Hyperinstrumentalism and cultural policy: means to an end or an end to meaning?. Issue 2 (3rd April 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hadley, Steven; Gray, Clive
• Is Part Of: Cultural trends. Volume 26:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 95
• Page End: 106
• Publication Date: 2017-04-03
• Subjects: Cultural policy -- instrumentalism -- hyperinstrumentalism -- Northern Ireland; Arts -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; Culture -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; 306.0941
• DOI: 10.1080/09548963.2017.1323836
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0954-8963

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the implications for cultural policy of the logic of the instrumental view of culture taken to its conclusion. Policy developments that establish sets of justifications and rationales that have nothing to do with the cultural content of the policy concerned, but which arise from a deliberate realignment of policy frameworks, establish a form of hyperinstrumentalism. With hyperinstrumentalism the focus on outcomes and the ends of policy means that cultural policy is only as important as the ends to which it is directed. As such, hyperinstrumentalisation demonstrates the consequences for the sector of conditions where claims about the value of culture are irrelevant to political actors. The paper questions whether sense can be made of this shift as a coherent and strategic political choice, rather than as a simple assault on culture. The case of Northern Ireland's Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure is used to illustrate this. The authors question whether hyperinstrumentalism undermines the justification for an autonomous domain of cultural policy.