal public parks, and the connections they have with cultural policy, urbanism, and social life. Adopting a critical cultural policy lens, it identifies the park as a mundane but extraordinarily treasured place for the production and exchange of cultural values, regulation, resistance, and the practising of citizenship. Drawing on extensive mixed-methods research on everyday participation in diverse local cultural ecosystems in England and Scotland, the book examines the social lives of parks and their users, and the important public values that are generated through their common stewardship and usership. It presents case studies of parks and co-located museums as cultural public spheres, which promote both commoning and commodification. These are contextualized by histories of municipal parkmaking from the nineteenth century to the present and related to the making of local government and to other civic and cultural institutions. The book highlights contemporary issues of austerity, marketisation and de-municipalisation within local government in the context of urban development. It positions the public park as fundamental to democratic cultural governance and makes the case for the primacy of public trust, ownership, and park equity in safeguarding the right to the city.

Cultural governance is currently regarded as a transversal element of public policy in Europe. This book brings together academics and policy practitioners to provide new insights into the field, exploring its contemporary dynamics, dilemmas and challenges. In light of the Cyprus Presidency in 2026, the authors reflect on the breadth and boundaries of cultural governance in a European perspective, the role of international institutions, such as UNESCO and the EU, and the frameworks and dilemmas of cultural governance as a dedicated practice. Particular attention is given to the relationship between culture and human creativity, to cultural rights and to climate breakdown, placing cultural governance at the heart of integrated public policy. As a key contribution that enriches the field of cultural policy, this book is essential reading for academics and offers guidance for concerted action for policymakers and legislators.

Culture is studied in this collection, not merely as a set of products, but in terms of the involvement of individuals and groups in the making and using of such products. A wide range of activities, from the reading and writing of poetry to watching soccer on television, is surveyed by an international group of scholars from diverse disciplines: cultural history, literary studies, sociology. Topics include the social distribution of cultural activities, populism and elitism in modern aesthetics, the nature of cultural competence and the channels through which it is acquired, the impact of electronic media on traditional modes of culturalinvolvement, the role of public institutions such as churches, schools, and libraries in stimulating participation, and the relationship between cultural participation and socialization.