Experts in search of expert power: Analysing CASE from an institutional perspective

Abstract

For over 30 years, the prevailing narrative about evidence-based cultural policy has focused on the lack of valid datasets. After considerable investment in developing the sector's research infrastructure in the past decade, evidence continues to play a symbolic role in English cultural policy. This article aims to contribute to our understanding of whether and how evidence plays a role in policy making. It assumes that evidence by itself does not influence policy. Instead, experts in the production and interpretation of such evidence have the agency to attempt to exert power or to influence decisions. The article explores how a group of evidence experts used CASE as a way of turning their expertise into expert power in the English cultural sector. This process helped increase alignment amongst core agents engaged in cultural policy research. The article concludes that local agents are better placed at implementing the research agenda set by CASE.

Keywords:

• evidence-based policy
• institutional theory
• expert power
• cultural sector
• policy formation
• cultural policy