Why do local cultural policies not change? Urban model constraints, management inertia and cultural battles in the «governments of change» in Madrid and Barcelona 2015-‍18

Abstract

Since the 1980s, cultural policy has been progressively understood as a tool for the urban and socio-economic transformation of cities. In this sense, an increasing attention has been addressed at explaining how public action in the cultural sphere has changed according to the objectives and discourses that legitimize it. However, less attention has been paid to understanding the elements that explain its continuity and persistence, inertias and resistances to change of this public policy. Likewise, in the last decade, the growing criticism of the creative city paradigm and its negative effects has led to develop an alternative proposal of cultural policy within the framework of the so-called «new politics» inherited from the 15M movement. This perspective tries to encourage new ways of understanding culture in the local domain, which has been described as pro-common. This article seeks to give an answer to the question about the extent to which there has been a change or, instead, continuity in the development local cultural policies in two relevant cases where this phenomenon has occurred, Madrid and Barcelona between 2015 and 2018. Moreover, it analyzes the structural reasons for the relative continuity in forms and results of the cultural policy despite a discursive change regarding its objectives.

Keywords

• política cultural, ciudad creativa, campo político, nueva política, Madrid, Barcelona.