This book places the study of public support for the arts and culture within the prism of public policy making. It is explicitly comparative in casting cultural policy within a broad sociopolitical and historical framework. Given the complexity of national communities, there has been an absence of comparative analyses that would explain the wide variability in modes of cultural policy as reflections of public cultures and cultural identity. The discussion is internationally focused and interdisciplinary. Mulcahy contextualizes a wide variety of cultural policies and their relation to politics and identity by asking a basic question: who gets their heritage valorized and by whom is this done?The fundamental assumption is that culture is at the heart of public policy as it defines national identity and personal value.

Autorentext
Kevin V. Mulcahy is the Sheldon Beychok Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Louisiana State University, USA, and received his PhD from Brown University, USA. He is the co-author or co-editor of six books, including Public Policy and the Arts and America's Commitment to Culture (1995), as well as over fifty articles in scholarly journals and chapters in edited books. He has served as Executive Editor of the Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society for sixteen years.

Inhalt
Hidden-Hand Culture: The American System of Cultural Patronage .- Exporting Civilization: French Cultural Diplomacy .- Sports as Spectacle and Projecting Identity: The Case of Olympic Opening Ceremonies .- Coloniality: The Cultural Policy of Post-Colonialism  .- Internal Coloniality: Cultural Regions and the Politics of Nationalism .-  A Cultural Space: Acadiana and Cajun Culture .- Afterword: Configuring Cultural Policy.