Dr O'Brien's slides from lecture 2, After the 'golden age' of culture and urban regeneration.

The second part of this lecture presents a detailed case study of Liverpool, European Capital of Culture 2008. The lecture outlines the impact of hosting the European Capital of Culture, across a series of domains, including social, economic and artistic impacts. The lecture then explores issues of leadership and the transformation of the city’s governance network, particularly the role of the arts and cultural sector, as a result of preparing for and hosting 2008. The conclusion considers the position of social science research into the impact of 2008 in constructing narratives of success based on the ‘Liverpool Model’ of culture-led regeneration which now underpins projects such as the UK City of Culture.

This lecture is the first of four case studies illustrating the issues discussed in lecture one. The opening part of this lecture discusses culture-led regeneration and its preponderance within British cultural policy during the period of the New Labour administration. Using the case of European Capital of Culture, the lecture outlines theories of culture-led regeneration and argues for the importance of place and difference, against narratives of homogeneity within local cultural policy in the UK. This first part concludes with an analysis of Newcastle and Gateshead’s join bid to host European Capital of Culture in 2008 and how it differed from the experience in Liverpool.

Dr O'Brien's slides from lecture 1, From Government to Governance: The uneasy place of cultural policy.

The final part of the introductory lecture offers a counterpoint to ideas of individualisation with the theories of governmentality associated with Michel Foucault. Governmentality is explored alongside the reflexivity of social scientific methods, particularly economics, within evidence based policy making and the management of risk in contemporary public administration. The lecture concludes with a critique of current thinking in contemporary British administration and the limits of this approach to cultural policy.

Part two of this introductory lecture covers the transition from government to governance within UK politics and outlines the significance of this change for cultural policy. Governance, a key concept for understanding the second lecture on urban regeneration, is understood against the backdrop of wider social changes to British society in modernity and after.

This introductory lecture sets out the core themes of the course- contemporary cultural policy against the backdrop of changes to British public administration and British society. The first part of the lecture sets out the ‘problem’ of cultural policy for contemporary British administration and unpacks the reasons for the peripheral place of cultural policy in both the theory and practice of British politics. The introduction then moves to describe the rise of the managerialist, technocratic approach to policy making that underpins much of the modern policy process.