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Aesthetics and Politics pp 165–189Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Knowledge Production as Mediator Between Aesthetics and Politics: The Role of Research in Cultural Policy

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Part of the book series: New Directions in Cultural Policy Research ((NDCPR))

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of knowledge and knowledge production within the discourse and practice of cultural policy. The vantage point of the analysis is that it is an interdependency between cultural policy and cultural policy research, between the production of knowledge and the production of policy. The nature of the interdependency and the relational structures between these two fields are the focal points of the chapter. Hylland and Mangset approach politics and expert knowledge as two distinctive value systems, and aim to understand how these systems interact. With a vantage point from general studies of political use of knowledge and using concrete cases of commissioned research, including their own, Hylland and Mangset describe a general framework for how we might understand and analyse the nature of the relation between cultural policy and cultural policy research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It was Professor Jon Bing, international expert of IT and information law, and (then) chair of the Arts Council, who assumed the responsibility to get the report published. During that same period (1994–2000), Mangset was working part-time with establishing a research unit in the Arts Council (Mangset 1997a, preface by Bing).

  2. 2.

    OCA, Music Norway, Performing Arts Hub Norway, etc. (MFA 2013, p. 15).

  3. 3.

    Mangset published these final publications shortly after the publication of the white paper (but he did not alter them because of it). Mangset had submitted a very similar preliminary report to the ministry before the termination of the white paper.

  4. 4.

    This and all other quotes from the white paper is translated by the authors.

  5. 5.

    Boswell discusses how different areas of policy relates to expert knowledge, and whether there are any general criteria that influences the role of this knowledge. Discussing this, she separates between instrumental and legitimizing functions of knowledge and uses several parameters to distinguish between different fields of policy. One central parameter is whether the policy area contributes to a visible output, and whether it is perceived to be a strong or weak causality between a visible output and policy intervention. These parameters are named Visibility and Attribution. Where both are high, an instrumental function of knowledge will be most likely, according to Boswell, while the legitimating function will be more important where there is a low visibility and a high attribution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Telemark Research Institute, Bø, Telemark, Norway

    Ole Marius Hylland & Per Mangset

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  1. Ole Marius Hylland
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  2. Per Mangset
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Correspondence to Ole Marius Hylland .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Telemark Research Institute, Bø, Telemark, Norway

    Ole Marius Hylland

  2. Linköping University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Erling Bjurström

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Hylland, O.M., Mangset, P. (2018). Knowledge Production as Mediator Between Aesthetics and Politics: The Role of Research in Cultural Policy. In: Hylland, O., Bjurström, E. (eds) Aesthetics and Politics. New Directions in Cultural Policy Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77854-9_6

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