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Public Opinion and Political Vulnerability: Why Has the National Endowment for the Arts Been Such an Attractive Target?

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Listed:
  • Becky Pettit

    (Princeton University)

  • Paul DiMaggio

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

Federal government arts programs appear to deviate from the rule that legislative behavior closely follows public preferences. Between the mid-1970s and the late 1980s, despite stability in public opinion, the NEA evolved from Congress's bipartisan darling to its controversial scapegoat. We inspect 55 items from public opinion surveys and re-analyze data from 2 state and 8 national surveys undertaken between 1975 and 1996 to resolve this puzzle. Our conclusions: (1) Arts support is not a salient issue to most voters, leaving legislators relatively unconstrained. (2) Positive responses to general questions about arts funding often mask complex, ambivalent views. (3) The core constituency for federal arts support - college graduates - is difficult to mobilize because their interest in the arts is balanced by skepticism about federal government programs. (4) Opponents of arts spending successfully built on ties to Christian conservative and Republican loyalists to mobilize the stable minorities opposed to the NEA. As a result, arts politics in the U.S. has consisted of a standoff between a committed minority of 15 to 20 percent of the public that strongly opposes federal support for the arts and a weakly committed majority of about 60 percent that favors the federal role.

Suggested Citation

  • Becky Pettit & Paul DiMaggio, 1999. "Public Opinion and Political Vulnerability: Why Has the National Endowment for the Arts Been Such an Attractive Target?," Working Papers 55, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:cpanda:7
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    File URL: https://culturalpolicy.princeton.edu/sites/culturalpolicy/files/wp07_dimaggio_and_petit.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Becky Pettit & Paul DiMaggio, 1997. "Resources for Studying Public Participation in the Arts: Inventory and Review of Available Survey Data on North Americans' Participation in and Attitudes Towards the Arts," Working Papers 58, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies..
    2. Becky Pettit & Paul DiMaggio, 1997. "Resources for Studying Public Participation in the Arts: Inventory and Review of Available Survey Data on North Americans' Participation in and Attitudes Towards the Arts," Working Papers 58, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies..
    3. repec:pri:cpanda:wp02%20-%20petit is not listed on IDEAS
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    1. repec:pri:cpanda:wp23%20-%20tepper is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Steven J. Tepper, 2002. "Culture, Conflict and Community: Rituals of Protest or Flairs of Competition," Working Papers 41, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies..
    3. Bernardino Benito & Francisco Bastida & Cristina Vicente, 2013. "Municipal elections and cultural expenditure," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 37(1), pages 3-32, February.
    4. Bartosz Jusypenko & Aleksandra Wiśniewska, 2020. ""I go, I pay". The role of experience in recognizing the need for public financing of cultural goods," Working Papers 2020-04, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    5. Manfred J. Holler & Isidoro Mazza, 2013. "Cultural heritage: public decision-making and implementation," Chapters, in: Ilde Rizzo & Anna Mignosa (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Cultural Heritage, chapter 2, pages i-i, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Janet K. Boles & Katherine Scheurer, 2007. "Beyond Women, Children, and Families: Gender, Representation, and Public Funding for the Arts," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 88(1), pages 39-50, March.
    7. Thomas R. Gray & Jeffery A. Jenkins, 2021. "Congress and the Political Economy of the National Endowment for the Arts," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1553-1568, July.

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    JEL classification:

    • Z11 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economics of the Arts and Literature

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