Background information, lecture schedules, assignment details and reading lists for Dr O'Brien's 2011-12 module in Contemporary UK Cultural Policy.

Slides from Dr O'Brien's final lecture on contemporary UK cultural policy.

The conclusion to the course is a discussion of Coalition cultural policy. Coalition policy is compared with New Labour’s approach and similarities and differences are suggested. The need to deal with the financial crisis is show to be the dominant frame for Coalition policy, creating the backdrop for strategic priorities around the Olympics, digital provision and innovation and new forms of funding for cultural organisations. The successes and failures of the early phase of Coalition...

The concluding lecture begins with a case study of the BBC as an example of the themes of the course. The lecture begins by exploring the critiques and defences of the BBC’s part in contemporary British culture, before moving to analyse the BBC’s role in urban regeneration and management reform at the BBC. These two discussions link back to the first and second lectures of the course, showing the continued contested nature of culture, space and place, as well as showing the debates around...

Slides from Dr O'Brien's lecture on public value in cultural policy.

Part two of lecture four explores three case studies of the use of public value in cultural policy. The first case study, of Arts Council England’s Arts Debate, shows how public value was used as a form of institutional learning. The second, of the Heritage Lottery Fund’s use of public value, sees the term as a measurement framework. The final case study, of the BBC’s use of public value, presents the concept as a defensive strategy against ideological critiques and funding cuts. All three of...

The fourth lecture discusses the concept of public value. The first part of the lecture introduces the context of the development of public value, including ideas around New Public Management (NPM), New Labour’s approach to government and the limitations of the performance management techniques associated with NPM. The lecture then describes the development of public value, from its origins in Mark Moore’s work through to its current, fragmented, use in British public administration today....

Slides from Dr Dave O'Brien's lecture, Creative Work and Cultural Participation.

The second part of lecture three is concerned with creative work. It outlines ideas of creative industries, touching on key explanations for the rise of creative industries discourses. The lecture then links creative industries to the rise of entrepreneurialism and the importance of the concept of the creative worker as a response to ongoing dilemmas within the British economy. The lecture unpacks the ambivalences of creative labour, outlining issues of exploitation, self-management and...

Lecture three considers contemporary cultural participation and its relationship with creative work. Both parts of the lecture explore the individualisation thesis outlined in lecture one, contrasting this concept with Foucauldian approaches to managing and governing the self. The first part of the lecture discusses cultural consumption in contemporary British society, exploring who does why and why, against the backdrop of the ethos of creative workers. The cultural ‘omnivore’ thesis is...

Dr O'Brien's slides from lecture 2, After the 'golden age' of culture and urban regeneration.

The second part of this lecture presents a detailed case study of Liverpool, European Capital of Culture 2008. The lecture outlines the impact of hosting the European Capital of Culture, across a series of domains, including social, economic and artistic impacts. The lecture then explores issues of leadership and the transformation of the city’s governance network, particularly the role of the arts and cultural sector, as a result of preparing for and hosting 2008. The conclusion considers...

This lecture is the first of four case studies illustrating the issues discussed in lecture one. The opening part of this lecture discusses culture-led regeneration and its preponderance within British cultural policy during the period of the New Labour administration. Using the case of European Capital of Culture, the lecture outlines theories of culture-led regeneration and argues for the importance of place and difference, against narratives of homogeneity within local cultural policy in...

Dr O'Brien's slides from lecture 1, From Government to Governance: The uneasy place of cultural policy.

The final part of the introductory lecture offers a counterpoint to ideas of individualisation with the theories of governmentality associated with Michel Foucault. Governmentality is explored alongside the reflexivity of social scientific methods, particularly economics, within evidence based policy making and the management of risk in contemporary public administration. The lecture concludes with a critique of current thinking in contemporary British administration and the limits of this...

Part two of this introductory lecture covers the transition from government to governance within UK politics and outlines the significance of this change for cultural policy. Governance, a key concept for understanding the second lecture on urban regeneration, is understood against the backdrop of wider social changes to British society in modernity and after.

This introductory lecture sets out the core themes of the course- contemporary cultural policy against the backdrop of changes to British public administration and British society. The first part of the lecture sets out the ‘problem’ of cultural policy for contemporary British administration and unpacks the reasons for the peripheral place of cultural policy in both the theory and practice of British politics. The introduction then moves to describe the rise of the managerialist, technocratic...