In the 23 years since the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an arts-policy subgovernment has emerged. It comprises the agency, its congressional oversight and appropriations committees, and arts interest groups. During the first decade of the NEA's existence, both presidential leadership and congressional support were essential to the agency's development. Meanwhile, an arts constitutency mobilized. During the second decade, the triangular alliance of agency administrators, congressional supporters, and arts interest groups matured and proved capable of either collaboration or conflict with the president. The record of arts policy since 1975—and especially during the Reagan years—reveals this new subgovernment's ability to protect the status quo from threatening presidential action. But because relatively low political stakes are involved in arts policy and the various members of the subgovernment alliance are themselves weak, positive policy action appears to require the active collaboration of Congress, presidents, constituency, and agency.
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References
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1. Barbara Hinckley, Problems of the Presidency (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1985), p. 154.
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2. For a history of the WPA Theater Project, see Jane DeHart Mathews, The Federal Theater 1935-1939 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967).
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3. For a fuller discussion of the lessons of the New Deal art programs, see Judith H. Balfe and Margaret J. Wyszomirski, “Public Art and Public Policy,”Journal of Arts Management and the Law, 15:11-13 (Winter 1986).
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4. For a history of efforts to establish a federal arts policy and of the opposition to that effort during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, see Gary O. Larson, The Reluctant Patron, The United States Government and the Arts, 1943-1965 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983).
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5. August Heckscher, “The Quality of American Culture,” in Goals for Americans (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall/Spectrum Book, 1960), pp. 127-146.
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6. Terri Lynn Cornwell, “Party Platforms and the Arts,” in Art, Ideology and Politics, ed. Judith H. Balfe and Margaret Jane Wyszomirski (New York: Praeger, 1985), p. 249.
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7. On the role and activities of the Kennedy administration with regard to arts policy, see Milton C. Cummings, Jr., “To Change a Nation's Cultural Policy: The Kennedy Administration and the Arts in the United States, 1961-1963,” in Public Policy and the Arts, ed. Kevin V. Mulcahy and C. Richard Swaim (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1982), pp. 141-168, particularly pp. 143-148.
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8. On Heckscher's appointment and reaction to it, see New York Times, 17 Feb. 1962.
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10. For the text of Executive Order No. 11, 112 and of President Kennedy's accompanying statement, see U.S., Congress, Senate, The Arts and the National Government: A Report to the President Submitted by August Heckscher, Special Consultant on the Arts, 88th Cong., 1st sess., 1963, Senate Document 28.
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Kevin Mulcahy , “The Politics of Congressional Oversight of the Arts,” in Congress and the Arts: A Precarious Alliance? ed. Margaret Jane Wyszomirski (New York: American Council for the Arts, 1988).
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Hanks laid out this plan in her “Memorandum for the President,” draft 3, 17 Oct. 1969, found in the Nancy Hanks Papers, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
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13. Richard M. Nixon, “Special Message to the Congress about Funding and Authorization of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities,” in Public Papers of the Presidents: Richard M. Nixon, 1969 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1970), pp. 1018-1020.
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14. See Wyszomirski, “Politics of Art,” fn. 36.
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15. For example, Hanks helped Tricia Nixon host a White House pumpkin-carving contest and succeeded in having a monumental modern sculpture that the president disliked removed from the lawn of the Corcoran Gallery. On the latter incident, see Michael Straight, Twigs for an Eagle's Nest (New York: Devon Press, 1979), pp. 31-33.
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16. New York Times, 29 July 1971.
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17. This style of interest-group formation is discussed by Jack L. Walker, “The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in America,”American Political Science Review, 77(2): 390-405 (June 1983).
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18. National Endowment for the Arts, “National Council on the Arts: Policy and Planning Committee Report on Service Organization Support,” mimeographed (Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 1980), pp. 50, 68.
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19. Wyszomirski, “Politics of Art,” pp. 230-231.
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20. New York Times, 4 Sept. 1977.
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21. On the activities and personalities engaged in congressional oversight of the arts, see Mulcahy, “Politics of Congressional Oversight of the Arts.”
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22. The concept is that of Anthony Downs. For its application to an analysis of the NEA, see Lawrence D. Mankin, “The National Endowment for the Arts: The Biddle Years and After,”Journal of Arts Management and the Law, 14(2):60 (Summer 1984).
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23. Mankin, “Biddle Years,” p. 63.
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24. The statement was contained in the NEA's written response to the investigative staff report. See U.S., Congress, House, Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on the Department of Interior and Related Agencies, Department of Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1980, hearings, 96th Cong., 1st sess., 1979, pt. 2, p. 952.
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25. As quoted in Ward Morehouse III, “Arts Groups to Keep U.S. Funding: Just the First Act,”Christian Science Monitor, 25 Feb. 1981, p. 9.
26.
Wyszomirski , “Politics of Art,” pp. 234-235.
27.
For a discussion of the development of arts interest groups, see Margaret J. Wyszomirski, “Art Policymaking and Interest Groups Politics,”Journal of Aesthetic Education, 14(4):28-34 (Oct. 1980).
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28. New York Times, 13 Jan. 1981.
29.
on the cohesiveness and effectiveness of this arts support network, see Mary L. Weaver, “The Politics of Congressional Arts Policy: National Decisions, Legislative Needs and the Public Interest,” in Ibid.
30.
Margaret Jane Wyszomirski , “The Reagan Administration: The Early Indications” (Paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, Sept. 1981).
31.
31. Quoted in Mankin, “Biddle Years,” p. 72.
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32. Presidential Task Force on the Arts and Humanities, Report to the President (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1981), p. 3.
