Culture Economy And Politics

This book focuses on cultural policy in the UK between 1997 and 2010 under the Labour party (or 'New Labour', as it was temporarily rebranded). It is based on interviews with major figures and examines a range of policy areas including the arts, creative industries, copyright, film policy, heritage, urban regeneration and regional policy.

“This masterful collection illuminates many of the all-important interfaces between culture and economy. . . . These insights have never been more important.” —W. Lance Bennett, author of News: The Politics of Illusion The backlash against globalization and the rise of cultural anxiety has led to considerable rethinking among social scientists. This book provides multiple theoretical, historical, and methodological orientations to examine these issues. While addressing the rise of populism worldwide, the volume provides explanations that cover periods of both cultural turbulence and stability. Issues addressed include populism and cultural anxiety, class, religion, arts and cultural diversity, global environment norms, international trade, and soft power. The interdisciplinary scholarship from well-known contributors questions the oft-made assumption in political economy that holds culture “constant,” which in practice means marginalizing it in the explanation. The volume conceptualizes culture as a repertoire of values and alternatives. Locating human interests in underlying cultural values does not make political economy’s strategic or instrumental calculations of interests redundant: The instrumental logic follows a social context and a distribution of cultural values, while locating forms of decision-making that may not be rational.

The global political economy is inescapably cultural. Whether we talk about the economic dimensions of the "war on terror", the sub-prime crisis and its aftermath, or the ways in which new information technology has altered practices of production and consumption, it has become increasingly clear that these processes cannot be fully captured by the hyper-rational analysis of economists or the slogans of class conflict. This book argues that culture is a concept that can be used to develop more subtle and fruitful analyses of the dynamics and problems of the global political economy. Rediscovering the unacknowledged role of culture in the writings of classical political economists, the contributors to this volume reveal its central place in the historical evolution of post-war capitalism, exploring its continued role in contemporary economic processes that range from the commercialization of security practices to the development of ethical tourism. The book shows that culture plays a role in both constituting different forms of economic life and in shaping the diverse ways that capitalism has developed historically – from its earliest moments to its most recent challenges. Providing valuable insights to a wide range of disciplines, this volume will be of vital interest to students and scholars of International Political Economy, Cultural and Economic Geography and Sociology, and International Relations.

We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.

This fascinating volume offers a critique of recent institutional and cultural turns in heterodox economics and political economy. Using seven case studies as examples, the authors explore how research on sense- and meaning-making can deepen critical s

This entertaining and enlightening book provides a guide to basic concepts and practices in capitalism, neoclassical economics, and political economy through an interpretation of popular films and novels of the past sixty years. Including works as varied as The Matrix, Lord of the Flies, The Dark Knight, Fight Club, and The Return of Martin Guerre, Ronnie D. Lipschutz describes and analyzes their essential role in the production and reproduction of contemporary society. His thoughtful and imaginative critique will bring to life the concepts and practices of economics and political economy for all readers.

This book seeks to explain the political and religious factors leading to the economic reversal of fortunes between Europe and the Middle East.

This book analyses a key episode in the cultural Cold War - the formation of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Whilst the Congress was established to defend cultural values and freedom of expression in the Cold War Struggle, its close association with the CIA later undermined its claims to intellectual independence or non-political autonomy. By examining the formation of the Congress and its early years of existence in relation to broader issues of US-European relations, Giles Scott-Smith reveals a more complex interpretation of the story. The Politics of Apolitical Culture provides an in-depth picture of the various links between the political, economic and cultural realms which led to the Congress.

Traditionally social science treated culture as a peripheral issue, but the last twenty years have witnessed a cultural turn throughout the social sciences. Culture is now at the core of debate. Culture and Economy After the Cultural Turn examines the impact of the cultural turn for the social sciences in relation to the decline of interest in economic aspects of society. It presents a number of responses to the changing relationship between culture and economy, and to the way in which the cultural turn has sought to understand it. Contributors from a wide range of disciplines present differing views oon these matters in relation to issues of political sensibilities and movements, equality and recognition, `cultural manageme