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This article compares the processes involved in the institutionalization of cultural policies in Mexico and Argentina in the 1980s. Through a comparative historical analysis, it studies how interest groups of artists and intellectuals mobilized to demand that public authorities face the issue of culture. It then examines how some actors moved from reflexion “forums” to decision arenas when a political window opened. Based on archives and semi-structured interviews, this paper explores the hypothesis that the institutionalization of cultural policy in Mexico and Argentina can be understood by drawing on the following three dimensions: representations, or “philosophies of action” presented in “planifications”, budgetary evolution allowing a clientele to develop, and finally, this public policy’s institutional framework.