Why Has the National Endowment for the Arts Been Such an Attractive Target?
Author InfoBecky 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
