<p>I den aktuella diskussionen om kultur som tillväxtfaktor och Stockholms stads arbete med att bli en internationellt framstående kulturstad har Berlin upprepade gånger använts som ett framgångsrikt exempel. Därför är det intressant att undersöka och jämföra hur de två städernas kulturpolitik har sett ut under de senaste decennierna. Vilka idéer är det som har varit tongivande inom kulturpolitiken och på vilket sätt har dessa påverkat hur kulturpolitiken i respektive stad ser ut som den gör idag?</p> / <p>In the current debate on culture as a contribution to economic growth and Stockholm city’s initiative to develop into a internationally recognized city of culture many comparisons have been made to Berlin. It is therefore interesting to investigate and compare how the cultural policy in the two cities has developed during the last decades. What ideas have been influential in the cultural policy during the last decades and in which way have they affected the way the cultural policy in the two cities is organized today?</p>

I den aktuella diskussionen om kultur som tillväxtfaktor och Stockholms stads arbete med att bli en internationellt framstående kulturstad har Berlin upprepade gånger använts som ett framgångsrikt exempel. Därför är det intressant att undersöka och jämföra hur de två städernas kulturpolitik har sett ut under de senaste decennierna. Vilka idéer är det som har varit tongivande inom kulturpolitiken och på vilket sätt har dessa påverkat hur kulturpolitiken i respektive stad ser ut som den gör idag? / In the current debate on culture as a contribution to economic growth and Stockholm city’s initiative to develop into a internationally recognized city of culture many comparisons have been made to Berlin. It is therefore interesting to investigate and compare how the cultural policy in the two cities has developed during the last decades. What ideas have been influential in the cultural policy during the last decades and in which way have they affected the way the cultural policy in the two cities is organized today?

The aim of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of why the European Commission believes that the European Union (EU) should support culture and if a change has occurred over time. This is achieved by combining a qualitative idea analysis and a quantitative content analysis and analyzing proposals from 1998, 2004, 2011 and 2018 that the Commission has presented regarding a framework programme for the cultural sector within the EU. Geir Vestheims theory that all cultural policy is instrumental was used as a theoretical framework since it consists of ideal types that can explain why states support culture: because of its qualitative, economic, social or democratic instrumental values. The results of the study show that qualitative, economic, social and democratic arguments could be found in all four proposals and particularly that the proposal from 2018 contained several diverse arguments. A change over time was discovered however, since the most prominent arguments in the proposals from 1998 and 2004 revolved around the fact that culture was to be supported because of its impact on social development. The proposals from 2011 and 2018 were instead comprised of a large amount of arguments pertaining to the economic benefits of supporting culture.

This Master’s thesis has governmental cultural policy in focus and concludes a textual idea analysis of the governmental bill Time for culture. (Tid för kultur.) The aim of the study is to examine how the government is seeking legitimacy concerning the cultural policy. One of the starting points is that the society has changed over time in terms of for example increased globalization and multicultural and even the market adjustment is more evident. Also the economical basis in the society is different nowadays. These changes form challenges concerning the governmental cultural policy. The theoretical starting point for this thesis is based on a theory by cultural policy researcher Geir Vestheim. The theory claims that cultural policy is instrumental. The forms of instrumental culture policy are either qualitative, social, economic or democratic. The method used in the study is idea analysis. Ideal types based on a model by Vestheim are used to examine the different forms of instrumental culture policy and arguments in Time for culture. The study wants to explore which forms of arguments and instrumental cultural policy that can be seen in Time for culture. The result of this study shows that the different forms of instrumental cultural policy occur to varying extent in Time for culture. Most prominent are the economical arguments. Particularly when it comes to the cultural policy that concerns the role of the culture in the development of the society. One conclusion drawn is that the government is seeking legitimacy concerning the new cultural policy mainly throughout economical arguments.