La gouvernance des itinéraires culturels transnationaux et le rôle des organisations de gestion: une analyse comparative entre le Chemin de Saint-Jacques et la Via Francigena

The Cultural Routes programme was created in 1987 by the Council of Europe (COE) with the fundamental premise that, by travelling through space and time, European citizens could become aware of their shared cultural heritage and common values, contributing to intercultural exchange and mutual understanding across borders. Notably, the Camino de Santiago was chosen as the first European cultural route to act as an emblematic example for future cooperation projects, highlighting the values of tolerance, respect, freedom of movement and solidarity to transcend national borders and foster cohesion among European states (https://rm.coe.int/16806f57d6). The number of cultural routes (CRs) has been growing ever since, counting 47 itineraries in 2023 (https://www.coe.int/en/web/cultural-routes/by-theme). CRs constitute strategic instruments to translate the principles and goals of the COE and the European Union, related to cultural heritage preservation, social cohesion and economic development, into concrete local actions. Their activities have to respond to five priority fields of action: 1) Cooperation in research and development, 2) Enhancement of memory, history and European heritage, 3) Cultural and educational exchanges for young Europeans, 4) Contemporary cultural and artistic practice, 5) Cultural tourism and sustainable cultural development. The transnational nature of CRs implies that they can be considered complex territorial systems (Berti, 2013), formed by a myriad of existing relationships between a wide range of stakeholders, whose success lies in achieving collaboration at local, regional, national and supranational levels (Timothy & Olsen, 2018). A common characteristic shared by all CRs is that they are organised as networks of actors (DECRA, 2019) with a legal status, which can take the form of an association or federation of associations. These organisations managing CRs can play a critical role, acting as the orchestrators of the several players involved at different scales, stimulating local development and transnational cooperation. However, they have limited resources and decision-making power, which results in a low impact on the policymaking process, which lies at the regional or national level (Council of Europe, 2011). Through the lenses of economic geography and tourism studies, we will build from the literature on territorial governance to address some critical issues, including 1) Which are the different governance models adopted by CR networks? 2) How do these governance models influence their capacity to impact policymaking at various scales? Finally, 3) How could CRs’ managing organisations be empowered to play the crucial role of achieving coordination and overcoming the current fragmentation across the regions and countries traversed? To this end, we will analyse the governance model of the European Federation of St. James Way, established in 2011 to coordinate the efforts of the several countries that have trails leading to Santiago de Compostela. This will be complemented by studying the governance model of the European Association on the Vie Francigene (established in 2001). The two of them are medieval pilgrimage routes leading to the tombs of St. James (Santiago de Compostela) and St. Peter (Rome), traversing several European countries and regions, sparking different levels of attention of policymakers and stakeholders interested in their socio-economic dimension as slow tourism infrastructures. From the methodological point of view, firstly, an in-depth descriptive analysis of each governance model (including their degree of centralisation, formalisation, typology of members and interaction among them, etc.) will be performed, followed by a comparative analysis among them, using qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews with members of the routes and document analysis. The expected contribution of this study is to shed light on the strategic potential of CR networks, and particularly the managing organisations of these networks, to increase their decision-making power and financial resources, to effectively play the leading role that is expected from them in the coordination of actors along these transnational cultural routes.