Over the past decade, the European Union has fallen into a drawn-out crisis, politically as well as economically. In this book, the authors argue that analyses of this crisis miss an important element: culture. Faith in politics, like faith in a European currency, is first and foremost a cultural issue. Democracy is a matter of political culture, just as good economic relations are a matter of economic culture. So, culture as a shared frame of reference and as something that lends meaning to ...

This ground-breaking book shines a spotlight on how design has become embedded in political economies, emerging as a vital feature of neoliberal economic systems, from urban strategies to commercial processes to government policy-making.