Acting on Cultural Policy

"Jane Woddis focuses upon arts practitioners' involvement in cultural policy, situating her research problem within a general framework of theories of democratisation. Very few - if any - similar studies have existed until now. This is an impressive contribution to international cultural policy research."-Professor Emeritus Per Mangset, University of South-Eastern, Norway

"This book intriguingly unpacks the multiple roles artists play in cultural policy-making. It illuminates the historical and contemporary involvement of theatre practitioners, and adds to much-needed conceptual knowledge about cultural workers' self-organized policy contributions. Woddis offers an insightful read for our interdisciplinary community of cultural policy researchers."-Dr Friederike Landau-Donnelly, Radboud Universiteit, Netherlands

"Woddis's book is a rich, detailed, vivid account of a story that deserves to be much better known: the way playwrights have successfully organised to protect and improve their working conditions and, in the process, reshaped contemporary British theatre."-Professor Dan Rebellato, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

This book investigates the role of arts practitioners in cultural policy-making, challenging the perception that arts practitioners have little or no involvement in policy and seeking to discover the extent and form of their engagement. Examining the subject through a case-study of playwriting policy in England since 1945, and paying particular attention to playwrights' organisations and their history of self-directed activity, the book explores practitioners' participation in cultural policy-making, encompassing both "invited" and "uninvited" interventions that also weave together policy activity and creative practice. It discusses why their involvement matters, and argues that arts practitioners and their organisations can be understood as participants in civil society whose policy activity contributes to the maintenance and enlargement of democratic practices and values.

Jane Woddis has worked professionally in the arts for many years and is an Associate Fellow in the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies, University of Warwick, UK. She is co-editor of Artists' Narratives in Cultural Policy and Management Research, a special issue of the Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy (2022).