Author: Barsdate, Kelly J.

Publication Year: 2001

Media Type: Report

Summary:

This review will discuss how, despite a host of environmental challenges, arts policy entrepreneurs have been able to work with elected officials and other decision-makers to bring forth a wide array of innovations at the state level. The state arts policy community is active in the exchange of models, and makes good use of existing mechanisms that encourage the transfer and adaptation of policy ideas from state to state. Most of the mechanisms that assist with the transfer of ideas are fairly highly evolved, but opportunity certainly exists to strengthen these efforts or to develop new mechanisms that complement work already underway. It appears that there are multiple “points of leverage” to facilitate the innovation of new policy solutions and their diffusion and adaptation among different states in the future.

Abstract:

When we think of “policy innovation,” images of revamping health care frameworks or rescuing social security come to mind. Cultural policy seldom grabs the headlines, and there is a popular notion that the United States does not possess a formal “arts policy.”

Nevertheless, cultural policy innovation is alive and well in the states. This innovation takes many forms:

• The accurate recognition of policy problems,
• The identification and exploration of potential policy solutions,
• The invention of mechanisms to secure resources, and
• The development of policy parameters that outline how those resources would best be deployed to serve the common good.

This review will discuss how, despite a host of environmental challenges, arts policy entrepreneurs have been able to work with elected officials and other decision-makers to bring forth a wide array of innovations at the state level. The state arts policy community is active in the exchange of models, and makes good use of existing mechanisms that encourage the transfer and adaptation of policy ideas from state to state. Most of the mechanisms that assist with the transfer of ideas are fairly highly evolved, but opportunity certainly exists to strengthen these efforts or to develop new mechanisms that complement work already underway. It appears that there are multiple “points of leverage” to facilitate the innovation of new policy solutions and their diffusion and adaptation among different states in the future.

This Briefing Paper was prepared as part of the "Feasibility Study on Innovative State Cultural Policies" project, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Cultural Planning