The contextual background of this paper is a cultural collaboration between four municipalities located in the centre of Jutland (Horsens, Randers, Silkeborg and Viborg). In the matter of culture, small cities are in competition with other cities in and outside their own region, especially on the specialized experiences. This competition is scaling from intra- and interregional to international level. In the light of this, there is an increasing need for small cities and collaborations of small cities to think about their roles and opportunities in the culture and experience spaces. In this new situation, problems of different approaches to culture, cultural politics and cultural planning are imbedded. In this context, questions of cultural identity and the competition between cultural regions and cities, arises.

The analysis provides an overview of the development of Danish cultural politics in a local, national and international perspective. On a national to local level, the scale of culture politics can be described as both vertical and horizontal. On the vertical scale the state affects culture politics of the municipalities, by setting the frames for the money pools available. The horizontal level could be described as an interaction between equal actors. Furthermore, it would be possible to identify a spatial scale which describes the culture spaces, where the politics are confirmed. The comparison on the different scales results in a broader perspective in the thinking of culture, which might end up in a rethinking of the applied cultural politics of a certain cultural region.   

The results of this paper will be a general overview of the development of cultural politics in Denmark and in the cultural collaboration between the municipalities. Also it is a step closer to a definition of a scale of culture- and experience spaces, suitable for analysing the municipalities.