Congress, Presidents, and the Arts: Collaboration and Struggle

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.