Art and the Challenge of Markets Volumes1 & 2 examine the politics of art and culture in light of the profound changes that have taken place in the world order since the 1980s and 1990s. The contributors explore how in these two decades, the neoliberal or market-based model of capitalism started to spread from the economic realm to other areas of society. As a result, many aspects of contemporary Western societies increasingly function in the same way as the private enterprise sector under traditional market capitalism.

The first volume of this two-volume collection considers a broad range of national cultural policies from European and North American countries, and examines the strengthening of international and transnational art worlds in music, visual arts, film, and television. The chapters cover cultural policy and political culture in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Nordic countries,the Balkans, and Slovenia, and address the extent to which Western nations have shifted from welfare-state to market-based ideologies. Tensions between centres and peripheries in global art worlds are considered, as well as  complex interactions between nations and international and transnational art worlds, and regional variations in the audiovisual market.  

Victoria D. Alexander is Senior Lecturer, Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.

Samuli Hägg is Lecturer, Finnish and Literature, University of Eastern Finland.

Simo Häyrynen is Adjunct Professor of Cultural Policy, University of Eastern Finland.

Erkki Sevänen is Professor of Literature, University of Eastern Finland and Adjunct Professor of Aesthetics, University of Helsinki, Finland.

Part One: Introduction.- 1. Varieties of National Cultural Politics and Art Worlds in an Era of Increasing Marketization and Globalization.- Part Two: Contemporary National Cultural Policies and Art Worlds in North America and Europe.- 2. The United States of Art A Case Apart?.- 3. Enterprise Culture and the Arts: Neoliberal Values and British Art Institutions.- 4. The Economization of the Arts and Culture Sector in Germany after 1945.- 5. The Changing Role of the Cultural State: Art Worlds and New Markets --- A Comparison of France and Switzerland.- 6. Renegotiating Cultural Welfare: The Adoption of Neoliberal Trends in Finnish Cultural Policy and how it Fits the Nordic Model of a Welfare State.- 7. Cultural Policy in the Baltic States and Slovenia between 19912009.- Part Three: International and Transnational Art Worlds and their Ways of Operation.- 8. Globalization and Musical Hierarchy in the United States, France, Germany, and theNetherlands.- 9. The Uneven Distribution of International Success in the Visual Arts among Nations, according to the Rankings of the Top 100 Artists in the World.- 10. Beyond Reproduction: Asymmetric Interdependencies and the Transformation of Centers and Peripheries in the Globalizing Visual Arts.- 11. Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad (Men) World: National and Corporate Strategies in the Global Audiovisual Market.- Part Four: Conclusion.- 12. Reflections on the Challenge of Markets in National, International, and Transnational Art Worlds.