The Creativity Turn in European Cultural Policies. Structural Changes in the Sector

This paper aims to analyse the conditions that enable a double political-economic instrumentation of culture through European Union programmes, and their consequences for the cultural sector. The first European programmes focused on the symbolic value of culture which was perceived as an essential element for strengthening the European identity, and thus as a crucial tool in the project of building the European identity, which is part of a political integration programme. In the context of the development of the creative economy, which overlapped the 2008 economic crisis and a growing influence of the market ideology, a few years later, the European Union launched the Creative Europe programme, thus setting up a new development framework for the cultural sector. For culture, the economic and political arguments in the Creative Europe programme outline a future inherently connected to its contribution to these fields, leaving behind the symbolic and social value of culture characterised by non-lucrative purposes. The programme lays out a direction in which culture is monetized as competitive advantage and bets on the contribution of the cultural and creative industries to become a competitor on the global creative economy. The new framework offered by Creative Europe transforms the approach to culture, placing it in a landscape of global competition, in the company of creative industries, favouring the integration of culture by the latter, not the other way around, thus entailing structural changes in the cultural sector.

Max Weber’s Way from Social Economics to Sociology

One of the most outstanding intellectual achievements in the history of classical thought in social sciences which have remained influential up until today are undoubtedly associated with the name of Max Weber. Through a detailed text analysis and a conceptual mapping of the logic of the argumentation, this paper sets out to offer a profound insight into the classical German sociologist’s approach to science, both “early” (about 1903/4) and “late” (post-1913), in terms of some fundamental matters of epistemology and methodology. The first part of this paper investigates social economics in terms of its theoretical and methodological foundations and applicability, while the second part looks at interpretive sociology from the same perspectives, with an emphasis on the differences between the two approaches. We argue that Weber’s dualist methodological attitude became explicit and dominant in his later writings. In addition, as he brought in focus the theory of social action, he not only became an explicit proponent of methodological individualism, but he also revisited and specified the logic and role of “causal explanation” and “interpretation”. Interpretive sociology no longer seeks a causal explanation for individual historical events by applying nomological knowledge, but instead commits itself to finding “causally adequate” explanation for the course and consequences of different types of social actions. Interpretation, in turn, no longer means an analysis of effects concerning the cultural significance of individual historical events in a special sense, but an interpretive understanding of various types of social actions, rational or “irrational”, directly or in a motivation-like manner. The paper concludes with a summary designed to highlight key legacies of Weber’s oeuvre that have remained valid and valuable for any analytical and empirical research in sociology.

Flexible Working Practices in the ICT Industry in Achieving Work-Life Balance

Flexible labour practices became increasingly institutionalized and professionalized (Aroles, Mitev and de Vaujany, 2019). However, mechanisms and motivations behind these practices have remained often unexplored. This paper discusses the flexible labour practices among ICT professionals with regard to their spatial and temporal dimensions, with the aim to identify the key-factors that improve work-life balance and overall well-being. The qualitative research is based on in-depth face-to-face interviews with ICT knowledge workers, using Grounded Theory in generating new theoretical approaches that connect flexible labour practices with work-life balance. The study reveals, on the one hand, that particular and adapted flexible arrangements contributes to the reconciliation of the working life with the personal life; on the other hand, had led to the rise of knowledge workers with power and influence over their own intellectual capital, with a richness in personal choices.

Organizing State Intervention in an Authoritarian State: From Fascist Import Substitution to French Developmentalism in Postwar Spain

The economics of the authoritarian regime of Francisco Franco in Spain are often narrowed to a bespoke form of fascism. This paper suggests that this regime’s rather inchoate economic regimes were in fact a series of experiments that blended varieties of statism and liberalism. Thus, a form of import-substitution industrialization colored by Italian fascist features (1939-1959) lasted fifteen years longer in Spain than in the country of importation. In contrast, a local version of French developmentalism (1964-1975) was largely in sync with what was being tried in France at the time. However, this French developmentalist template imbued with fiscal Keynesianism was layered with liberal economic projects, particularly in the monetary policy arena. But while fascist import substitution (the so called “autarky”) collapsed mostly due to its internal problems, Spain’s translation of French developmentalism was associated with economic growth and was only extensively damaged by the crisis of the global capitalist core ushered by the 1973 oil shock. Critically, while in the symbolic terrain of Spanish politics the liberal economic projects that accompanied the local translation of French developmentalism were always associated with reformist and even “dissident” elite circles, the stigma of developmentalism’ association with the core elites of authoritarianism removed developmentalism as a source of alternatives to the liberal economic reforms ushered by Spain’s transition to liberal democracy in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Uneven Eufication, The Spatial Fix and the Dominance of Economic Over Social Policies

I am proposing to use the term EUfication to define the process of creating the EU as territory out of the geographical disparities (re)produced across the core and periphery of Europe. The article contends that EUfication is a manifestation of the phenomenon of spatial fix. In a first step, it describes the dynamics of territorial unevenness within the EU: on the one hand, by some relevant socio-economic cohesion data compiled from Eurostat indicators, and – on the other hand – through the diagnosis on spatial injustice in different Member States, as it was revealed by a comparative research conducted between 2017-2019. Furthermore, my analysis explains territorial unevenness by reconstructing the well-known historical formation of the union through a less acknowledged perspective, i.e., in the context of the changing regimes of capital accumulation. The article concludes that the theory of spatial fix allows us recognizing: the position and timing, from which and when different countries took part in the process of EUfication is a factor leading to the persistence of uneven territorial development among the European core and periphery. My contribution to theorizing on this process consists in bringing together the perspective of the spatial fix with the critical analysis of how is the social dimension paradigm overshadowed by the economic concern of capital accumulation in the socio-economic governance of the European Single Market, including the politics of territorial cohesion.

Depoliticizing the Firm: Revisiting Employability as a Strategy and a Narrative for High-Skilled and Skilled Workers in an Eastern European City

Our main aim is to unpack the notion of employability as a narrative and as a strategy by contextualising it in an Eastern European setting and by scrutinizing how it is defined and experienced by two different categories of employees: high-skilled and skilled workers. We look at the case of Cluj, a mid-size Romanian town fast developing into an IT hub and a centre of reindustrialization. Drawing on qualitative interviews with employees in the IT and HR sectors, and in medium-sized factories, we argue that personal development and gaining expertise are a successful employability strategy for the highskilled, but make the skilled workers more vulnerable and at risk of becoming redundant. We argue that the employability discourse draws new lines of divisions between employees. By shifting the lens away from the organization and towards the individual worker’s responsibility, the employability discourse depoliticizes the relationship between the employee and the employer.

Healthy and Somewhat Wealthy: The Lived Experience of Successful Aging

The idea of being active, healthy, happy and independent as long as is possible is strongly promoted in public discourse and in aging policies. Starting from the idea of investigating the serious leisure practices of the elderly, I sought to develop a qualitative research that captures perceptions and normative attitudes regarding the perceived and lived experience of aging. The study offers insights into the socially constructed nature of successful aging, by critically exploring the relation between the practice of Tai-Chi, considered a serious leisure activity among older adults, and the neoliberal ideology. During my fieldwork I conducted 14 in-depth semi-structured interviews and I have analyzed a specific typology of subjects - ‘healthy and somewhat wealthy’ as one of the respondents described himself - motivated by the fact that this category of the elderly is much more likely to internalize and promote neoliberal ideology. The goal of my fieldwork research was to determine how seniors operationalize the concept of successful aging and what strategies they use in order to ensure their experience matches their expectations. I also chose to focus on the way elders embrace a serious leisure perspective, which promises to give them a sense of purpose and progress. As shown by the accounts of the participants in the study, the need to be active, independent, healthy, and cheerful determine individuals to work with their own self and seek to engage in serious leisure activities.