The articulation of culture in British governmental politics since 1945.

The relationship between government and culture, in Britain, has changed dramatically since 1945. It is the principal objective of this research to understand in what way the articulation of culture, in British governmental politics, has changed over that period. The research investigates the structures of the state that have been responsible for articulating that relationship, and the rationales produced by different political parties, at the time of an election, who have expressed a position on government's engagement with culture. Using a series of indicators for the presence of cultural policy in the election manifestos of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal/ Liberal Democrat parties, this thesis begins by quantitatively mapping the frequency of those indicators during elections from 1945 to 2010. That analysis is then used to identify both those sets of elections to be investigated further, and those parts of the manifestos to be subjected to a more detailed qualitative scrutiny. A critical approach is taken to the reading of the manifestos; bringing to the surface a discernment of how culture is being construed by the parties, and the way in which they have constructed the relationship between culture, the state and the citizen. Those constructions are then contextualised by locating their emergence in the structures, operating within each party, which bring policy areas to the fore, and the historical setting to which the parties were responding. Drawing on research strategies not normally associated with cultural policy studies, this thesis develops an empirically robust approach to the investigation of rationale within the discipline. By combining techniques from discourse analysis, governance and policy process studies, it also develops a novel means of adding contextual sensitivity to critical discourse analysis. This research is of importance to anyone interested in how government engages with culture, the impact that has on us all as citizens, and on some of us as arts practitioners.