The Effects of Administrative Reforms on the Activities of Advocacy Groups
Pierre-André Hudon
September 2008
In recent years, the role of organizations in the cultural sector has undergone radical change. Having started out as relatively autonomous interest representation groups acting in the political realm, they now find themselves to be partners of government at various levels in the planning and implementation of public policy. The adaptation of organizational capabilities to this new paradigm, in which government funding is everdecreasing, has thus become an essential survival skill.
Accordingly, this study sets out to analyze changes in public governance in recent years, to assess the cultural sector’s adaptation to this new environment, and to lay out potential future orientations for the sector.
The methodology combines a literature review covering theory applicable to the nonprofit and communitybased sector and to the cultural sector specifically with a threefold case study. The paper opens with an overview of recent administrative reforms, considering their impact on organizations in the nonprofit and communitybased sector. It then moves on to an analysis of the specificities of the cultural sector, and the challenges it faces. The following sections cover the strategies which comparable sectors environmentalism, forestry, and feminism have
adopted to respond to these shifts. The study closes by highlighting the findings relevant to the cultural sector, and does so along three orientations: the organization of the cultural sector, the legitimacy of its demands, and the nature of its activities.
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