Managing Cultural Policy: Pitfalls and Prospects

Abstract

Cultural policies have become increasingly used by governments to fulfil a large number of policy requirements. The extent to which such policies are capable of being effective in fulfilling governmental goals is open to doubt since there are considerable definitional, methodological, analytical and structural difficulties associated with such policies. This paper identifies and analyses these difficulties and indicates that considerable pitfalls lie in the way of attempts to develop, manage and implement effective cultural policies.

¿Por qué las políticas culturales locales no cambian? Constricciones del modelo urbano, inercia en la gestión y batallas culturales en los «gobiernos del cambio» en Madrid y Barcelona (2015-2018)

“…Por otra parte, esta política pública dista de ser coherente y racionalmente orientada a causa del carácter difuso de su objeto de promoción, lo que comporta numerosas limitaciones y barreras organizativas al cambio (Gray, 2009). Asimismo, podemos ver cómo a nivel periodístico, o por parte de ciertos sectores, se exagera la magnitud del cambio, por ejemplo respecto a la reorientación neoliberal de las políticas culturales de las últimas décadas (Gattinger y St. Pierre, 2010;Murray y Marontate, 2010;Hesmondhalgh et al, 2015).…”

Are governmental culture departments important? An empirical investigation

“…ix Thus the Department for Health and the Department for Communities and Local Government both contribute to 18 PSAs but Communities and Local Government leads on 3 and Health on 2, consequently the former has a higher ranking than the latter. X The difficulties of defining culture for the work of governments in this field is well recognised (Gray, 2009) but for current purposes clarity is concerned with functional, rather than subject, coherence. Xi Whether the description of European states as being fully 'welfare states' is still appropriate can be argued about but given that no other collective description appears to be close to the manner in which they function the title has been retained.…”

“…The explanations that have been proposed for this lack of central significance have generally referred to matters of specific sectoral characteristics, involving lack of political support or interest in the sector (Gray, 2000;2002), the dependency on arm's-length forms of organisation for the implementation of cultural policy (see the general discussion of this point in Craik, 2007), and the complexity of the sector and the lack of clarity about what it is intended to do in terms of public policy (Gray, 2009). More recently Nesbitt (2010) has argued that the DCMS is defined as much by its relationship to other departments as by its own status: the reactive nature of policy statements from the DCMS to external criteria and policy concerns may indicate that the department is a hostage to instrumental concerns that it has limited control over, and it is this that leads to the relative lack of centrality of the DCMS.…”

“…There are many claims that the involvement of national governments with the cultural policy sector tends to err towards being undertaken reluctantly and with relatively low levels of practical support (Gray, 2009;McCall, 2009;Mulcahy, 2006;Rindzeviciute, 2008;Wyszomirski, 1999). Such a position for national governments can be explained as being a consequence of political choices to avoid accusations of state censorship or manipulation, or a lack of political significance being attached to the policy sector in comparison with such matters as the economy, foreign affairs, health, education or trade (Gray, 2002).…”

Analitzar la política cultural: incorregiblement plural o incompatible ontològicament?

“…Tot i que no es deixa de reconèixer el contingut i la significació dels "textos", en la ciència política l'enfocament general de l'anàlisi de la política cultural tendeix a adoptar formes força diferents (Gray, 2009 (Gray, 1996: 214-215).…”