Ministry of Cultural Re-Centralization? Spanish Cultural Policy, from a Regionalized State System to Madrid’s Promotion as Hegemonic Cultural Capital (1980-2019)

Abstract European cultural policies experienced a decentralization process in the late twentieth century, in which regional and local governments took center stage rather than central governments. Thus, Spain represents a prominent and unique case in this trend, in which a state that inherited absolutism and centralist and authoritarian government, also adopted a decentralized model in cultural policy very quickly on its return to democracy. However, it did not take on a federal form of shared government but rather a decentralized government where the regions undertook active cultural actions. Nevertheless, as of the year 2000 and especially after the great recession of 2008, the Ministry of Culture, traditionally located in the capital, resumed the centralist path under a national construction program of a large hegemonic capital, namely Madrid. The undertaking of a research project and the analysis of secondary data lead us to the conclusion that the central government has progressively shelved cultural decentralization, adopting a hierarchical and unifying conception of cultural policy, that is, a cultural recentralization.