POLITICS, POLICIES AND PEOPLE: Structure and Agency in Museums and Galleries

1. POLITICS, POLICIES AND PEOPLE: Structure and Agency in Museums and Galleries CLIVE GRAY De Montfort University cjg@dmu.ac.uk

2. INTRODUCTION • Instrumentality: endogenous and exogenous variables • Both have an effect but… • Which have the greater influence? • What is their precise relationship?

3. STRUCTURE AND AGENCY • ‘Men make history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing’ (Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon’) • Giddens: two sides of the same coin: structuration • Archer: continuously entwined: morphogenesis and morphostasis • New institutionalism (structural) • Social Constructivism (agential)

4. EXOGENOUS STRUCTURES • Circulars 2. Confirmatory/appellate power 3. Adjudication 4. Inspection 5. Default powers 6. Audit 7. Control of officers 8. Local Bills 9. Control of grants 10. Control of borrowing 11. Planning systems 12. General legislation 13. General financial controls 14. Best Value 15. Comprehensive Area Assessments 16. Local Performance Indicators 17. Funding Agreements 18. Public Service Agreements 19. Local Area Agreements 20. Key Lines of Enquiry for Service Inspection

5. ENDOGENOUS STRUCTURES • 1. MLA: Museum Accreditation Scheme • 2. MLA: Leading Museums: A Vision and Strategic Action Plan for English Museums • 3. Museums Association: Code of Ethics for Museums • (International Council of Museums Code) • (Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art)

6. ‘WHATABOUTTHEWORKERS?’ • Attachmentargument: choose to align with other policy areas • Instrumentalisation: contested process – top-down meets bottom-up views • Managing external demands – exogenous and endogenous

7. MANAGING CULTURE • Problems: • Definition • Causality • Measurement • Attribution • Sectoral

8. MANAGING PRESSURE: Example • Performance Indicators • Used internally (managerially) and • Externally (politically/principal-agent relations) • Deriving from: • (New) public management • Evidence-based policy making

9. PROBLEMS: • Tunnel Vision • Suboptimization • Myopia • Measure fixation • Misrepresentation • Misinterpretation • Gaming • Ossification (Smith, 1995)

10. CONSEQUENCES • Continuousprocessofmaking/remaking the tools of control • Continuous process of actively managing the tools of control by those that they are applied to (‘we are not a government poodle’) • An entrenchment of inter-organisational political struggle • A potential to emphasise exogenous controls over endogenous ones • A potential to concentrate on unintended rather than intended consequences

11. SOME QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER • Locational: are the same pressures present at the local/regional/nationallevels? • Behavioural: what are the mechanisms that are used by political actors in managing the process? • Situational: how important is context in affecting what takes place within the system? What is happening in other policy sectors? What is happening elsewhere in government? • Party political: do any of the political parties have any idea at all of what they are demanding?

12. STRUCTURE/AGENCY REVISITED • Structurebyitselfis a rough guide to action • Agency turns this into reality • This can lead to reinforcement of the existing system • OR, it can lead to a change in the system • Longitudinal analysis is essential to understand what is taking place • Structure/Agency is not whether one is more important than another, or the relative weightings between them, or, even, which takes precedence

13. STRUCTURE AND AGENCY CONTINUED • Instead it is how the two mutually interact on a continuous basis • To produce mutable – and, occasionally, stable -forms of action and structure • The inter-dependence of the two can best be seen in an historical perspective

14. References • Archer, M, Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach (1995, Cambridge University Press) • Gibson, L, ‘In Defence of Instrumentality’, Cultural Trends, Vol. 17, pp. 247-57, 2008 • Giddens, A, The Constitution of Society (1984, Polity) • Gray, C, ‘Local Government and the Arts’, LocalGovernment Studies, Vol. 28, pp. 77-90, 2002 • Gray, C, ‘Managing Culture: Pitfalls and Prospects’, Public Administration, Vol. 85, pp. 574-85, 2009 • Marx, K, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon’, pp. 143-249 in D. Fernbach (Ed), Surveys From Exile: Political Writings, Volume 2 (1973, Penguin/New Left Review) • Smith, P, ‘On the Unintended Consequences of Publishing Performance Data in the Public Sector’, International Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 18, pp. 277-310, 1995 • West, C & C. Smith, ‘”We are not a Government Poodle”: Museums and Social Inclusion Under New Labour’, International Journal of Cultural Policy, Vol. 11, pp. 275-88, 2005

15. Web-site addresses • MLA: (Accreditation) www.mla.gov.uk/what/raising_standards/accreditation • MLA (Leading Museums) www.mla.gov.uk/what/strategies/~/media/Files/pdf/2009/MLA_Museum_ActionPlan_final • Museums Association (Code of Ethics) www.museumsassociation.org/download?id=15717 • Washington Conference www.lootedart.com/MG7QA043892