Why does the public financially support the opera? Public policy in differentiated societies

To study the reasons that drive public support for high-brow culture, we exploit the case of the 1994 referendum on the public funding of the Zurich Opera. Based on Bourdieu’s theory of fields we study the prevalence of autonomous and heteronomous arguments in public discourse. The analysis is based on a quantitative content analysis of media articles in the lead-up to the referendum. We found that heteronomous arguments mentioning the prestige of the Opera Zurich, its performance in attracting visitors, and the federalist necessity to share the burdens of public subsidies to the opera in a fair way were clearly dominant in the discourse. Pitted against these heteronomous criteria were autonomous values of high art und providing inclusive access to the arts. Mainly actors from the art field itself and left-wing politicians put forward autonomous values. The heteronomous arguments were more strongly put forward by governmental actors, right-wing politicians and journalists.