The creative economy as a versatile policy script: exploring the role of competing intergovernmental organizations

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, several intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) have advanced the idea that the creative economy could be a 'feasible development option'. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) took the lead by preparing the 2008 and 2010 Creative Economy Reports, whereas the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and UNDP executed the 2013 report. The article-based on an actor-centred institutionalism-explores the role IGOs have played in the promulgation of the 'creative economy' policy agenda. Through a socio-political analysis, we reveal how IGOs act and interact with each other vis-à-vis 'creative economy' policy agenda making. On one hand, the article seeks to highlight why and how IGOs include the creative economy within their priorities and use the concept, influence or challenge its orientations. On the other hand, it aims to examine their ability to act in common in order to globalize the 'creative economy' policy agenda and create new forms of cultural industries governance.

Cooperation among intergovernmental organizations in global cultural governance: Towards an actor-centered constructivist approach

“…The cooperation between IOs is the result of a multiplex political process (Acharya 2017) marked by formulation of views, expressed by multiple actors that adhere to a certain logic about the scope and objectives of this cooperation and that engage in debate and negotiation within specific institutional frames. The actor-centred constructivism concentrates on how to understand the framing of inter-organisational cooperation through actor interaction (Vlassis and De Beukelaer 2019;Saurugger 2016). It is not only the institutional form of actors but their interactions with one another that shape governance outcomes.…”

The Theoretical Foundations and Limitations of the Concept of “Creative Economy”

“…The particularities of national or local dimensions impose obstacles to their implementation (Mann, 2012). The pre-given and homogenizing formulas also had a place in decision-making and composed reports from international organizations institutions, but they ran into different political, economic and cultural realities from those of North Atlantic states, which served as the basis for many of these formulas (Vlassis & Beukelaer, 2019). Among the aspects ofthe different realities from the developed world, it is possible to indicate the discontinuity of public policies-often arising from changes in government and financial constraints-, the lack of technical staff, corruption (Bezerra, 2012), ethnic cleavages, religious extremism, and civil wars.…”

A Critique of the Creative Economy, Creative City and Creative Class From the Global South

“…The idea of the promotion of social inclusion by creative economy has been highlighted in the debate about the formulation and implementation of public policies in several countries, including peripheral ones, and international institutions such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and UNCTAD. Some pre-given and homogenizing formulas, present in initial reports produced by these institutions about the implementation of the creative economy in several countries and strengthened by many North Atlantic academics, came up against totally different political, economic and cultural realities, so that the development of the creative sectors that happened in certain countries would be unfeasible in others, given the incompatibility of the particularities and specificities of these societies in relation to the recommendations that came from international bodies (Vlassis & Beukelaer, 2019). The stimulus to innovation and originality of the fundamental ideas for the development of creative sectors, for example, should be enhanced, according to Venturelli (2000), by public policies at different social levels, leading to the structuring of an educational system that emphasizes creative freedom and independent thinking, as well as state and private investments in research and development of new ideas and technologies and the search for risk reduction for creative enterprises.…”

“…Since the discussions at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in the early 2000s, the concept of "creative city" has been put by state leaders as central to promoting the development of the planet's periphery, because such promotion requires more localized and specific actions, which can be carried out in cities, but not necessarily in entire states (Vlassis & Beukelaer, 2019). However, this conceptas well as the ideas of "creative economy" and "creative class"was conceived in a reality different from the peripheral states, in academic and political debates in which representatives of such countries had limited or no participation.…”