Political Undercurrents Are Rewriting the Culture Sector
Pablo Colella is a Cultural Audience Psychology Consultant, founder of Disconnected Bodies, and host of the Disconnected Bodies Podcast. He specialises in behavioural research, cultural strategy and programme evaluation, helping organisations better understand audiences, participation and the psychology behind cultural engagement.
A political change is moving beneath the surface. Not the loud left-versus-right shouting match. Something quieter. Every strategy is written today. Every ambition, target, and paragraph about public value. It is a response. To whoever holds the keys, the treasury, and the story we tell ourselves about what culture is for.
The political environment in which councils operate is becoming more fragmented. Less predictable. That political shift will shape local cultural strategy over the next five years. As much as funding. As much as capacity. Yet political awareness remains rare. Only around 6% of strategies even touch on it. Contested identity. Community identities. Contested heritage narratives. Ideological diversity. Intergenerational value differences. Politically differentiated participation behaviour.
Traditional party loyalties have weakened. Support flows more freely now. Fringe parties. Locally organised independents. This creates councils governed by a wider range of priorities, values, and cultural assumptions than in previous decades. Neighboring authorities approach culture differently. One leans towards the environmental. Inclusion. Progressive narratives. Another heritage. Patriotism. Local tradition. Value for money. A third, regeneration. Economic return. None are illegitimate. But the divergence is widening.
Culture is assumed to be neutral. In practice, it rarely is. Choices about funding. Events. Heritage interpretation. Public art. Festivals. Identity campaigns. Community representation. Civic symbolism. All carry values. Priorities. Judgments. As politics polarises, those decisions draw greater scrutiny.
Councils can no longer assume universal agreement about what cultural leadership looks like. Strategies aimed at “the community” can miss how plural and restless communities actually are. When programs feel narrow. Socially coded. Detached from local sentiment. Participation weakens. Groups drift away. Feeling the offer is not for them.
Ignore this fragmentation, and the costs become clear. Declining trust in cultural spending. Accusations of bias. Lower participation from disengaged groups. Culture war controversy overshadowing outcomes. Weaker consensus for investment. Reputational distraction.
A wider national debate sits behind many local strategies. What does British identity mean now? How does local identity relate? Some places lean towards heritage. Monarchy. Military history. Traditional civic narratives. Others, diversity. Migration. Creativity. Climate. Future-facing cosmopolitanism. Many residents feel pulled in multiple directions. Not one clear camp.
I’ve watched organisations bend in real time. To survive these winds. They have no choice. They must move with politics. Funding flows from political priorities. Evaluation frameworks are shaped by them. The language of justification is borrowed from whoever holds power. This is the game. Blame serves nothing. The real question is how they play it. Without losing their soul.
The three-tier reality in a political storm
Our UK Local Authority Cultural Strategy Review 2026 laid it bare. Strategic ambition sprints. Operational soul lags behind. Three tiers emerge. Rare leaders see the currents and build flexible systems rooted in real behavioural insight. Transitional talkers update language. Still anchored in old thinking. Legacy operators still churn out static documents.
The quiet rewrite happens. Whether admitted or not. This is where the road opens up. Stronger councils and their partners recognise identity is layered. Not binary. They stop forcing simple narratives. They use psycho segmented strategies. Mapping the real terrain. Motivations. Barriers. Layered identities. The electric mix of past and future.
The Cultural Audience Sandbox™ was built for this fractured world. A living progression. Demographics to behaviours. Two motivations. To genuine, sustained participation. It doesn’t ask organisations to become partisan. It gives them tools to navigate fragmentation. Speaking to multiple instincts at once. Heritage and diversity. Local pride and future ambition. Economic return and well-being.
The organisations that thrive understand the game. Adapt wisely. Protect what culture is for. Connection. Meaning. Belonging. Truth. They use behavioural insight to ride the winds. Eyes wide open. Steering steady.
The rewrite is happening. The choice is simple. Let it write us or start writing back.
Read more from Pablo Colella
Pablo Colella, Cultural Audience Psychology Consultant
Pablo Colella is a Cultural Audience Psychology Consultant, founder of Disconnected Bodies, and host of the Disconnected Bodies Podcast. For more than twenty years, he has worked with museums, heritage organisations, local authorities and cultural leaders across the UK, helping them better understand audiences through behavioural research, programme evaluation and place-based cultural strategy. He is the developer of Sandbox™, a behavioural audience intelligence methodology, and the author of independent research exploring cultural strategy, participation and public value. Through his writing, Pablo challenges conventional thinking about audience engagement and explores how behavioural psychology can help shape the future of culture.
