In this chapter from a book, Who's to Pay? for the Arts: The International Search for Models of Support, [The authors] take a hard look at the ways in which governments articulate and execute their arts policies. Their study is a keen analysis of the approaches that different kinds of governments take. Arm's length is a public policy principle applied in law, politics and economics in most Western societies. The principle is implicit in the constitutional separation of powers between the judiciary, executive and legislative branches of government. They identify four models of arts support: facilitator, patron, architect and engineer. Again, variations reflect the way nations do business in all their affairs - and in particular, the degree of political freedom that they permit.

Although Canadian policy is treated in the greatest depth, the paper is highly instructive on the methods, motivations and history behind arts support in other countries. The , they observe, has adopted the facilitator role, creating a diversity of funding sources through tax policy, leaving choice to individual and corporate donors. In Britain and other Commonwealth countries the patron model is preferred; it relies heavily on the arm's length principle, wherein the government determines the amount of funds that it will provide and an arts council determines to whom the funds are given.

It should be noted that since the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965, and the state arts councils thereafter, there has been a shift in the toward the patron model. The authors also point out that the European experience has been primarily interventionist. As the world moves closer to interdependence there is a slow convergence between the patron role embodied by the arm's length arts council and the architect role embodied in the ministry of culture. (Introduction, p. 3).

CONTENTS
The arm's length principle:
     In constitutional affairs. 
     In public affairs.

The arts:
     The arts industry.
     The linkages.

Alternative modes of public support:
     The facilitator. 
     The patron.
     The architect.
     The engineer.
     The linkages.

The arm's length arts councils:
     History.
     Operations.
     The board of trustees.
     Peer evaluation.
     Client relations.
     The status of arts councils.

Convergence:
     Toward the facilitator.
     Toward the patron.
     Toward the architect.
     Toward the engineer.

The arm's length principle - conclusions:
     The arts.
     The arm's length council.
     Convergence.

Notes [bibliography].

[The authors] take a hard look at the ways in which governments articulate and execute their arts policies. Their study is a keen analysis of the approaches that different kinds of governments take. Arm's length is a public policy principle applied in law, politics and economics in most Western societies. The principle is implicit in the constitutional separation of powers between the judiciary, executive and legislative branches of government. They identify four models of arts support: facilitator, patron, architect and engineer.