This study investigates the design of the Social Impact Commitment of Cultural Organisations (CISOC) within Portugal’s National Plan for the Arts (NPA) and focuses on two distinct conceptualisations of policy design: the process of policy designing and policy design as content. Through document analysis and participant observation, this research explores how the coexistence of cultural democratisation and cultural democracy influenced policy development. The study presents two findings: first, the process of policy designing reflected negotiations between these paradigms; second, the final content of CISOC highlights shifts in policy language, commitments, and target beneficiaries, indicating a trend towards the valorisation of the latter paradigm. These findings reveal the cumulative nature of cultural policy paradigms, suggesting that current cultural policies in Portugal integrate elements from both models at central and local levels.

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Cultural policy,Cultural democratisation,Cultural democracy,Policy design,Portugal,CISOC

• Sociology - Social Sciences
• Media and Communications - Social Sciences
• Other Social Sciences - Social Sciences
• Arts (arts, history of arts, performing arts, music) - Humanities

This publication is an output of the following project(s):

• A democracia cultural nas políticas culturais em Portugal