Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Arts of Public Value

  • Chapter
The Public on the Public: The British Public as Trust, Reflexivity and Political Foreclosure

  • 82 Accesses

Abstract

Since the mid 2000s, the public’s ‘public value’ has become a major conceptual driver of cultural governance, turning earlier economic measures into more discursive ones. The ethos of ‘public value’ and ‘public values’ has become endemic in public service reform, but specifically arts management, funding and, relatedly, education. This chapter argues that the official push for public consensus, especially as it gained strength after the Financial Blitz, has extended cultural governance through a cognitive elite performing a sophisticated empathetic universalism. The result is a perpetual narrowing of the terms of debate within, across and between institutional spaces, and a honing of cognitive labour to ensure that the discursive force of the public continues.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. See Vicky Richardson (2012) ‘Point of View: The London Olympics’ First Public Viewing Platform’, in Hilary Powell & Isaac Marrero-Guillamón (eds) The Art of Dissent (London: Marshgate), pp. 68–71. Richardson analyses the ‘Point of View’ interventions of the Office for Subversive Architecture, and similar entries appear in this edited collection.

    Google Scholar 

  2. John Morton (2011–12) wri. and dir. Twenty Twelve, Series One BBC Four March 2011, Series Two BBC Two March 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Gardiner and Westall (14 June 2012).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Mark Perryman (2012) Why The Olympics Aren’t Good for Us, and How They Can Be (London: OR Books), p. 60.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Anna Minton (2012) Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City 2nd edition–with new material (London: Penguin), pp. xi–xxxvii.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Also see Phil Cohen (2013) On the Wrong Side of the Tracks?: East London and the Post Olympics (London: Lawrence and Wishart London), pp. 10–12 and pp. 36–65.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Minton (2012), pp. xix–xxiii.

    Google Scholar 

  8. See Cohen (2013), pp. 286–

    Google Scholar 

  9. Ibid., p. 286.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Arts Council England (2013) Great Art and Culture for Everyone: 10 Year Strategic Framework, 2010–20, 2nd Edition Revised (Manchester: Arts Council England), p. 25.

    Google Scholar 

  11. See Danny Dorling (2011) Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists (London: Polity Press). Dorling makes a thorough case for seeing London as one of the most unequal cities in the first world and unpacks this over the course of the book.

    Google Scholar 

  12. See Mark H. Moore (1997 ]1995[) Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  13. David Coats and Eleanor Passmore (2008) ‘Public Value: The Next Steps in Public Service Reform’ (London: The Work Foundation), p. 4 http://www.theworkfoundation.com/assets/docs/publications/201_pv_public_service_ reform_final.pdf.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Iestyn Williams and Heather Shearer (2011) ‘Appraising Public Value: Past, Present and Futures’ Public Administration 89/4: 1367–84 (p. 1370).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Louise Horner, Rohik Lekhi and Ricardo Blaug (2006) Deliberative Democracy and the Role of Public Managers (London: The Work Foundation), p. 44.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Diane Coyle and Christopher Woolard (2010) Public Value in Practice: Restoring the Ethos of Public Service (London: BBC Trust), p. 9.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Horner . (2006), p. 8.

    Google Scholar 

  18. See Anthony Giddens (1991) The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press); Giddens (1998) The Third Way (Cambridge: Polity Press).

    Google Scholar 

  19. RSA (2014) ‘About’ http://www.thersa.org/about-us.

  20. RSA (2014) ‘Fellowship’ http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/apply/uk.

  21. Matthew Taylor (2010) 21st Century Enlightenment (London: RSA) p. 11 http://www.thersa.org/about-us/rsa-pamphlets/21st-century-enlightenment.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Ibid., p. 14.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Ibid., p. 18.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Ibid., p. 30.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Ibid., pp. 15–16.

    Google Scholar 

  26. John Knell and Matthew Taylor (2011) Funding, Austerity and the Big Society: Remaking the case for the arts (London: RSA), p. 18 http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/pdf/RSA-Pamphlets-Arts_Funding_Austerity_ BigSociety.pdf.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Coats and Eleanor Passmore (2008), p. 4.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Burke (1990), p. 62.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Arts Council England (2013), p. 25. Also see Knell and Taylor (2011), p. 18.

    Google Scholar 

  30. See The National Lottery http://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/.

  31. See, for example, AHRC (2014) ‘Cultural Value Project’ http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funded-Research/Funded-themes-and-programmes/Cultural-Value-Project/Pages/default.aspx.

  32. Paolo Virno (2004) A Grammar of the Multitude, trans. Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito and Andrea Casson (New York: Semiotext(e), p. 85.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Will Davies (14 April 2013) ‘Britain’s Brezhnev-Style Capitalism’, openDemocracyhttps://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/will-davies/ britains-brezhnev-style-capitalism.

  34. Curran and Seaton (1988), p. 359.

    Google Scholar 

  35. BBC Media Centre (12 June 2012) ‘Radio 3 Announces New Generation Thinkers 2012’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2012/ngt2012. html. Also see AHRC ‘Next Generation Thinkers 2014’ http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Pages/New-Generation-Thinkers-2014.aspx.

  36. Arts and Humanities Research Council (2013) ‘The Human World: The Arts and Humanities in Our Times’ (n.p.: AHRC) p. 28 http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/ News-and-Events/News/Documents/AHRC-Strategy-2013-18.pdf.

  37. Ibid., p. 8.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of York, UK

    Claire Westall (Lecturer)

  2. University of Warwick, UK

    Michael Gardiner (Professor)

Authors
  1. Claire Westall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michael Gardiner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 2014 Claire Westall and Michael Gardiner

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Westall, C., Gardiner, M. (2014). The Arts of Public Value. In: The Public on the Public: The British Public as Trust, Reflexivity and Political Foreclosure. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137351340_6

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation