Global Urban Frontiers through Policy Transfer? Unpacking Seoul’s Creative City Programmes

Abstract

This paper critically examines the Seoul city government's attempts at the policy transfer of creative cities programmes, both as a policy borrower and as a policy lender, by using the emergent 'policy mobilities' approach. Seoul's way of actualising the idea of creative cities places more emphasis on local-serving administration, tourism and physical cultural infrastructure. The original creative city programmes have been transformed, ideologically and materially, by Seoul into a process of downsizing government organisations and workforce and limiting the use of public space. Seoul's attempt to be a policy lender is not a product of other foreign cities' policy transfer from Seoul, but the result of the city government's promotional practices. Its final outcome, thus bears relatively little relationship or similarity to the original policies, encountering unexpected administrative and operational problems, such as increasing debt and resistance from civil groups.

Introduction: the centrality of arenas, agents and actions

“…Here we see the interaction of agents shaped by both institutional and historical context, often specific to location (Smith, 2013;Lee and Hwang, 2012).…”

“…At the local government level policy circulation is noted for the shift away from hierarchical exchange of policy ideas from lender to borrower to a more equitable exchange where effort is focused on the reconstitution of ideas and practices into a local political and cultural context. This is not to say policy circulation occurs without struggle, negotiation and political complexity (Lee and Hwang, 2012), rather the experience for cities and local governments is much more localised in context and highlights how policy tends to 'travel in bits and pieces' and then is reassembled in different locations, often in different ways (Clifford and Morphet, 2015).…”

Light festivals, policy mobilities and urban tourism

“…In the last years, numerous accounts have explored the process of circulation and adaptation of different typologies of policies like creative city programs (Lee, 2012) and the so called Bilbao and Barcelona models (González, 2011) from this perspective. Yet, until now, very few attempts have been made to adopt a policy mobility approach in the analysis of the mobility of tourism strategies and events.…”

“…Crucially the role played by these international networks reaffirms Stone's (2004) view that policies not only circulates through bilateral relation between public authorities but that also through the actions of international organizations and/or transnational non-state actors. However, alongside these international actors, the role of local authorities in the process of policy circulation remains central (Lee, 2012;González, 2011). For instance, the city of Lyon not only acts as a member of international networks but has autonomously developed forms of policy boosterism and acts as a "transfer agent" (Stone, 2004: benefits in big urban area ̶ a fundamental knowledge to attract sponsor and financial partners (Pearce, 2013).…”

Preparations for Developing a World Design Capital: The Case of Taipei City Transformation Process in Taiwan

“…Therefore, the trend of transforming cities into liveable, sustainable, diverse and innovative urban places that can satisfy public's varied demands has become a recent focus [5,6]. Complying with these ideas, many global cities, such as Amsterdam, Berlin, San Francisco, Austin, Seoul, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, have regarded the use of design as a fundamental tool and a policy driver to reshape government organizations, cityscapes and environments, making cities more attractive, more liveable and more sustainable [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”