Intentions & effects : the rhetoric of current cultural policy in England

As its title suggests, this thesis - the critical commentary together with a body of published works - questions the effectiveness of cultural policy with respect to museums and galleries in England. Its focus is on cultural policy under New Labour, and its implementation through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in particular. The department was established within months of the 1997 election and was intended to ensure the effective delivery of government objectives from the outset. This entailed the department's 'comprehensive reform' of the `cultural framework', its pursuit of an instrumentalist agenda and its desire to determine and direct the effectiveness of its sponsored bodies. This effort was predicated on the assumption that there is an implicit and highly determined relationship between policy, funding, implementation and outcomes. Nevertheless, however strategic DCMS's actions might have been, there is little hard evidence of its effectiveness. The process of converting intention into effect appears to have proved more problematic than the rhetoric suggests. In setting out and supporting that proposition, this thesis describes those policies which have determined support for the cultural sector since 1997, particularly in respect of museums and galleries. It considers their background and implementation, summarises the financial value of the support provided and interrogates the evidence as to their outcomes. It argues that, as yet, many of the objectives shared by DCMS and its so-called 'family' of sponsored bodies have not yet been delivered, and that many of the claims made for the subsidised cultural sector more generally remain unsubstantiated. It also points to recent signs that suggest that the department is now wavering on its original ambitions.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

What’s the Secret to Longevity?

Capstone presentation for the University of Richmond SSIR (Sophomore Scholars in Residence) Program.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/ssir-presentations-2017/1006/thumbnail.jp

Mainstreaming social sciences expertise in UK environment policy and practice organisations: retrospect and prospect

Building upon the concept of mainstreaming social sciences within conservation, we consider their mainstreaming, and so integration, within UK environment policy and practice (EPP) organisations. The paper responds to increasing calls to recognise the essential role of social sciences in addressing global environmental crises across policy, practice and research. An actor-oriented approach was deployed, producing empirical information from a multi-stage, co-designed, collaborative study involving 19 social scientists from a range of EPP organisations, to understand how they experience the mainstreaming of social sciences. The findings contribute to debates about the politics of knowledge in organisational domains other than those focused on research, specifically EPP organisations. Evidence was found of recent positive changes in how social sciences are perceived, resourced and utilised within EPP, as well as examples of positive impact. However, although EPP organisations are recognising the opportunities that social sciences expertise brings, in practice social sciences still face barriers to effective integration. Many of the challenges faced by the social sciences within academic multi-discipline research (e.g., late, narrow, or selective enrolment) were also experienced in EPP organisations, along with some unique challenges. Informed by the findings, the paper proposes a set of integration indicators designed to assess organisational progress toward addressing the observed challenges. It is recommended that these indicators are employed at a strategic level by EPP organisations seeking to better integrate social sciences expertise into their work

Museums for the many? Rhetorical optimism and the failure of sustained political will at three London government-funded museums – then and now

<p>This article contends that there are considerable similarities between nineteenth- and twenty-first-century aspirations for museums – not least, in respect to promises of “museums for the many”. Despite contemporary policy makers of different political allegiances embracing similar rhetorics, in general they appear to have had little interest in reflecting on previous realities. This article focuses on attendances at three national museums, in particular the British Museum, the National Gallery and, the Victoria & Albert Museum (formerly, the South Kensington Museum) over two periods: from the early 1850s to the late 1880s, and from the late 1970s to the present. It interrogates those and other institutions’ visit data for evidence of whether they did, indeed, deliver to “the many”. It questions the commitment of state-supported museums to those target audiences, both then and now.</p

Conversations and Collaborations: The Leadership of Collaborative Projects between Higher Education and the Arts and Cultural Sector

No abstract available

Conversations and Collaborations: The Leadership of Collaborative Projects between Higher Education and the Arts and Cultural Sector

No abstract available

Museums in the U.K.: Some Evidence on Scale and Activities

This paper reviews the availability and quality of statistical evidence on the structure, visitor patterns and funding of the museum sector in the U.K. The policy context is discussed and the implications for cultural economics are reviewed. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1998museums, statistics, visitor numbers, access, policy,