Insights into the Governance Structures of Recurring Cultural Events

Over the years, Italy’s cultural and artistic heritage has been viewed as a privately owned asset instead of a public resource. This perception has led to a misunderstanding of how themcommunity perceives heritage: it is seen as something exclusive to the elite rather than a shared resource. This contradicts the UNESCO indicators for Culture in the 2030 Agenda, specifically the fourth dimension of “Inclusion and Participation”, which emphasises the importance of participatory processes in the management of artistic and cultural heritage, as well as in the organisation of cultural events like the European (ECoC) or Italian Capital of Culture (ICoC). To address this issue, private and public actors must work together continuously following the collaborative governance model. The latter is a new approach to governance that underlines the importance of the engagement of different actors (private and public institutions, citizens, etc.) in the decision-making processes and that is adopted in many sectors, from health and quality care to public and common issues like climate change and even to cultural and public events. Therefore, this article aims to examine whether the governance model of the Italian Capitals of Culture is moving towards a collaborative approach and seeks to explore whether recurring cultural events embody an evolving paradigm of collaborative governance. To do this, we analysed the cultural events between 2016 and 2023 at two-year intervals. We conducted an explanatory multiple-case study using four different case studies and considered the six variables of collaborative governance proposed by Ansell and Gash (2008). The study will assess how effectively these variables have been applied in the organisational model of the event and whether the UNESCO framework has been implemented.