Instrumental policies : causes, consequences, museums and galleries

Abstract

Instrumentalization has been seen to have taken place in the museums and galleries sector in Britain, and across the cultural sector as a whole. This article locates this instrumentalization in the context of changes in both the public management of goods and services within the British political system and the dominant ideologies that are used by political parties. The specific characteristics of the cultural policy sector are shown to have mediated these changes and, consequently, how instrumentalization has been introduced, and managed, within it. The ability of endogenous actors to manage the instrumentalization process demonstrates that it is neither inevitable nor unmanageable