Cultural policies in the South of Europe after the global economic crisis: is there a Southern model within the framework of European convergence?

In the twenty-first century, culture has become a valuable resource for European countries, particularly those with abundant cultural heritage, as is the case in Southern European countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. This is why cultural policy in these countries has experienced two decades of expansion and, to some extent, convergence with other European countries. Thus, can we still speak about a cultural policy model in the South of Europe? Based on qualitative and quantitative analyses, we show that these countries still have their own cultural policy model but that, after the global economic crisis in 2008, the trend towards the European convergence of this public policy has stopped.