This article seeks to explain the battering sustained by the United States' National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) during the ongoing culture wars over federal subsidies, by situating the NEA in the conjoined histories of both U.S. cultural policy and contemporary debates about citizenship. On the basis of this analysis, it is suggested that the policy options of leaving culture to the market, base, or existing systems of support all lack a base in democratic politics.
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