Abstract

If the history of arts policy in the United States is any guide, the balance between policy and the arts is a difficult one. It is often noted that unlike other developed Western nations, the United States had no official, national arts policy until passage of Public Law 89-209, the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965, which created the National Endowment for the Arts , the federal agency devoted to policy and monetary support of the arts. Its passage was a momentous event given the concerted, though unsuccessful efforts by prominent citizens and statesmen, since the founding of the republic, to create such an agency. Since passage of the legislation, the NEA has been besieged by high-profile controversies that eventually threatened its demise. In sum, the problems of the NEA may be attributed to a host of policy problems. However, it has been suggested that these problems are better explained as philosophical problems relating to competing values in defining "the arts" as well as misunderstandings about key foundational principles, i.e., the epistemological and ontological foundations of arts policy and how these principles affect the needs and interests of artists, citizens, and the state, as the three entities to whom the original legislation was directed. Art theorist Karol Berger sees a connection between philosophical theory and the practical problems encountered within a field. This study explores the theoretical and practical problems of arts policy with the intent of formulating principles for a theory of arts policy as a contribution toward resolving these problems. ;The study focuses on three key parties of interest: artists, citizens, and the state using the National Endowment for the Arts as a primary case study. Through discursive analysis, the underlying philosophical principles of arts policy are exposed, considered, and become the basis for developing key principles toward a theory of arts policy