2. dimaggio, p. cultural policy studies. what they are and why we need them

7/25/2019 2. Dimaggio, P. Cultural Policy Studies. What They Are and Why We Need Them

1/8

DiMaggio,Paul,

Cultural

PolicyStudies:fVhattheyare andfVhy fVeNeedThem,Journal ofArts

Management andLaw,13:1 (1983:Spring) p.241

CulturalPolicy

Studies:

WhatThey are and

Why WeNeedThem

P A U L D I M A G G I O

Introduction

The enterprise of

policy

analysis has madeitsgreatestcontributions in

the areasof economic and soiai decision making. Work on incomes, edu-

cation,

health, housing, and in other policy arenashas assessedprimarily

distributional issues. The concern of mosi vvriters on soiai

policy

has been

to determine hovv the statcanbestencourage the distribution of some good

(such as money, housing, schooling, healthcare)and, to a lesserextent, to

assess

the euity of such distributions. The more unjmimously desired the

good, and the more readily uantifiable its delivery, the more

policy

analysts have written about it.

There have, to be sure, developed small enclaves of policy analysts

concerned vvith flelds l ike the arts, the humanities, Communications,

science, and educational curricula. Individuals in cach ofthese fields have

done good vvork, but they have done it in isolation from their potential col-

leagues inadjacent areas.

Many

of the ideas in this papcr vvere developed in dialogue vvith my coileagues

RussellW. Neumann, VValterW . Povvell,andjanetWeiss.I am grateful to Charles

E .

Lindblom

for ceireful reading and valuablc

criticism

of an earlier version of this

paper;and to the Andrevv W. Mellon Foundation and the YaleProgram on Non-

Profit Organizations for research support. None of thc persons or organizations

listedabove necessarUy sharethe opinions verbalized herein.

1983 Pul D i M a g g i o .

A l l

Rights

R c K i v e d .

241

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DiMaggio,

Paul,

CulturalPolicyStudies:What

they

are andWhy WeNeedThem,Joumalo f

Arts


TheJoumalof ArtsManagementand Law

What I propose in this paper is

that

scholars and practitioners con

cerned

vvith

the flelds enumerated above have more in common

vvith

one

another than they think; andperhapsless in commonvvithstudentsof other

aspects

ofpublic

policy

than they are accustomed tobelieving.In the

pages

that

follovv, I shallattempt to describe vvhat makes culturalpolicydistinc-

tive; explain vvhat the cultural

policy

subfields have in common; consider

some of thereasons

that

culturalpolicy,as a

field,

has so long been ignored

i n the

United States

and suggest the importance of a more deliberate ap-

proach to the formulation of publicpolicy.

What is CulturalPolicy?

Cultu ral policies,

in brief, are

those that

regulate vvhat has been called

[ the marketplace of ideas. (I use the term policy loosely to include

unintended but systematic

conseuences

of government actions as

vvell

as

action tovvards identifiedends.)Cultural policies influence the barriers to

entry and the chances of

survival

and adoption of ideas, veilues, styles, and

genres. They do this, for the mostpart,by afFecting industries

that

are in-

volved

incultural

production:

the production of materials

that

are

primarily

ex-

pressive, ideational, or aesthetic, l ike books, paintings, television pro

grams, scientific research reports, school textbooks andcurricula, sermons,

dramatic productions, or videocassettes. Cultural policies influence the

television programming we see, the artistic styles and scientific

methodologies

that

are supported, distributed, and esteemed, the ideas and

values

that

our children leeurn in school, and even, on occasion, the meirket

positions of divergent religious doctrines.

A s the impact of government action in suchareasas communication,

education, and the arts has grovvn,policy subfields have developed

that

share

a

family

resemblance in the special problems

vvith vvhich

they are con

cerned, and in the mechanisms

that

are used to solve

these

problems.

Because discourse on cultural

policy

is less

vvell

developed than discourse on

soiai or economic policy, it may be useful to consider some examples of

cultural

policies

that

are both direct and indirect.

Direct cultural

policies.

Some government programs directly create,

mandate, or

forbid

the production or distribution of materials embodying

specified

values or ideas. The most

familiar

examples are decisions about

vvhat curricula or ideas should be

taught

in the public schools. Such deci

sions are usuaUy made by school boards, departments, or specific teachers,

vvhen they establish course reuirements or choose teaching materials.

Sometimes such decisions are mandated by

stat

Icgislatures,

vvhich

have

reuired courses on topics as diverse as drugabuseand the free enterprise

system. Government

itself

directlyproduces and distributes avviderangeof

242 Vol. 13, No. 1


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3/8

DiMaggio,Paul,Cultural

Policy

Studies:fVhatthey

are and

WhyWe

Need

Them, Joumal ofArts

Management andL aw,13:1 (1983:Spring) p.241

The

Fulure

cultural

materials, for example, vvhen it provides political or technical

training filmsfor airmed-services personnel orcreatespublic service televi

sion advertisements encouraging energy conservation or discouraging

smoking.

Government agencies, usually at the stator

l o ca l

leve l ,may also

prohibit

directly the distribution of cultural materials, as vvhen movies are

censored or books purged from library shelves.

A second set of direct cultura l policy mechanisms are contracts,

grants, and fellovvships direcdy to artists, scholars, and scientists. By pro-

viding funds for their efforts, the

stat

directly subsidizes some cultural

materials, improves the market position of

those

it supports, and

adds

to

the incentives forothers to do or sponsor simUar vvork.

A

third form of direct government involvement in culture involves the

distribution

of funds to organizations

involved

in the production or

distribution of cultural materials. Direct

stat

support of universities,

libraries,

art museums, and public television stations falls into this

category. Such support, if provided across the board, may increase the

rangeof programs that recipients can pursue. Government aid to higher

education, for cxample, encouraged the development of nevv

departments

and interdisciplinary programs thatenabled

students

to encounter ideas to

vvhich

they might othervvise not have been exposed. If such support is given

selectively,

it vvillvalidate the programs of cultural organizations thatmeet

government speciflcations and may provide incentives for other orgzmiza-

tions to become more similar to those that receive support.

Indirect

culturalpolicies. Some cul tura lpolicies vvork indirect lyby affect

ing

the market for cultural products.

Most

programs thathave influenced

culturalproduction by affecting markets have done so unintentionally. For

example, the Federal Communications Commission's regulations have

over time influenced the structure

o f

the television industryand the barriers

to entry thatpotential communicators have faced. For example,

F C C

deci

sions that have blocked or facilitated the development of nevv tech-

nologiessuchas F M broadcasting or cable television transmissionhave

also affected the number and variety of program sources for the broadcast

media. T o the extent that different programmers present different ideas,

content, or values (orthat different market structures lead broadcasters to

choose different kinds of programs) the F C C has made cul tural policy.

S i m i l a r l y ,

postai regulations (and, in particular, postai rates)have a great

deal to do vvith the range and diversity of ideas that magazine publishers

canshare

vvithreaders.

Government has also exerted a largely inadvertent

influence

on school curricu la through the market. For example, federeJ

support for large city school systems (along

vvith

demographic factors)

strengthened the position of urban schools in the textbook market. By the

early 1970s, large textbook publishers vvere less

vvilling

to acquiesce to

Spring 1983 243

Copyright c) 2002

ProQuest Information



Publications


4/8

DiMaggio,

Paul,

Cultural

PolicyStudies:Whattheyare andfVhy eNeed

Them, Joumal ofArts

Management andLaw, 13:1 (1983:Spring) p.241

TkeJoumalof

Arts

ManagementandLavo

the demands of southem book-adoption committees and became more

responsive to the

reuirements

of systems l ike

Nevv

Y o r k or Detroit that

demanded the

inclusion

of

minority

group members in reading and history

texts.

Some market-based cul tura l policies, such as the use of cul tural

youchers to encourage low-income people to

visit

museums, are intentional

i n

their effects. Educ ationa l reformers have advocated that government

provide educat ional vouchers to encourage altemativc forms of school ing.

Theartsprograms

o f

the Comprehensive Employment andTra inin g Agency

used the labor market to encourage art in publ ic places.

One important

k i n d

of indirect culturalpolicy is non-regulation. In

the field of

religion,

for example, the absence of regulation has proved an

immense boom to church leaders vvho use methods usually associated vvith

mzurket enterprise to compete vvithmore traditional denominations.

Broad

cast advertising, mass mailings, and revenue-producing sales activities

have

a l l

contributed to the grovvth

o f

certain modern sects. Were the

stat

to

applybusiness-regulatory mechanisms to churches, the balance ofpovverin

American

theology might be

uite

different.

Finz i l ly , government intcrvcnes in the marketplace of ideas through

the taxation system. Government taxation policies that favor nonprofit

organizations are responsible inpartfor the

ubiuity

and robustness of the

nonprofit form among American arts organizations. In the

absence

of the

tax incentive, fevver museums

vvould

have been founded; and those that

vvere might have come to be sponsored by the s t a t , as they are in Europe,

or have developed as profit-seeking enterprises in the

mold

of P . T . Bar-

num's

American

Mus eum. And the

k i n d

of art displayed and the programs

offered

the public

vvould

have been far different. S i m i l a r l y , the tax shelter

fo r investment in movie production vvas probably responsible, at least in

part,for the relativerangeand diversityof

American

f i lmin the 1960s, and

its suspension vvas a major factor i n the recentral ization and, in the viewof

many

critics,

the homogenization of

American

movies in the 1970s.

The Neglect of

Cultural

P o l i c y

The aforegoing vvill,1 hope, provide a senseof the variety of vvays in

which

government policies affect our cu lture. G i v e n the importance and

ubiuity ofstatregulation of culture, it is remarkable that so littleatten-

tion

has been focused on the underlying problems of cultural

policy

mak

i n g . Cultural policy issues have either been ignored or ghettoized into nar-

rovvly technical fields l ike Communications,arts, or science policy. Com-

parative studies of

cultural

policiesin such fields are nonexistent. Common

problems of the cultura l subfields, and the appl icabili ty of approaches

244 Vol. 13, No. 1


Information



Publications


5/8

DiMaggio,Paul,

Cultural

PolicyStudies:

What

theyare andWhy

We

Need

Them

,Joumal ofArts

Management and

Law,

13:1 (1983:Spring) p.241

The

Fulure

developed in one fieid to the others, have received little attention. P o l i cy

analysts vvho vvorry about cu rricul um rarely talk to those concerned vvith

the arts; neither has much to do vvithCommunicationspolicyanalysts; and

none of them interacts vvith science policy specialists.

Certainly this neglect has to do neither vvith the unimportance of

cultural

policynorvviththe novelty of the notion

that

such apolicyarea ex-

ists. European policy makers have vvorried about cultureJpolicy, broadly

defined,

for decades. A nd the devcloping nations accord culturad policy

issues the highest priority. The United Nations, through U N E S C O , has

sponsored a shelfs vvorth of studies and a series of conferences about

cultural

policy in every region of the vvorld.

During

the

Nevv Deal

in this

country, EdvvardC . Li nde man, in a study undertaken at the instigation of

Roosevelt

aide Herbert C r o l y , predicted that the

stat

of the future vvill

need

soiai

technicians . . . to cngage in cultural planning just as

technological

experts and economists . . . pltm for orderly material produc

tion and dist ribut ion. *

Perhaps fortunately, Lindeman'sca l lfor an elite core of

cultural

plan-

ners

vvent unheeded. More surprising than the absence of largc-scale

cultural

planning, hovvever, has been the neglect and

virtual

disappearance

o f explicitdiscussion of the issues thatLindeman raised during a period in

vvhich State action has become ever more

conseuential

in shaping and

regulating the cultural marketplace. VVhat has caused this substantial in-

hibition

of discourse about culturzd

policy?

For one thing, culturalpolicy only becomes salient in the presence of

\

cultural

conflict

and uncertainty, vvhen the marketplace of ideas is at least

potentially competitive. To the extent

that parents

and educators

share

common

interpretations of their country's

past,

or common perceptions of

the vtJues thatschooling should imbue, debatesabout curricula and text-

books are u n l i k c l yto arise. T o the extent

that

a science is paradigmatic, or

an artistic styleattractsthe universa l allegiance of artists and critics, alloca-

tion

of

public

support is a

distributional

issue, not a

cultural

one. T o the ex-

tent that television programs rcflect a

vievv

of societythat is

vvidely

shared,

regulation

of broadcasters is

prely

economic.

It isonlyvvhen nevv values , interests, or ideologies rise to challenge the

o ld

that

dist ributiona l issues are transformed into issues of cul tural

choicethat the

stat

begins to affect the marketplace of ideas vvhen it

distributes funds to culture producers or regulates cultural industries.

Significantly,vvhen educators demanded regulation of the American

Book

Company,

vvhich through bribery and int imidation obtained a near mo-

Edvvard

C. Lindeman,

IVealthand

Culture.

N . Y . :

Harcourt,Braccand Company,

1936.

Spring 1983 245

Copyright c) 2002




Publications


6/8

DiMaggio,

Paul,

Cultural

PolicyStudies:Whattheyare andWhy

We

Need

Them

,

Joumal ofArts


TheJoumalofArtsManagementand Law

nopoly of the textbook trade around the tum of the century, their objec-

tions vvere to its methods, not to the values itstextsconveyed. By contrast,

vvhenliberal and minority educators criticized the much more competitive

textbook

publishing

industry in the mid-1960s, their complaints vvere aimed

at vvhat the books said, nothovvthey vveresold.Perhaps the relative unity of

the 1940s and 1950s produced too litde dissensus to engender a cu ltural

policy

field. The cultural conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s challenged core

values on enough fronts to make the

family

resemblzmces betvveen such

policy

areas as Communications, art, and education more

apparent.

This,

hovvever, is not the vvhole story. Tvvo other factors also inhibit

the development of a unified, comparatively oriented cultureil

policy

field.

The first has to do vvith the

nature

of the impact thatpublic policies have

upon cultural production: Cultural impacts of publ ic policies are usuziUy

conceptualized by planners as extemalities (i.e., by-products) and rarely

lend themselves to simple quantification. Efforts to make broadcasting

more competitive, to equalize school district educational budgets, or to ex-

pand the publics of art museums al l affect the content ofcultural products.

But

the effects of such efforts are measured in concentra tion ra tios , dollars,

orpaid admissions.

Nonetheless, a substantial amount ofpublic policy discourse in other

fields(forexample, environmentalpolicy)explicitlyaddressesexternalities;

and the methodological difficulties inherent in measuring the impact of

public programs on the range, nature, and availabilityof

cultural

products

are no more formidable than those

involved

in, for example, assessing the

effects of school on the learning of children.

Perhaps the principai

cause

of the

inhibition

of cultural-policy

discourse in the United States has to do

vvith political

values related to

democracy and to the first iunendment guarzuitees of frcedom of speech and

expression. This ethos, and the market metaphor used to express it, vvas

statedby Justice Holmes in his dissent from the Supreme Court's decision

mAbramsv.

U.S. in 1919:

. . vvhen man have realizedthattime hasupsetmany fighting faiths, they

may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their

ovvnconductthatthe ultimate good desired isbetterreached by free tradein

ideasthat the

best

testoftruthisthe povverofthought to getitselfaccepted in

the competition of the market . . .

Just as classic economics posits an opposition betvveen the market and the

State, so the dominant tradition in

American

politiceil thought has been

guidedby abeliefthat the statshould not, in a democracy, become a ma

jo r

force in the marketplace of ideas, either through strenuous regulation or

by flooding the market vvith its ovvn products. For this reason, vvhen the

246 Vol. 13, No. 1

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Publications


7/8

DiMaggio,

Paul,

CulturalPolicyStudies:Whattheyare andWhyWe

Need

Them,Joumal ofArts


TheFuture

State, either through well-intentioned efforts to prime the pump of cultural

production or, indirect ly, through its involvement in other functions, i m-

pinges upon the marketplace of ideas, it is

difRcult

for

those

in government,

or for

policy

analysts vvho vvork from

official

definitions of

policy

problems,

to acknovvledge or talk

about

its

c o n s e u e n c e s .

Perhaps the

best

evidence for this lies in the efforts of government

agencies

explicitly

charged

vvith

subsidizing or regulating cultural produc

tion to avoid acknovvledging their autonomy or influence. Such efforts

employ

three strategies

of disassociation. One strategy, available only to

those agencies vvhose programs affect cultural production indirect ly, is

deniai. Thus the FC C has traditionallytreated its role as one of technical

and economic regulation. By attending to uestionsof the relative merit or

economic feasibility of competing technologies vvithout considering their

cultural c o n s e u e n c e s ,

the F C C has set the constraints

vvithin vvhich

American

mass

culture has developed vvithout assessing seriously the im

pact of its decisions.

A second strategyfor avoiding overt cultural

policy

choicesfavored

by

bodies,

l ike

the National Endovvments for the Arts and the Humzuiities

and the National Science Foundation,

vvhich

fund the production, distribu

tion, or preservation of cul tural materialsis to

assert

that agency pro

grams simply reflect the desires and

demands

of constituencies i n the

field.

Thisargumentis based onpoliticalreality: agencies do need constit-

uency support and much decision making is reactive. Nonetheless, the

reflection rationale inhibits attention to the vvays in vvhich such pro

cedrai

matters

as internal routines,

e l i g i b i l i t y r eu i r em en t s ,

the scope of

advisory decision making, the channels through vvhichconstituency vievvs

flovv

into the agency, and many

othersdo

in fact, systematically encourage

or discourage the support of different kinds of producers.

A thirdstrategyof disassociation is to export decision-making respon-

sibi l i tyoutside the agency's ovvnborders. In practice, this method takestvvo

forms. The first, vvhich at the federal level invariably

meets

vvith congres-

sional favor, is geographic decentral ization; cultural support funds are

handed over to geographically dispEirate autonomous or semi-autonomous

bodiesfor example, the

stat

arts agencies or the National Institute of

Education's Regionai Educational Laboratories. Another form is the crea-

tion

of rotating expert panels,

vvhich

decide among competing programs or

proposals: by letting professionals decide, the agency, in effect,

relinuishes

its povver to authoritative pract itioners vvho

possess

the expertise re

uired

to make distinctions too

difficult

to be left to lay personnel. (Never

mind that

staff of agencies

l ike

the Arts Endovvment or the N SF are usually

professionals vvho, i fthey vvere not employed in the agency, might be prime

Spring 1983 247

Copyright c) 2002


and LearningCompany


Publications


8/8

DiMaggio,

Paul,

CulturalPolicyStudies:What

they

areandfVhyWeNeedThem, Joumal of

Arts

Management and

L aw,

13:1

(1983:Spring)

p.241

The

Joumal

oJArtsManagementand Law

candidates for the panels.) On occasion,

these

two forms are combined, as

vvhen funds are subgranted by a stat agency that itself uses professional

panels.

These decision-exporting

techniues

are time-honored and defensible

methods for managing dif l icul t decisions under conditions of uncertainty.

F r e u e n t l y ,

hovvever, they become not

simply

administrative tools, but

rhetoricalfig leaves, behindvvhichgovernment managershide in asserting

their ovvn neutral role. When this occurs, consideration of the impact of

support policies on the

life

chances of ideas, methodologies, and artistic

genres tends to be foreclosed.

Conclusion

To

the extent

that stat

action has grovvn to be an important factor in

shaping the marketplace of ideas in a variety ofcultural

fields,

inattention

to the processes by vvhich this influence is exerted is both dangerous and

vvasteful. It is dangerous because the negative externalities of programs

vvith no explicitly cultural goals cannot be amended if they are poorly

understood; andbecausefailure to acknovvledge the impact of government

actionon the c ul tural marketplace mzikes itdifficult, i fnot impossible, con-

sciouslyto devise programs to achieve (or avoid) given cultural ends. It is

vvastefulbecausea comparativeassessmentof the c ommon problems facing

cultural policymakers, and of the rangeof mechanisms used to solvethese

problems,

could

permit a more rational

assessment

of the

policy

alter-

natives available to decision makers in each

field.

The era in

vvhich

government

could

pretend to maintain a

latssezjaire

stancetovvards thc cultural marketplace has passed. What is important novv

is to develop a vocabularyvvith vvhich to discuss the values at stakc, and a

traditionof comparative policy analysis and research that vvillenable c u l -

tural

policy makers to exert the influencethatthey already

vvield

cr i t i ca l ly ,

self-consciously,

and vvith some avvareness of the

likely conseuences

of

their actions.

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2. dimaggio, p. cultural policy studies. what they are and why we need them

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