Political science and the arts as allies and strange bedfellows: A chapter in five parts

Abstract

What relevance do pub choirs, comedy or flashmobs have for political science and area studies? This chapter proposes deliberate ways the creative arts and its associated embodied practices help policy practice and theory. It uses case study exploration of public servant executive education training to argue that the arts inspire positive change in at least four discrete areas: (a) promoting practical policy innovation through open mode thinking strategies and somatic practices; (b) revealing new knowledge to be deployed by practitioners and theorists; (c) improving leadership processes through attention to concepts and practices of performance; and (d) surfacing new ways of framing policy challenges and achieving conflict resolution. Arts metaphors have blurred usefully for some time into modern policy and political science texts, but this chapter concludes that a return to the substantive connective tissue between the creative arts and political science-beyond metaphor-is not only warranted, but desirable.