Commodification and Instrumentality in Cultural Policy

Cultural policy has been changing in similar ways across many countries in recent years, with these changes placing an increasing emphasis upon the use of “culture”, and particularly the “arts”, as instrumental tools for the attainment of non‐cultural, non‐arts, goals and objectives. It is argued that this process is closely related to a broader set of societal changes – specifically the establishment and acceptance of a commodified conception of public policy – and that the future shape of cultural policy cannot be fully understood without reference to these changes. The fact that the precise nature of both the cultural policy and societal changes that are taking place differ considerably between nation‐states implies that arguments concerning the “globalisation” of culture and cultural policy require reformulation to take into account the specific variations that are generated by governmental choices.