Cultural policy, state politics, and rural economic development : lessons from Maine

Abstract

This thesis explores how political actors utilize studies of the arts' impact on state economies to boost -the significance of cultural policy within a given political environment. Specifically, this thesis explains how the current Governor of Maine, John Baldacci and the leaders of Maine's cultural policy bureaucracy utilized a study of creative industries' contributions to the Maine economy to lead an effort to garner public support for a statewide cultural economic development agenda. In researching this topic, I have come to learn how an economic impact study in the hands of an ambitious and enterprising coalition of arts advocates convinced political elites and voters in an overwhelmingly rural state to embrace cultural development as an economic development strategy - a decidedly urban(e) phenomenon - via Governor Baldacci's Creative Economy Initiative. Largely attributable to the state's desperation for economic development, the anomalous political success story of the Creative Economy Initiative is a revealing one, providing a look at how cultural policy can garner high priority status on state policy agendas as well as lessons on how to make cultural economic development politically palatable in rural areas.