Democratising Goals in a Neoliberal Context—The Multiple Temporalities in Finnish Cultural Policy Discourses

Abstract

The changes in the focus of cultural policy have been usually presented through periodisation. In the Nordic countries, during the late twentieth century, cultural policy moved from the welfare state era to a competition state era where “instrumental cultural policy” has been claimed to be hegemonic. As the periodisation does not encompass the possible continuity between these periods, this article focuses on the multiple historical forces manifested in the discourses of the Finnish cultural policy of the 2010s. Hence, this critical discourse analysis on two specific cultural policy projects focuses not only on the hegemonic instrumental emphasis but on its relations with other temporalities in the present. The theoretical concepts of conjuncture and articulation strengthen the contextual approach of the analysis, which is necessary for studying the contradictory forces and temporalities that constitute the discourses. The results suggest that the discourses embody both the concepts of welfare state cultural policy and the rhetoric of a “competition state.” The values essential to a welfare state cultural policy, such as democratisation of culture and cultural democracy, are rearticulated in the research material in a manner that constructs them as a medium for neoliberal governance.

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