No description available.

The aim of my research is to assess intended and unintended consequences of public subsidies to non-profit institutions, particularly focusing on the performing arts. In recent years, one of the main objectives of public subsidies has been to curb prices, in order to encourage widespread attendance by removing a barrier for groups traditionally excluded from live performances. But do lower prices encourage attendance. Are people who normally do not participate in art events, such as those from disadvantaged socio-economic groups, prevented from doing so by high prices. And do the public subsidies necessary to lower prices have unintended consequences that might work against the objective of broader attendance - for instance, by 'crowding-out' private donations and thereby reducing overall support to performing arts institutions. In my thesis I address these questions using data from the United Kingdom and the United States. In the first empirical component I explore to what extent admission prices influence the demand for live performances of wealthy, middle-class and deprived individuals. In the second part I assess to what extent public subsidies are correlated with attendance analysing the 2002 American Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. While the results of the price elasticity of the demand for performing arts study highlight a significant inverse correlation between attendance and prices, the analysis of the impact of public subsidies on attendance indicates that the former do not significantly influence the latter. Possible unintended consequences of government subsidies might prevent them from achieving their objective. I test the hypothesis that public subsidies displace private donations determining the apparent inconsistency between the findings that prices affect attendance and public subsidies do not. While public subsidies do not appear to be effective in stimulating attendance, results indicate that participation in art education is highly correlated with attendance. In the last part of the thesis I identify possible alternatives policy makers have to the use of public subsidies and concentrate on the provision of art education in public schools.

Community arts initiatives have risen quickly up the agendas of policymakers and local authorities alike in recent years. In particular, low-cost and flexible community arts projects have increasingly been framed as an effective means of combating social exclusion and contributing to neighbourhood renewal. Yet at a time when the community arts movement is benefiting from unprecedented levels of funding and rhetorical backing, the need to resolve complex questions surrounding eYaluation, outcomes and conflicting agendas persists. Focussing upon the community music participation of 'young people living in areas of social and economic need who might otherwise lack opportunity' (Youth Music 2006), this thesis seeks to make a key contribution in the developing academic study of community arts activities. The study draws upon and adapts the work of Pierre Bourdieu in proposing a theory of musical habitus. This theory recognises the significantly socially structured and structuring elements of actors' habitus and the implications of their correspondingly varied valuations at the level of musical meaning. On the basis of an appreciation of actors' musical habitus, the degree to which specific forms of community music participation initially appeal to and sustain the interest of young people is portrayed as responding to patterns of a quasipredictable yet at the same time indeterminate nature. The theory of musical habitus seeks to be of heuristic value to those hoping to comprehend the outcomes of community music participation and respond to calls for the community arts to 'identify best practice [and] understand processes and the type of provision best suited to achieve particular outcomes' (Coalter 1991). The study was undertaken in collaboration with the Learning and Participation Department of The Sage Gateshead. Taking four cases studies, the methodological approach was participatory and ethnographic and the data collection methods employed included participant observation, informal group discussion and semistructured interviews.

The argument in my thesis regarding cultural policy points out a fundamental contradiction about the nature of democracy. The impulse that should motivate public cultural policies is primarily democratic: it is to give universal access to what are deemed unique cultural practices. However, these practices are often socially and culturally inaccessible. For instance, in the case of the high arts and the world of classical music, works are often prized precisely because of their high degree of sophistication within a particular tradition, something that tends to prevent such works from being immediately understood or enjoyed by the general public. Therefore, it seems, an effective cultural policy is crucial to offer universal access to unique cultural practices, like classical music. Based on the theoretical work of Jim McGuigan (drawing upon Habermas's notion of the public sphere) and of Tony Bennett (drawing upon Foucault's notion of governmentality), my research starts at a local city level in a British context, and then focuses on the relationship between classical music and cultural policy. I also pose the question of how the value implicit in a ‘culture in common’ and the plural forms of cultural expression help the development of self-respect and esteem and thus contribute to democratic values in a British context. My thesis is designed to contribute to a critical understanding of how classical music policy has been exercised at a local level. This has been achieved by adopting a qualitative research approach. Thus, my research findings show that power differentials exist in the field of cultural policy. The research focus in this thesis suggests that music policy might focus too much on the imposition of a top-down model that is unable to deal adequately with the dispersion of power. Further, the current debate does not take into account the importance of tradition and the critical role of multiculturalism. The theory points to ways these features can be incorporated into future debates on cultural policy.