Cultural Policy and a Creative and Cultural Industries ‘Paradox’ – An Introduction

The introduction chapter to this volume charts the evolution of the creative and cultural industries (CCIs) from a contested policy construct to a global policy mainstay, particularly since the turn of this century, and the monumental global events of the 2020s. As CCIs have gained prominence, they now confront a host of socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental challenges, such as inequality, precarious work, technological disruption, and climate change. Drawing on a number of theoretical approaches, the book focuses down on how creative work is shaped by institutional rules, organisational ecologies, and policy frameworks. As such it recasts CCIs as sites where value is generated through practices and infrastructures, not merely as economic pipelines. Central to the argument is the identification of CCIs as both shaped by and instrumental in perpetuating neoliberal paradoxes. While policy frames CCIs as flexible and innovative, as well as holding the promise of alleviating some of the aforementioned global challenges, they also foster precarity, risk transfer, and organisational fragmentation. Rather than dismissing these contradictions as mere anomalies, the book treats them as structural features integral to the sector’s policy genealogy. Through a series of case studies (16 in total), the volume demonstrates how these paradoxes play out in practice, spanning issues from urban policy and platformisation to climate action, social inclusion, and decolonisation. Each chapter unpacks a different facet of the CCIs–neoliberalism relationship, highlighting themes such as definitional tensions, measurement challenges, spatial strategies, digital transformation, legal dilemmas, climate ethics, and persistent inequalities. The introduction positions the volume within existing scholarship, arguing its distinctiveness lies in diagnosing CCIs not as separate from but coconstituted with neoliberal policy regimes. Ultimately, the book advocates moving beyond growth-centric policy, calling for a justice-oriented ecosystem approach that centres production conditions, equitable participation, and public cultural value alongside market outputs, setting the stage for systemic reform in the concluding chapter.