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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the formation of two artist-led collective actors, Koalition der Freien Szene (KFS) and Haben and Brauchen (H&B), and their differing strategies of political critique towards Berlin’s cultural policy-making complex. The paper seeks to contribute to the lack of empirical case studies on Berlin’s cultural governance and cultural policy stakeholders by creating a self-designed framework for analysis of artist-led organizations’ formulation of political claims and how their articulations find entrance into policy-making.

The paper’s theoretical framework is situated at the intersection between new social movement studies, post-positivist policy analysis and discursive institutionalism. Methodologically, the paper is based on qualitative interviews with members of KFS, H&B and relevant cultural stakeholders from Berlin’s contemporary arts scene.

The paper identifies five differentiating axes of political critique through a self-designed framework. These include: political or constitution-like program, personnel infrastructures determining decision-making, approach to cultural administration, strategic agenda and activity in a collective action framing scheme. Furthermore, the paper illustrates the (trans)formative potentialities for Berlin’s future cultural policy due to complementarity of discursivity and operative action, of pragmatism and utopian thinking.

The practical implications of the paper provide guidance for cultural policymakers to better systematize modes of participatory policy-making.

This paper gives an overview of current developments and shifts in Berlin’s cultural field through the emergence of new collective actors by providing unique stakeholder-centered perspective(s). Furthermore, through an empirically grounded, self-designed analytical framework, a systematic analysis of articulatory and communicative strategies and the practices of new cultural policy stakeholders is provided.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how funders and stakeholders influence the performance of Spain’s most autonomous cultural institutions. As the first of its kind to focus on Spain’s independent cultural spaces, the paper is exploratory in nature. It seeks to contribute to the field of research on best practices in cultural management and marketing through its study of the performance of all seven independent cultural spaces that belong to the Red TransIbérica de Espacios Culturales Independientes.

The paper employs a mixed-methods case study analysis. Relying on in-person observations and interviews, online surveying, online review analyses and cultural engagement data synthesis, it supports quantitative data with qualitative data, and uses methodological triangulation techniques to validate findings.

The paper indicates that despite their autonomy, the type of funding and the number of stakeholders that independent cultural spaces boast appear related to their marketability.

Using all seven member organizations as the sample group, this research is able to build generalized conclusions for the country’s population of independent cultural spaces. By highlighting key themes for further research, the paper offers insight into an understudied section of the sector.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

Given that a large proportion of refugees and forced im/migrants today are school-age, schools are widely assumed to be sites where integration will happen. How this integration will occur and whether education policies facilitate social cohesion is unclear. Focusing on California and Berlin as examples of politically left-leaning states that receive immigrants in substantial numbers, this chapter seeks to examine their immigration, integration, and education policies. Using an original conceptual framework, this chapter analyzes how relevant federal and state policies have evolved since the 1980s in these two contexts. This chapter considers integration to be the process by which immigrants identify with the receiving country (RC) and their previous contexts, provided that the RC is supportive and accepting. The goal of integration is less inequality along ethnic or cultural lines. By analyzing policies in terms of immigrant students’ identity formation and conceptions of equality, this chapter argues that the evolution of such policies in Berlin and California has not always been linear. Moreover, while both states consider diversity to be positive, their policies do not extend to facilitating a new culture that productively operationalizes the diversity of immigrant and non-immigrant students.

The purpose of this paper is to: describe and contextualize the aims and distinctive and common characteristics of cannabis festivals in countries with different cannabis policies; assess characteristics of participants; identify reasons to attend cannabis festivals; explore to which extent cannabis festivals contribute to the social and cultural acceptance of cannabis, as perceived by attendees.

The approach incorporates three methods of data collection in the research design; quantitative research among 1,355 participants, participant observation and interviews with the organizers.

Cannabis festivals in Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome and Athens have common features but also maintain and reproduce local, social and cultural characteristics. Cannabis festivals, as well as their attendees, represent heterogeneous categories. The style of the festival – music festival or march combined with music – affects the main reason for attendance by the participants. In cannabis festivals more similar to music festivals the majority of the respondents attended for entertainment while at the cannabis festivals in the form of a march combined with music the majority attended for protest. Furthermore, increasing age, residency and the high frequency of cannabis use are factors that led the participants to attend for protest.

The research on cannabis festivals is limited. This paper not only explores the aims of cannabis festivals in four capital cities of Europe and the characteristics of their attendees including motivations, but also offers interesting insights for understanding the ways in which political and social constructions like cannabis festivals shape attitudes, perception and behaviors around cannabis use.

The purpose of this paper is to ask how forms of “performative” interventions can prompt processes of re-thinking, which can, in turn, instigate the critical production of public space. Most importantly, it also asks how this methodology can manifest within various cultural and political contexts. Today, public spaces tend to be controlled either by the state or by private corporations. Neoliberal policies promote commercial interests, which subsequently drives inequality and determines what can and cannot be accessed by the public. The public spaces that are currently present in the neoliberal cities are, in fact, “pseudo” public spaces.

In an attempt to form new understandings of this problem, the authors’ approach is rooted in feminist theories of performativity, which focus on how identities are persistently re-produced through performance. These theories consider how the “self” is always entangled within everyday life interactions and how it is shaped by both societal and bodily practices. Framing spaces as shapable, informed by the embodied dialectic relations between spaces and social relations, the study uses forms of performative methodology to create productive disruptions and “constructed situations” (Debord, 2012). This methodology consists of intervention within these spaces in order to produce alternative public space and forms of publicness. Based on research conducted at the Sheffield School of Architecture, as well as a four-day invited workshop at the Floating University Berlin, this study investigates applications of performative practice methodology in the cities of Amman and Berlin.

The paper will begin by exploring how the two cities are regulated through various political and planning policies that affect public spaces. This line of enquiry will also involve questioning physical, social and political access to public space in these contexts and analysing the various actants, performative actions and processes that were involved in producing performative interventions.

The paper will conclude by discussing the potential and limitations of applying and translating such approaches in public spaces within different cultural and political contexts. As such, the study proposes a new methodological framework for re-thinking and provoking the critical production of public space through forms of performative spatial practice.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the academic debate on participatory urban development in two ways: first, by proposing a methodological framework though which urban policies can be assessed; and second, through a case study that applies the framework, delivering an analysis of the policy intentions of the current Berlin administration.

The first section of this paper introduces the case study, placing it in the political context in Berlin and suggesting an initial reading of the relevant documents that frame policy in participatory urban development today. The second section includes an attempt at disambiguation, a conceptual and an analytical framework, followed by a preliminary assessment of the Berlin participatory policy. The final part of this paper draws conclusions and sets a possible future research agenda.

Participation is present in several passages of the Contract and refers to different possible readings of the term: participation as institutional framework, participation as rights, participation in the public sphere and participation as practice.

This paper contributes to the disambiguation of the concept of “citizen participation”, proposes a framework through which to assess policy and offers an initial analysis of the policy intentions of the current Berlin administration.