"Multiculturalism Used to Be Fashionable:" Theoretical Frameworks of State Support for the Arts and Cultural Diversity in a Liberal State

Abstract

Cultural policy has always been an important concern in liberal societies, since a liberal state is committed to both equality of its citizens, who may come from culturally diverse backgrounds, as well as the liberty of its citizens to choose their own conceptions of the good life. In the United States, normative questions about the role of government support for the arts and about how the state should recognize cultural diversity, underlie many contemporary policy debates. Examination of the theoretical support for these two topics reveals that similar principles support them both. In reaching the conclusions that the liberal state should both support the arts and recognize minority cultures, this thesis explored two frameworks or arguments for reaching these conclusions, as well as the empirical implications each framework carries for centralized state support for culture and for democratic education.