The Trajectory of Industrialisation of Cultural Policy in Taiwan (1994-2012)

This thesis aims to investigate the trajectory of industrialisation in Taiwan’s cultural policy from 1994 to 2012. In order to identify significant discursive and structural factors that have shaped and underpinned the transformation of industrialisation of cultural policy, this research takes the Cultural Political Economy (CPE) as the theoretical perspective and adopts Jim McGuigan’s three discourses of cultural policy to explain the dialectic process between discursive formation and structuration. This thesis reveals that the projects of cultural industries, as well as the cultural and creative industries, emerged as a strategic response to changing political, economic and social structuration over the past two decades. In this context, the meaning of industrialisation has been entangled in multiple state projects and multiple articulations with local practice and diverse imaginaries. From the analysis, there are three core research findings and implications. Firstly, the hegemonic discourse ‘Industrialisation of Culture; Culturalisation of Industries’ has been mobilised by the state as a strategic fix, in three respective phases, to manage the issues of democratisation, the formation of national identity, the challenges of economic transformation, rural regeneration and cultural citizenship. Secondly, this research highlights policy implications for the industrialisation of cultural policy in Taiwan and other newly democratised countries. Taiwan’s case indicates that the cultural industries do not naturally contain economic discourse; they can bear democratic meanings, such as empowerment, participation and cultural citizenship, by state projects and local practice to engage people in public affairs and cultural events. Thirdly, this research has theoretical implications for cultural policy and CPE. In the field of cultural policy, this research, which adopts the theoretical perspective of CPE with three discourses of cultural policy, uncovers the dialectic between discourse formation and structuration; furthermore, it provides an empirical approach with the supplement of three discourses of cultural policy for applying CPE in cultural policy studies to investigate the evolution of hegemonic discourse and structuration.