Cultural and Creative Industries Policymaking

The chapter introduces the themes of the book, contextualising the rise of cultural and creative industries (CCI) policymaking in a changing economy of the twentieth century. It states the reasons for researching the field from a broad policy analysis framework and argues for the importance of broader policy approaches in research related to cultural policy matters. The chapter points to the lack of empirical longitudinal studies of CCI policy and states that the combined study of CCI policymaking at the EU and national and subnational levels in Sweden is valuable due to the lack of research seeking to explain why CCI policy has taken the form it has at the EU level and in a welfare state such as Sweden. Finally, the chapter offers details of the empirical studies on which the book is based.

The chapter introduces cultural and creative industries (CCI) as a concept and policy domain and relates CCI as an activity to those policy domains that have the most affinity with CCI, culture, enterprise and regional development. Among other matters, the chapter discusses the significant impact that the expansion of the European Union (EU) has had on Swedish policymaking and how ambitions to change EU policy in recent decades have led to new priorities regarding the cultural and creative field. The chapter concludes that the analysis and discussion of CCI policymaking at the EU as well as at the national and subnational levels in Sweden is not possible without taking EU-level changes into consideration. At the same time, the chapter points out that politicians at different levels increasingly demand integrated policymaking; in other words, policymaking that links different policy domains to more effectively target societal challenges. The question of integration is also something that has been central in CCI policymaking.

This chapter recognises the lack of published research on cultural and creative industries (CCI) policymaking that allows for comparative studies and introduces to policy research and a framework for understanding the development of CCI policymaking in Europe. The chapter briefly describes the scope of policy research and then discusses some matters in the multidisciplinary field of policy research that are central to CCI policymaking, such as cross-sectoral collaboration and coordination and policy integration. The chapter then presents the theoretical framework of the empirical analyses of later chapters, the policy regime perspective. This framework is effectively a type of comparative-historical analysis framework and allows analysis of central ideas, interests and institutional arrangements in a policy as well as analysis of policy legitimacy, coherence and durability over time.

The chapter describes Swedish cultural and creative industries (CCI) policy in the period 2000–2022. It opens with a description of the particularities of governance in Sweden and thereafter goes through the phases of Swedish CCI policy that follow with the launch and termination of specific policy programmes over the last two decades. The chapter draws on a policy regime framework as well as a multiple streams framework when describing the development of Swedish CCI policy. The chronological presentation allows for future comparison with other national contexts. The chapter describes how Swedish CCI policy at the national and subnational levels, albeit having been launched as an integrated policy domain, has essentially taken the form of enterprise policy. CCI policy programmes in Sweden have typically followed three-year cycles, and the renewal of policies has not been self-evident. The chapter concludes that this is probably partly linked to the turnover of political decision-makers and agendas on the political agenda.

The chapter offers an overview of European Union (EU) cultural and creative industries (CCI) policy under four decades, describing the development of an articulated culture programme in the 1990s to the increasingly elaborate CCI policy of the 2000s and 2010, where arguments for CCI are put forward in particular to develop EU economies. The chapter indicates key policy documents and the substantial increase in budgets when culture is linked to business development policy in the EU. The chapter offers a generalised but graspable snapshot of the development of policy related to CCI as a comparative basis for the study of CCI policymaking in Sweden at the national and subnational levels by describing the main objectives and instruments of EU CCI policy over time. The chapter is mainly descriptive with reference to key documents, whereas an analysis using the policy regime framework is offered in Chap. 6.

The chapter applies a policy regime perspective on cultural and creative industries (CCI) policymaking in Sweden at the national and subnational levels and at the European Union (EU) level. The three core elements of the policy regime perspective, ideas, interests and institutional arrangements, are first discussed, and then the three elements of policy regime legitimacy, coherence and durability are used to analyse longitudinal aspects of CCI policymaking at the EU level and in Sweden. As national and subnational CCI policy in Sweden has been patchy, the durability and coherence of CCI policy in Sweden has not been strong. A range of coordination modes have been applied, but engagement in and commitment to CCI policy has varied significantly over time at different political tiers. At the EU level, CCI policy has been more consistent and durable, as politics and policymaking at the EU level differ substantially from those at the national and subnational levels.

The chapter presents the main conclusions from previous research into policymaking, governance and new policy domains with relevance for cultural and creative industries (CCI) policymaking within the European Union (EU) and at the national and subnational levels. In addition to conclusions from the empirical studies of previous chapters, the chapter revisits the ambition of CCI policy as an integrated policy domain. First, the promise and dilemma of policy integration is discussed in relation to Swedish empirical data. Second, the impact of policy design on CCI development is discussed, given that policy needs to be general and is subject to changing priorities of politicians. These two sections are finally complemented by a concluding section where suggestions for further research and policymaking are given. Finally, some suggestions for further research and future policymaking are given.