10.34934/DVN/XDGDVR Dewinter, Hannehttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-0049-3744(Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Social Sciences and Digital Humanities Archive – SODHA 2025 This dataset contains 140 Flemish cultural policy documents published between 1990 and 2024. The collection includes strategic notes, policy plans, evaluation reports, ministerial briefs, and other official texts. The dataset was compiled for a critical discourse analysis examining how the rhetoric of participation is mobilised within Flemish cultural policy over time. The accompanying study identifies underlying paradigms and traces patterns, shifts, tensions, and omissions in participatory discourses across three decades of policymaking. The dataset enables researchers to explore how notions of participation relate to broader political, cultural, and institutional power dynamics. All documents were collected from public governmental sources or official archival portals. Dewinter, Hanne(Vrije Universiteit Brussel)Hanne Dewinter(Vrije Universiteit Brussel)