Föreliggande artikel är en replik på Jonas Agheds alster. Hans främsta syfte är att misskreditera våra vetenskapliga utgångspunkter, vilka enligt författaren präglas av influenser från såväl neoliberalt som högerradikalt håll. Agheds alster borde inte ha publicerats då den saknar vetenskapligt värde och inte lever upp till tidskriftens uttalade krav för en så kallad perspektivartikel. I vår artikel berör vi det stora, huvudsakligen positiva, intresse som vår studie om aktivism på offentliga bibliotek väckt samtidigt som vi bemöter Agheds ogrundade anklagelser. Agheds artikel är ett exempel bland flera andra på det destruktiva samtalsklimat som har präglat svensk biblioteks- och kulturdebatt under senare år, där angrepp på den fria och kritiska forskningen blivit legio. Att Nordisk Kulturpolitisk Tidsskrift gör sig till en plattform för denna typ av osakliga artiklar beklagar vi djupt.

This article explores the broad and undefined research field of the social impact of the arts. The effects of art and culture are often used as justification for public funding, but the research on these interventions and their effects is unclear. Using a co-word analysis of over 10,000 articles published between 1990 and 2020, we examined the characteristics of the field as we have operationalised it through our searches. We found that since 2015 this research field has expanded and consists of different epistemologies and methodologies, summarised in largely overlapping subfields belonging to the social sciences, humanities, arts education, and arts and health/therapy. In formal or informal learning settings, studies of theatre/drama as an intervention to enhance skills, well-being, or knowledge among children are most common in our corpus. A study of the research front through the bibliographic coupling of the most cited articles in the corpus confirmed the co-word analysis and revealed new themes that together form the ground for insight into research on the social impact of the arts. This article can therefore inform discussions on the social value of culture and the arts. 

In this article, we present the analysis of a state-of-the-art review made as part of the Horizon 2020 EU-funded project AMASS (Acting on the Margins: Arts as SocialSculpture), which aims to address challenges of marginalisation in Europe through arts-based interventions. This study analyses researched-based materials on the social impact of the arts, theoretically underpinned by an understanding of the role of the arts in conjunction with the problematisation of social marginalisation. We found three ways to understand the social impact of the arts in the material; as a participatory means to agency and empowerment, identity and expression, and learning and development. These categories are related to analytically derived positions of marginalisation as predominantly structural- or more individual-based. Art is conceived of as a way to bridge these positions through an understanding of its educational qualities. These categories offer a fruitful but also potentially limited role of the arts in society.

This work in progress aims to perform a comprehensive analysis of digital data publicly available from the Swedish parliament, such as motions, interpellations, and protocols from discussions in the plenum. To this end, we will use methods based on computational linguistics, such as topic modeling, word embeddings, and sentiment analysis, to identify prominent discourses corresponding to co-occurrence patterns of the words used. Using data from the early 1970s and onward, this project will involve a chronological examination of semantic and discursive changes with regard to topics such as equality, neutrality, the EU, the monarchy, immigration, climate change, and cultural policy. One research question that will be investigated in relation to this analysis is to what extent discursive changes can be detected within specific political parties, and what historical and political reasons can be posited to underlie these changes.Another research question focuses on scientometric aspects of how scholarly research is used to support claims made in the political discussion. With regard to this question, we will more specifically investigate the conceptual aspects of the texts surrounding citations (so-called citances) which will be mined for information such as what research is referred to in terms of individuals, position, disciplinary affiliations, and active research topics. In these citances, the significant content is often present as latent references that require further elucidation, together with an analysis of the sentiments expressed in the argumentation. This analysis will be further enhanced by investigating the usage of hedge terms that may indicate a level of uncertainty about the cited research.

In both Finland and Sweden, decentralisation has traditionally been an essential cultural policy aim. This article explores how, by pursuing decentralisation, the regional jurisdictions have been presented with more possibilities to fulfil their purposes and in this way, gain legitimacy in cultural policy. Based on the analysis of political, legal, and administrative documents, three main periods of regional decentralisation in cultural policies are identified: regions as vehicles of welfare policy, regionalisation, and competitive regions. In both countries, national governments have promoted the regional level’s agency, and in doing so, potential institutional change in cultural policy. However, the increase of the regional level’s role has been limited by the countries’ strongly institutionalised cultural policy systems.