Neoliberalism, the culture wars and public policy
Neoliberalism, the culture wars and public policy
Culture has often been thought secondary to debates over public policy. Yet many high-profile policy debates now, over such things as gay marriage, global warming, Aboriginal rights, and asylum-seekers, are transmuted through the lens of the culture wars, configured primarily as ‘left-versus-right’ issues rather than being understood primarily in policy terms. Even traditionally ‘serious’ policy areas such as employment rights, health, education, national security, and foreign policy are increasingly understood in normative and polarised cultural terms as a battle between outmoded leftist ‘elite’ cultures and a righteous yet ‘silenced’ majority. This chapter seeks to investigate the ‘cultural turn’ in public policy debate. It argues that culture has emerged as a factor in public policy debate as part of a wider-spread neoliberal project to ‘change the culture’, in particular cultures associated with post-war consensus politics and its policy-making norms.
Keywords: neoliberalism, culture wars, public policy
Policy Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
