ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how one example of a cross-national political project, the European Capital of Culture, emerges and develops. This competition is perhaps the most prominent and successful of the now global “capitals of culture” movement, which has proliferated in recent years. The project is used here as an example of the shifting position of cultural policy within the contemporary city, which develops alongside transformations in the meaning and uses of culture within cities. The chapter considers both the development of the manner in which this program narrates and mediates the role for culture within the city, and how the program exists as a technology to implement this role.
