ABSTRACT
In a period of crisis, we can frequently observe that the public expenditures dedicated to the cultural sector are among the first to be cut drastically. If the French public sector has always been involved in provisioning and supporting arts and cultural activities (Poirrier 2010), we can thus notice that it has conducted a decrease in the budget allocated to culture (−4.3% for the mission called “culture” in 2013 in comparison to 2012). In parallel, the two contemporary phenomena of devolution and growing competition on the destinations’ marketplace have led territories to develop strategic intent (Hamel and Prahalad 1989) and use culture and arts as a lever of sustainable and multidimensional attractiveness (Arnaud 2012; Soldo 2010). That is why this chapter examines how local governments position themselves in the cultural field and how they take hold of the missions of general interest concerning this field (heritage maintenance and promotion, access to cultural activities and support of creativity). More specifically, we are witnessing the explosion of events considered as key for territorial competitiveness (Langen and Garcia 2009; Getz 2008; Ritchie and Crouch 2000). Among these events, the cultural one, because of its strong symbolic capital, is especially coveted (Gravari-Barbas and Jacquot 2007). This research deals with cultural engineering to suggest a new kind of territorial management (Vauclare 2009) considering the specificities of a local cultural governance system. To do so, this chapter summarizes two case studies, each of them dealing with how a cultural event can impact the territorial governance at the level of the Greater Community Council of Aix-en-Provence (CPA, South of France): “Par les Villages 2011,” a local itinerant event, and the cultural season “Picasso-Aix 2009,” a hallmark event (Ritchie and Béliveau 1974). The results are constructed around (1) an intracase analysis and (2) an intercase analysis, which let emerge new managerial perspectives.
