“12,000 euros is not a lot to pay for a dream”: The Structured “Heteronomization” of Assessment in a Theatre Grants Committee

Abstract

How do transformations in public action, and more precisely the dissemination of the precepts of New Public Management, change the role of the state in maintaining the autonomy of artistic activities? Based on an internal study of debates in a funding-allocation committee for the theatre sector in France, this article analyses links between regulatory frameworks of artistic evaluation and the social profiles of the evaluators. Observing these meetings—perceived as assessment situations— helps to break open the black box of state activity by demonstrating how a category of public funding is allocated in practice. Public intervention is shown to be a vehicle for the heteronomization of theatre activity, the effectiveness of which hinges on the link between a framework for interaction that is defined by the authorities—and objectivised in regulation—which promotes heteronomous criteria, and the assessors who make use of it, who are socialized into an economic and political vision of culture.