Theoretical Strategies for the Analysis of Cultural Policy Formation : The Case of the Nea

Abstract

This paper reviews various theoretical approaches to cultural policy, specifically, the National Endowments for the Arts (NEA), a federal arts funding program in the United States. Marxist, organizational, state-centered, and cultural approaches are reviewed regarding their relevance to the question of how ard arts, which had been considered private in the past, become a public good with the advent of the NEA? I synthesize state-centered and cultural approaches to explain the NEA development. Following state-centered approach, I argue that the state initiated the NEA through its structural capability to lead the policy formation and guide action within the policy domain. However, following a cultural approach, I argue that the NEA is effective to the extent the policy frame resonates with broader cultural systems cutting across the state-society boundaries. In this process, the policy domain invites a variety of interests and identities by which the state hegemony in defining arts as a public good is contested and reformulated.