Quirijn Lennert van den Hoogen (2024)
In Rainer Diaz-Bone & Guillemette de Larquier (eds.), Handbook of economics and sociology of conventions. Cham: Springer, Online first

This chapter discusses how the perspective of economics and sociology of conventions (EC/SC) is applied and helpful in analyzing public cultural policies. First, the concept of public cultural policies and the four types of decisions relevant in cultural policies are introduced: (1) decisions on the goals of cultural policies, (2) decisions on the infrastructure for cultural policies, (3) decisions on subsidy allocations, and (4) decisions on the content of cultural programs. The chapter analyzes how EC/SC has been used in research for cultural policy, mostly on the working realities in the creative industries and in research on cultural policies themselves: research focusing on policy legitimizations, on alternative sources of funding, and on subsidy allocation decisions. Overall, the research points out that cultural policies are based on a compromise between the inspired and civic conventions. There is a great variety in the ways this compromise is constituted by artists, managers, and bureaucrats who are involved in the process of developing cultural policies.