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The basis for understanding public support for the arts in the United States is the absence of any precedent for direct national involvement (Larson 1983). The American approach to culture has reje...

The basis of the American approach to culture eschews any collective state intervention. Cultural institutions, such as museums, originated as the beneficiaries of private donors. Such philanthropy benefits from a tax code that provides financial incentives for contributions to private organizations. For institutions, funds raised from ancillary activities, such as gift shops, also enjoy significant tax exemptions. Yet, despite these publicly financed tax deductions, cultural visions are privately conceived, and reflect the agendas of the donors. This attitude represents the basic principle of the American patronage system: one that is facilitated by a tax policy, not a cultural policy.

Devin Beauregard has written an important contribution to our understanding of cultural policy. His book focuses on subnations, that is, territories within states that are largely populated by “nat...

This essay evaluates the character of the unique French culture of the Acadiana region of Southwest Louisiana. This Cajun space represents twenty-two of the state's sixty-four parishes (counties) o...

The forty-second edition of the Social Theory, Politics and the Arts (STP&A) Conference was held in Montreal from October 14 to 16, 2016. For the occasion, STP&A's first Lifetime Achievement Award ...

Culture and commerce are typically thought to inhabit different realms. This may be more the accepted wisdom in the United States where culture is associated with the ‘high arts’ (for example, orch...

A truism of cultural policy research is that while countries frequently debate whether to have a cultural policy, France debates what goals its cultural policy should emphasize. While so-called U.S...

Any discussion of cultural policy must take into account the importance of public culture and tradition “in giving a sense of uniqueness and meaning to the individual political cultures” (Pye and Verba 1965: 19). Accordingly, a comprehensive analysis of a nation’s development involves not only its political institutions, but also its cultural identity. “As with politics in general, cultural politics involves the expression of the collective values of a people, the feelings of people about their social and group identities, and above all else the tests of loyalty and commitment” (Pye and Verba 1965: 19). The distinguishing characteristic of cultural policy in countries characterized by a legacy of coloniality is the importance of identity formation and the politics that are involved in formulating its definition.

The basis for understanding public support for the arts in the USA is the absence of any precedent for direct national involvement (Larson 1983). This is not attributable to a simplistic view of American philistinism. Rather, the principles of limited government, hidden-hand economics, and dogmatic individualism constitute an explanatory framework. Furthermore, at least since the Jacksonian era, there has been a demonstrable resistance to any assertion of what would seem to constitute superior judgment. Consequently, the very notion of a public cultural policy would elicit strong objections as being at odds with the norms of democratic equality.

The international global sports spectacle, an integral part of the Olympics (as well as the World Cup), has become a vehicle for the political exploitation of identity within a globalized context. “The growth of these organizations, and their major events, has provided a platform for national pride and prestige” (Tomlinson and Young 2006: 1). These spectacles, “a physical display of the body politic,” attract large followings as they serve to define the overall character of a particular Olympic Game (Tomlinson and Young 2006: 3). The competition to host the Games has become a media event in itself as the merits of the various contenders are evaluated. The benefits of hosting these events are clear as one recognizes the forum that is provided to celebrate national identity. “The international profile of the media event has produced recurrent discourses of identity and globalization” (Tomlinson 1996, 2000).

Use of the term “cultural region” needs to be clarified. A cultural region is a geographic area within which a group of specific cultural traits are concentrated. Cultural regions occur in multinational states, such as the USA, and nation-states alike. In some cases, cultural regions represent separate nations within states (not subcultures of one homogeneous nation-state). For example, Scotland is a nation within the state of Great Britain. They are not British, but Scottish, a separate cultural region and nation (but not a state).

This chapter evaluates the French culture of the Acadiana area of Southwest Louisiana, which comprises 22 of the state’s 64 parishes and 30 percent of the state’s population of some 4 million. It is called Acadiana, after the original Canadian land from which the population came, what was called Acadie (comprising what is now Nova Scotia with parts of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island). The word Cajun is most likely a corruption of Acadian although, as will be seen time and again herein, very little about folkloric tradition can be stated with certainty. The original French Canadians of Acadie were intentionally expelled by the British form the North American territory ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Urecht in 1715. This is referred to as Le Grand Derangement and is immortalized in Longfellow’s poem “Evangeline.”

ResumeL’analyse comparative des politiques nationales et infranationales est un champ d’etudes peu developpe au Canada (Bennett, 1996 ; Imbeau et al., 2000). Il en est de meme de la recherche sur les politiques culturelles canadiennes, et ce, meme si depuis trente ans plusieurs etudes ont ete effectuees sur des secteurs de la culture et sur certaines periodes marquantes de l’histoire des politiques qui leurs sont dediees. C’est le cas pour les industries culturelles, les communications et les droits d’auteur ainsi que pour l’histoire de la Commission royale d’enquete sur l’avancement des Arts, des Lettres et des Sciences au Canada ou Commission Massey-Levesque (1949-1951) et de ses impacts sur les politiques culturelles federales (voir les titres cites dans Gattinger et Saint-Pierre, 2010a ; Saint-Pierre, 2003, 2004). D’ailleurs, la recherche s’est generalement attardee aux interventions du federal dans le domaine de la culture et des arts et elle a eu tendance a negliger celles de niveau provincial (Harv...

The Counter‐Reformation, or Catholic Renewal, provides an important example of how the arts – especially architecture, painting, and sculpture – were mobilized to serve the religious mission of the embattled Catholic Church. Mobilization is an apt word to describe the concerted effort to put artistic expression in tandem with theological belief. As an emotional stimulus for piety, religious imagery in support of doctrinal orthodoxy was welcome. The Council of Trent decreed that through works of art the faithful could be instructed in the articles of faith. This aesthetic ideology required the creation of images that would strengthen their beliefs and guide their emotions. Art was to have a pedagogical purpose by representing sacred doctrine and the Church’s aesthetic imprimatur was a necessary guarantee of doctrinal correctness. As such, counter‐reformatory aesthetics were a complement to the more general aspirations of the Catholic Renewal.

This article is a scholarly overview and analysis of Hurricane Katrina's social and cultural devastation of the unique, indigenous culture of New Orleans. This study has been prepared as a scholarly and academic endeavor. However, it is also the basis for consideration of measures that could be taken to facilitate the reconstitution of the living environment of New Orleans in a way that is respectful of its folk culture. The physical devastation caused by the hurricane severely compromised the precious cultural communities of the French colonial Gulf Coast. The impact was most devastating to New Orleans because of its distinctive folk culture, which includes vivid cultural rituals such as the Mardi Gras Indians, jazz, the jazz funeral tradition, second line parades, and local cuisine. This culture is potentially fragile because it is a living culture—not based on collections preserved within the walls of a museum, but rather in the lives of its people. It is indisputably worthy of respect and revitalizati...

(2006). Cultural Policy: Definitions and Theoretical Approaches. The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society: Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 319-330.

(2004). The Conceptualization of Art: Introduction. The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society: Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 99-102.

Canada and the United States, like most nations, engage in a variety of bilateral and multilateral activities that promote international cultural cooperation. Although admittedly of lesser importance than military or economic force, cultural relations--including the exchange of professors, students, and various professionals, as well as tours of performing arts companies and visual arts exhibits and informational services (both print and broadcast)--are important in promoting international understanding and good will. (1) The particulars of the cultural exchange programs between Canada and the United States are not, however, the subject of this discussion. Important as such exchanges are, cultural relations between these neighboring nations have been dominated by international trade agreements as these affect their respective cultural industries. To a degree that is highly unusual considering the typically arcane provisions of such agreements, the details of U.S.-Canadian understandings governing the cultural sector have been the subject of highly emotional political debates. These debates have been especially vocal in Canada where demands for a "cultural exemption," as protection against the onslaught of U.S. "cultural imperialism," are a staple of discourse for many intellectuals, artists, and lobbyists, as well as among the general public. For Americans, these issues are less noticed except by those in the entertainment industry and the trade negotiators in Washington. It should be noted that Canada is not alone among nations in its contentions with American cultural imperialism. Figure 1 represents some generalized observations on cultural policies that are related to a broader four-nation study of public patronage with which this writer is involved. (2) With a liberal political culture that is characterized by limited government, internationalism, and an open society, Canada stands somewhere between France and the United States in its degree of cultural protectionism and overall intensity of cultural politics. Norway, like other small-language and social-democratic societies, pursues a policy of English-language telecommunications and support for highly localistic and folkloristic cultural expressions. Canada, on the other hand, lacks both the millennial-old culture and territorial isolation of Norway and the French tradition of a hegemonic culture and the national government as l'etat culturel. The United States, of course, is the great cultural exception, with a regnant popular culture that is able to indemnify its costs over a populous and prosperous society that is largely immune to cultural expressions that do not project an American sensibility. In effect, the United States can afford to have a "cultural open-door policy" because it has little to fear from foreign competition. For Canada, however, cultural free trade raises the spectre of standing unprotected against the forces of American cultural annexation. This discussion will survey the debate over U.S. cultural imperialism and Canadian concerns for cultural sovereignty, with particular reference to the international trade agreements of the past decade. The emphasis will be on the Canadian response to the commercial prerogatives asserted by the United States for its cultural industries which, in the view of many Canadians, have already achieved a cultural hegemony so powerful as to threaten their national identity. That this is an understandable, if debatable, proposition is the subject of the first section on the "Small Nation, Big Neighbor" syndrome. The second section will discuss the issue of cultural identity and Canadian demands for cultural protection. An overview of the Canadian assertion of a "cultural exemption" in its international trade agreements with the United States will be discussed in the third section. Sections four and five will focus on the two major cultural industries affected: publishing (periodicals, books, bookstores) and the audiovisual (movies, television, radio). …

(2002). The State Arts Agency: An Overview of Cultural Federalism in the United States. The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society: Vol. 32, The Cultural Market and Public Cultural Agencies, pp. 67-80.

Buying Respectability: Philanthropy and Urban Society in Transnational Perspective, 1840s to 1930s, is of particular interest to the readers of this journal for what it says about institutions such...

Art museums have traditionally seen their mission as essentially the acquisition, conservation, and display of aesthetic objects with the goal of education and enlightenment. These objects were typ...

Cultures of Optimism: The Institutional Promotion of Hope, by Oliver Bennet. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 231 pages, ISBN 978-113-748-4802, $95.00.It is a rare occasion to read a book in whi...

(1998). Cultural Patronage in Comparative Perspective: Public Support for the Arts in France, Germany, Norway, and Canada. The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society: Vol. 27, The Arts and Entertainment in Comparative Perspective: France, Germany, Norway, the United States, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom, pp. 247-263.

(1995). Public Culture and Political Culture: La Politique Culturelle du Quebec. The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society: Vol. 25, Changing Art Policies, pp. 225-249.

The Bush administration's approach to national security policy–making, at least as judged by the early record, can be characterized accordingly: managerial, collegial, incremental and pragmatic. Each of these elements will be considered in turn as part of a preliminary assessment of whether the Bush administration's approach to American national security is adequate to deal with the challenges that the United States will face in world affairs during the “post–Cold War era” of the 1990s.

(1991). The Public Interest in Public Culture. Journal of Arts Management and Law: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 5-27.