Privatizing the public
Three rhetorics of art’s public good in ‘Third Way’ cultural policy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23201857 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andy Hewitt (University of Wolverhampton, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 19-36 |
| Publication date | 2011-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Art & the Public Sphere (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2042-793X • E-ISSN: 2042-7948 |
| Publisher | Intellect (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1386/aps.1.1.19_1 |
| OpenAlex | W2327670699 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
This article considers the development of cultural policy as part of New Labour’s Third Way governance and identifies three rhetorics of state-funded art: art as a form of cultural democracy; art as an economic driver; and art providing solutions for social amelioration. The text describes how the liberal conception of art and culture, i.e., having universal benefit as a public good, was extended to function within wider policy directives that were ultimately aimed at driving Third Way conceptions of public good. It provides a critique of the positivist claims for state-funded art as producing social transformation and instead points to how art commissioned as part of culture-led regeneration was instrumental and complicit with an agenda of privatization and marketization. It suggests that this has had negative consequences for democracy.
Corporate governance · Cultural policy · Democracy · Economics · Function (biology) · Marketization · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positivism · Public policy · Sociology · State (computer science) · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Public Administration · Social and Cultural Dynamics
| Citations per year | 0.62 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2021 (9) |
| Highly cited | No |