Cultural Policy as Conventional Public Policy

Abstract

There are many different research traditions that claim ownership of cultural policy as an object of study. The most conventional approach to cultural policy research used by these traditions consists of approaching cultural policy through the lenses of political scientists or public policy researchers — meaning that cultural policy is given no specific status and is seen as a “policy area or subfield” among others (environmental policy foreign policy immigration policy, transport policy fiscal policy social policy etc.). This approach builds on concepts, theories, and methods that rarely differ from those used to study other policy areas — from environmental policy to social policy, regardless of how unique or different these policy fields might be, the outlook and methods used to analyze them are often similar. This lens on cultural policy has been considerably influential in the development of the field and has contributed to a better understanding of national, regional, and local cultural policies. Additionally, the tools developed by this approach for comparative analysis and program evaluation have led to a rich practice of collaboration and knowledge dissemination between academia, governments, think tanks, and the broader arts community. Of course, this conception of cultural policy falls short at times, and many cultural policy researchers who are interested in some of the more specific dynamics of culture may consider this conventional approach to be oblivious to a number of important debates in cultural policy research.