Cultural Policy Studies and the Problem of Political Representation

Since the 1980s, writers in cultural policy studies have used Michel Foucault\rquote s writing on governmentality to rethink the relationship between intellectuals in the humanities and liberal (or neoliberal) states. One of the founding members of the Australian cultural policy studies school, Tony Bennett, has argued for a model of intellectual as a cultural technicisn who works with the state bureaucracies. This article uses Bennett\rquote s work as an entry-point into questions about the role of critical intellectual, the nature of state power and bureaucracy, and function of culture. It argues that if cultural policy studies is going to claim to be doing bureaucratic work for the sake of politics (rather than for purposes of self-interest), then it will have to supplement governmentality with other theories that help sort our relationships among intellectuals, political constituencies, and the state.