This book explores the transformative role of networks within the European Union (EU) over the past three decades, particularly in relation to the cultural and creative sectors, examining how informal collaborations evolved into structured entities that have reshaped EU cultural governance and fostered cross-border cooperation among cultural professionals. Employing case studies, the book reveals how EU-funded networks influence local creative practices and policy discourse and drive ideational change. It introduces new analytical frameworks to assess networks as agents of multilevel, cross-sectoral transformation. By blending institutional and ethnographic analyses, the book challenges traditional views of EU cultural policy, arguing that cultural networks not only promote European integration, but also balance economic, cultural, social and environmental priorities. It positions these networks as central to the development of a transnational European cultural space, advancing both symbolic and structural integration. This book is essential reading for scholars, policymakers and cultural professionals, providing fresh insights into the evolving dynamics between cultural networks, policymaking and creative ecosystems in Europe. The analysis offers a unique perspective for a strategic conceptualisation of cultural policymaking, envisioning a future where cultural actors play a pivotal role in shaping the European cultural landscape and governance.

Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union: The European Heritage Label provides an interdisciplinary examination of the ways in which European cultural heritage is created, communicated, and governed via the new European Heritage Label scheme. Drawing on ethnographic field research conducted across ten countries at sites that have been awarded with the European Heritage Label, the authors of the book approach heritage as an entangled social, spatial, temporal, discursive, narrative, performative, and embodied process. Recognising that heritage is inherently political and used by diverse actors as a tool for re-imagining communities, identities, and borders, and for generating notions of inclusion and exclusion in Europe, the book also considers the idea of Europe itself as a narrative. Chapters tackle issues such as multilevel governance of heritage; geopolitics of border-crossings and border-making; participation and non-participation; and embodiment and affective experience of heritage. Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union advances heritage studies with an interdisciplinary approach that utilises and combines theories and conceptualizations from critical geopolitics, political studies, EU and European studies, cultural policy research, and cultural studies. As such, the volume will be of interest to scholars and students engaged in the study of heritage, politics, belonging, the EU, ideas, and narratives of Europe.

In 1987, the Santiago de Compostela Declaration laid the foundations for the first Council of Europe Cultural Route, highlighting the importance of our rich, colourful and diverse European identities. Today, the Council of Europe Enlarged Partial Agreement (EPA) on Cultural Routes oversees 29 routes connecting culture and heritage across Europe. Cultural Routes are powerful tools for promoting and preserving these shared and diverse cultural identities. They are a model for grass-roots cultural co-operation, providing important lessons about identity and citizenship through a participative experience of culture. From the European Route of Megalithic Culture with its monuments built as long as 6 000 years ago, to the ATRIUM route of Architecture of Totalitarian Regimes, the routes contain elements of our past which help us to understand the present and to approach the future with confidence. The Cultural Routes also stimulate thematic cultural tourism in lesserknown parts of the continent, helping to develop economic and social stability in Europe. This first ever step-by-step guide to the design and management of Council of Europe Cultural Routes will be an essential reference for route managers, project developers, students and researchers in cultural tourism and related subjects. It addresses aspects ranging from the Council of Europe’s conventions to co-creation, fund-raising and governance, and it explores a Cultural Route model that has evolved into an exemplary system for sustainable, transnational co-operation and that has proved to be a successful road map for socio-economic development, cultural heritage promotion and intergenerational communication. The Council of Europe EPA on Cultural Routes is the result of our successful co-operation with the Luxembourg Ministry of Culture and the European Union. Increasingly, other organisations, such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization, are joining this project. This handbook was funded by the third European Commission/Council of Europe Joint Programme on Cultural Routes.

This book investigates the activities undertaken by the variety of actors that contribute to accomplishing cultural policy in Europe. These range from policy formulation and administration at the national and local levels, to artistic and cultural production activities to institutional governance. Arts and culture are an essential component to individual and collective quality of life. States, regions and municipalities increasingly recognize this intrinsic importance, as well as the instrumental values of the arts and culture. This has led to an increased interest in cultural policy, usually focusing on the policy process and policy effects. How cultural policy is accomplished is a matter of correspondingly increased importance, but less researched and understood. This volume shows how accomplishing cultural policy encompasses a vast expanse of activities, all unique but bound together as part of the continuous process of producing publicly subsidized art and culture for social and aesthetic purposes. The chapters also explore a range of thematic tensions that commonly arise in accomplishing cultural policy, such as the commercialization of arts and culture and counter-reactions; the challenges and means of promoting inclusiveness; the politics and effects of funding of the arts and culture; and good governance and vested interests in the arts and culture. Read together, these vivid case studies present a broad and unique picture of the wider and interconnected accomplishing process by expounding on the middle-ground between the policy formulation process and artistic and cultural production. Adding a novel conceptual formulation to studies of cultural policy, this book will appeal to practitioners, scholars and advanced students with interests in the sociology of the arts and culture, arts and culture management, cultural policy and cultural governance.

This edited collection brings together distinguished scholars across a range of academic disciplines to explore how the European Union engages with culture. The book examines the ways in which cultural issues have been framed at the EU level and the policies and instruments to which they have given vent.

This book offers the first systematic, comparative analysis of military education and training in Europe within the context of the post-Cold War security environment. Based on an analysis of military education institutions in the UK, Germany, Finland, Romania and the Baltic States, this book demonstrates that the convergence of European military cultures since the end of the Cold War is linked to changes in military education. The process of convergence originates, at least in part, from the full or partial adoption of a new concept by post-commissioning professional military education institutions: the National Defence University. Officers are now educated alongside civilians and public servants, wherein they enjoy a socialization experience that is markedly different from that of previous generations of European officers, and is increasingly similar across national borders. In addition, this book argues that with the control over the curricula and graduation criteria increasingly set by civilian higher education authorities, the European armed forces, while continuing to exist, and hold significant (although declining) capabilities, stand to lose their status as a profession in the traditional sense. This book will be of much interest to students of military, European security policy, European politics, and IR in general.

Who controls how transnational issues are defined and treated? In recent decades professional coordination on a range of issues has been elevated to the transnational level. International organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and firms all make efforts to control these issues. This volume shifts focus away from looking at organizations and zooms in on how professional networks exert control in transnational governance. It contributes to research on professions and expertise, policy entrepreneurship, normative emergence, and change. The book provides a framework for understanding how professionals and organizations interact, and uses it to investigate a range of transnational cases. The volume also deploys a strong emphasis on methodological strategies to reveal who controls transnational issues, including network, sequence, field, and ethnographic approaches. Bringing together scholars from economic sociology, international relations, and organization studies, the book integrates insights from across fields to reveal how professionals obtain and manage control over transnational issues.

Today, interest in networks is growing by leaps and bounds, in both scientific discourse and popular culture. Networks are thought to be everywhere – from the architecture of our brains to global transportation systems. And networks are especially ubiquitous in the social world: they provide us with social support, account for the emergence of new trends and markets, and foster social protest, among other functions. Besides, who among us is not familiar with Facebook, Twitter, or, for that matter, World of Warcraft, among the myriad emerging forms of network-based virtual social interaction? It is common to think of networks simply in structural terms – the architecture of connections among objects, or the circuitry of a system. But social networks in particular are thoroughly interwoven with cultural things, in the form of tastes, norms, cultural products, styles of communication, and much more. What exactly flows through the circuitry of social networks? How are people's identities and cultural practices shaped by network structures? And, conversely, how do people's identities, their beliefs about the social world, and the kinds of messages they send affect the network structures they create? This book is designed to help readers think about how and when culture and social networks systematically penetrate one another, helping to shape each other in significant ways.

At first glance, participation appears to be a constant goal throughout the history of cultural policies, adapting itself to very diverse configurations in time and space. However, some see it as a lever for social and cultural innovation that marks a breakthrough in several areas of public policy. Authors: Félix Dupin-Meynard, Emmanuel Négrier, Lluís Bonet, Giada Calvano, Luisella Carnelli, Elettra Zuliani. Coédité par Occitanie en scène Avec le partenariat de : CEPEL, Université de Montpellier, Universistat de Barcelona, Creative Europe, BeSpectACTive!, Fondazione Fitzcarraldo, Ministère de la Culture.

Governance Networks in the Public Sector presents a comprehensive study of governance networks and the management of complexities in network settings. Public, private and non-profit organizations are increasingly faced with complex, wicked problems when making decisions, developing policies or delivering services in the public sector. These activities take place in networks of interdependent actors guided by diverging and sometimes conflicting perceptions and strategies. As a result these networks are dominated by cognitive, strategic and institutional complexities. Dealing with these complexities requires sophisticated forms of coordination: network governance. This book presents the most recent theoretical and empirical insights into governance networks. It provides a conceptual framework and analytical tools to study the complexities involved in handling wicked problems in governance networks in the public sector. The book also discusses strategies and management recommendations for governments, business and third sector organisations operating in and governing networks. Governance Networks in the Public Sector is an essential text for advanced students of public management, public administration, public policy and political science, and for public managers and policymakers.