Politiche culturali, regimi urbani e processi di rigenerazione in due città europee: Sassari (Italia) e Saint-Étienne (Francia)

The analysis of urban cultural policies in Europe reveals a gradual shift from social and cultural objectives towards economic growth ones. The literature focuses on this process on the one hand highlighting the potential of "culture as an engine of the economy", on the other stressing the need for a cultural planning that allows abandoning the sectorial focus to adopt a territorial one. This work analyse the formation of urban coalitions composed by various actors converging around the development and the implementation of urban agendas in which culture plays an important role. The focus is here on culture as a political resource. It is here highlighted that urban cultural strategies are frequently drawn not only because they are potentially capable of triggering economic development processes but also because they represent a tool that facilitates cooperation between the different urban actors and the development of shared medium-long term urban agendas. To understand the recent transformations of the modes of urban government we have mobilised the urban regimes theory as it provides the tools for understanding and interpreting contemporary urban political economy. Based on the study of recent dynamics of Sassari in Italy and Saint-Etienne in France, this work seeks to highlight the existence of a relationship between the growth of culture importance and its role in structuring urban agendas and coalitions in two European cities.