Toward a new concept of the “cultural elite state”: Cultural capital and the urban sculpture planning authority in elite coalition in Shanghai

Abstract

The emergence of an attractive public art scene in urban public areas (termed urban sculpture in the Chinese context) is a recent phenomenon in Shanghai. The role of the local state in urban sculpture planning and development has not been critically examined. This article proposes a model entitled "cultural elite state" to conceptualize the characteristics of urban sculpture authority. The main argument is that the cultural capital held by individual political and social elites has a significant effect on the formation of the cultural elite coalition that influences decision making and execution in urban sculpture planning in Shanghai. First, the glue effect of cultural capital, rather than institutional arrangements, creates the cultural elite coalition. Second, actors in the cultural elite coalition are characterized with similar cultural disposition of "legitimate tastes" and art participation. Third, with the effect of cultural capital, the field of cultural development displays a relatively higher degree of autonomy, in which cross-hierarchy and cross-sector communication and mediation take place. Thus, the urban sculpture planning authority operates in a cultural elite coalition more as a loosely organized hierarchy of officers with individual cultural dispositions than as a solitary governing entity.

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