I am leading a short research project to enquire into the possible use of art and culture in policy, combining practice-based research, interviews with policymakers and theorists, and a review of the literature. I recently shared my emerging thinking with the Social Design Institute (part of the University of the Arts London), the organisation supervising this research. Presenting early findings forced the discipline of asking some foundational questions, including: what is policy and why would it even matter if art or culture had a role in it?
As a policymaker of 15 years experience, as well being a practising visual artist, I acknowledge that this is something I likely take for granted. This second blog in the series (read the first here) attempts to dig a little deeper, and consider:
what ‘policy’ actually is,
the relationship between art/culture and policy,
whether policy actually matters.
What is policy?
Spoiler alert: this is the kind of question which doesn’t necessarily have an easy answer.
If we start with the basics, the Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘policy’ as “a course or principle of action adopted or proposed by an organisation or individual”. So far so good, but it is worth also considering the OED’s definition of ‘politics’: “the activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having power”. The subtle distinction between policy and politics is often underplayed. The Institute for Government argues that politics is an integral ingredient to policymaking (page 35). This opens up some promising artistic strategies, as shown in the image below, and as will be described in later articles.
Politics as an ingredient to policy - implying a possible role for art, as well as other types of knowledge and phenomena (image credit: the author)
For now, though let’s return to definitions. The OED’s versions are useful, but perhaps a little oversimplified to enable us to really dig into the link between art and policy. Professor Paul Cairney dedicates a fabulous page of thoughts and resources to the question “What is Policy”, including eight alternative definitions by various theorists. Based on this, I have been considering policy in the following way, which slightly adapts the definition provided by Cairney at the start of his page:
The sum total of government action, from signals of intent to the final outcomes, and including decisions not to take action.
- Adapted from Cairney (2016)
A definition of policy, adapted from one provided by Paul Cairney, drawing out some of the key implications (image credit: the author)
As Cairney notes, and as shown at the top and bottom of the above diagram, this definition introduces important concepts which again will become interesting when we look through the lens of artistic and cultural practice:
The distinction between what government says it is going to do (intent) and what actually happens (outcomes)
Decisions to act, or decisions not to act
The relationship between art/culture and policy
To this author there is (at least) a bidirectional relationship between policy and art/culture. This is shown in the schematic below.
The top half covers what might be called ‘cultural policy’; this is policy which affects art and culture directly. In the UK context, it would include many of the policies made by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), as well as policies which drive funding priorities by organisations like the Arts Council England, including which population groups and art forms might get what. (‘Non-cultural’ policy is also relevant, as shown by the top loop, e.g. if transport is expensive to cultural venues, that will affect who participates). There’s a slew of local government policies, from Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 to the 2020 Rome Charter, and international cultural policy, for example relating to UNESCO’s activities. Cultural policy is both important and the subject of much critique and reflection in the literature.
A possible relationship between policy and art/culture (image credit: the author)
The bottom half demonstrates the other side of the equation, the potential impact of art and culture on ‘policy’. ‘Policy’ here doesn’t need to be cultural policy; it could be (the impact of art and culture on) equalities policy, environmental policy, housing policy, welfare, austerity, international relations and so on. This comprises the scope of this research project.
Do policies matter?
There is a huge literature dedicated to evaluating the impact of policies; keeping with the artistic nature of this enquiry, the collage below provides a visual reference for some significant policies made in the 20th and 21st centuries, with an acknowledged bias towards British policy.
A visual reference of some significant policies made in the 20th and 21st centuries, (with an acknowledged bias towards British policy). Image credits: top left: Guardian/PA Archives; top centre: Independent/Getty; top right: Britannica/ Keystone—Hulton Archive/Getty Images; bottom left: BBC; bottom centre: Lewis Hine.
Do any of these mean anything to you? Clockwise, from top left:
The UK’s 1980 Housing Act gave all council tenants the right to buy houses they lived in, at a substantial discount. According to Anthony King and Ivor Crewe, “No single piece of legislation has enabled the transfer of so much capital wealth from the state to the people”. The image is of Margaret Thatcher after handing over the deeds of the house to the Pattersons of Harold Hill, Essex in 1980.
The history of NHS over the last 20 years demonstrates an interesting example of a policy decision not to take action. Whilst many will argue that the NHS has been profoundly changed by recent UK governments (the King’s Fund provide a good summary of the evidence here), throughout that time the status quo has been preserved in that there does remain a state-funded national health service in the UK, despite significant opposition in some quarters. The image, top centre, is from Danny Boyle’s 2012 Olympic Ceremony, cited by some of my interviewees as buttressing this policy status quo.
The UK’s 1956 Clean Air Act established urban zones where only clean fuel could be burned, plus provisions relating to factories and power stations. The image, top right, is of a police officer in the 1952 Great Smog of London, whose consequences, arguably, prompted the passing of the Clean Air Act four years later. This piece of legislation has been described as a “turning point in the history of environmentalism”.
The bottom left image is of a turtle entangled by plastic, from the BBC’s Blue Planet II. This BBC programme’s imagery has been described by some of my interviewees as instrumental in the UK’s 2019 announcement to ban plastic straws and increase the price of one-use plastic bags.
The image at bottom centre is of Pennsylvania coal breakers, known as ‘breaker boys’, children who would separate impurities from coal by hand. The photograph is by Lewis Hine; images such as these have been argued to “help bring about child labour laws” in the US, most prominently the 1937 Fair Labor Standards which prohibited children under 14 from working, and regularised work conditions for 14-17 year olds.
In 1955 Japan passed the Atomic Energy Basic Law outlining the basics of use of nuclear energy in Japan. In 2011 , the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered a disastrous failure as a result of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami (image bottom right).
This inventory of policies includes some you may like, some you may dislike; some that may be seen as successful, some that may be seen as failures; some policies which change the status quo, some which maintain it; some policies which are enacted through parliamentary legislation, some which are more the result of political statements or even backroom discussions.
It does illustrate, to this author at least, that policies matter. The significance of these is hard to deny - and we can easily add others, such as President Trump’s announcement in 2017 of the US’s withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation, the De Klerk’s government 1991 repeal of the Population Registration Act, Prime Minister Cameron’s 2013 commitment to an in/out EU referendum if the Conservatives were to win the 2015 election and so on.
And even if policies don’t have the significant impacts that some of that list might - even if they are completely unsuccessful, a waste of time, effort and resources - well that matters too. The UK’s 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act is seen as an exemplar par excellence of this kind of failure, whilst King and Crewe’s Blunders of Government lists another 12 examples. The very time, effort and resources expended in such endeavours could have been dedicated to other policy areas. Going back to Paul Cairney’s work on definitions, what doesn’t get on the agenda matters as much as what does.
Summary and next steps for the research
Work-in-progress artwork to explore the use of art in policy through an experiential approach (image credit: the author)
Having considered some of the basic questions relating to policy, the next stages of this research are to:
Continue interviews with policymakers, artists and practitioners to understand their perspectives;
Consider definitional issues relating to art and culture (readers will note the distinction is blurred in this article);
Synthesise findings into a conceptual framework for how art/culture can inform, or be useful in, policy, if indeed it can;
Continue to make artwork to enable the next, experiential phase of the research (see latest work-in-progress above).
As ever, please contact me via mail or twitter with your thoughts on this subject.