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How does public opinion respond to the production of major legislation? A central pillar of representative democracy is that elected officials are held accountable for their actions. There is a rich literature exploring the electoral effects for legislators who deviate from their district’s opinions, and there are numerous anecdotal arguments about the consequences of scandals and foibles for both legislators and executives. However, public policy is neither made by individual Members of Congress nor exclusively by executive actions. The most significant policies are enacted through laws passed by Congress and signed by the president. Scholars have very little understanding of how the public assigns credit or blame for the net output of the legislative system. This paper addresses this question directly. As part of a larger project, this paper will examine the impact of the passage of major legislation on congressional approval. Because approval ratings are collected from individuals but legislation is produced over time, the paper employs hierarchical statistical techniques to answer this question. This method has enjoyed some popularity in education and psychological research, but has not seen frequent use in political science. Concurrent research by the author indicates that while presidential approval is responsive to the production of the system, congressional approval is unaffected. Credit and blame for the joint activities of the political system are laid at the feet of the president, not Congress. This has implications for interbranch power dynamics as well as research on public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over recent decades in western democracies new governance patterns have emerged that have challenged prevailing analytical models and generated a diversity of new approaches. What is often missed in both cases is the issue of how the relationship between politics and policy is reconfigured and re-orientated in these new patterns. This paper attempts to first describe how this relationship appears to have changed in terms of a communication systems shift. Second, it will investigate ways of characterizing the difference between older politics-policy forms and more recent policy-politics patterns as a shift from model to modal behaviour. This second aspect draws attention to the emergent qualities of interactive policy formation thus sensitizing political analysis to questions of how open generative modes operate in fluid conditions while nonetheless 'authoritatively allocating value' (Easton). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laments have grown in recent years over the increasingly widespread belief that most policy analysis is now being driven by the service of specific, powerful interests. Three types of responses are apparent: On the right in particular, interest groups have supported the development of "think tanks"; serving particular ideological perspectives, which nurture the development of a cadre of "hired guns"; to develop analytic resources to support established views. A second response is typified by the recent report charted by the minority party in the House, criticizing the politicization of analysis and presumably seeking a return to the world of "neutral expertise". The third response is found in the academic literature, where critics urge the development of a broader discourse (including unrepresented and under-represented groups) and information supporting neglected perspectives and voices (e.g. Hajer, 2003). We can infer a larger critique from these efforts -- that policy analytic tools, and the substantial resources of information and understanding that they represent, are skewing policy deliberation. We argue that these laments offer an incompletely specified response to the defective political process that they have identified. In answer, we offer what we call "the analytic contract" model of policy analysis which we believe offers an approach to analysis that can resolve the concerns that these critics have identified. The model has two important strengths: it prescribes a process that both enhances and focuses policy deliberation; in ways that should enrich participation, and it offers analysts a clearly prescribed role that relies on the strengths of a professional community. Briefly, the model envisages a several stage process. At the outset, an interested party or parties identifies the need for an analysis, perhaps in response to exogenous triggering events, or perhaps not. These interests, together with other interested parties, can then be expected to advertise the need for analysis. This leads to the "contract phase -- in this phase, a "professional analyst" is invited into the process, perhaps with some funding or other support, or perhaps operating on internal resources. The analyst (which may be an individual or may be an organization) then seeks to formulate an "analytic contract". They begin the process by developing a stakeholder survey: this involves the identification of relevant stakeholders (others, e.g. Dunn, 2003, have explored some of these issues, albeit not conclusively), and the development of an understanding of their interests. In this phase, the "policy analyst", operating as a professional, is responsible for identifying relevant stakeholders and incorporating them into the process. We argue that this process offers some hope of overcoming "moblization biases", by charging analysts to operate as professionals, accountable not only to recognized interests, but also to a professional community for their responsibility to identify and incorporate the interests of those interested, but not effectively mobilized. Once this stakeholder community has been identified, the policy analyst then moves to the development of an analytic contract -- but in consultation with the broader stakeholder community that has now been identified. In keeping with Lowi’s insight of many years ago, we argue that the crystallization of this process into a March and Olsen-like "choice opportunity" (as opposed to the more typical evolving soup of policy windows and deeply ambiguous moments of opportunity) improves the chances for the incorporation of poorly mobilized and thinly supported interests. This process is related, in ways to be explored in greater length in the paper, to the literature on democratic discourse and deliberative democracy. The analytic contract that is ultimately negotiated through the facilitation of the professional analysts specifies the questions to be investigated and the data and information resources to be employed (including any relevant research design issues). The analytic contract may, quite plausibly, address multiple and not necessarily commensurate objectives -- it is intended, after all, to "improve the opportunity for the exercise of informed judgement" as E.S Quade said, not to determine policy. Once this contract has been developed, the analysts is then prepared to develop funding for the work envisaged. The analyst remains responsible to the professional community for an appropriate execution of this analytic contract, but this does not preclude the development of support for the work that is more partial and self-serving (so long as the entire contracted exercise is undertaken). This process recognizes that not all analysis will prove "successful", nor will it yield unambiguous results. It seeks to offer "objective analysis"; in an "accountability framework"; (as Landau observed years ago, "objectivity is accountability"; "offering fair controls over assertions, not pristine, unambiguous facts). Analysts are accountable to the community of stakeholders (for the deliberations over the identification and clarification of their sometimes distinctive interests) and to the community of professional analysis for the appropriate development of a fully realized map of the stakeholder universe; for the development of a well articulated analytic contract, in response to their interests; and for the appropriate execution of the terms of this contract. The professional community, then, provides the validation of these analysts -- those operating without this imprimatur, then, are appropriately understood to be engaging in a different enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper proposed as part of panel 031015: Questioning the Applicability of the Natural Science Model to Political Science For over a century, hermeneutic-phenomenological thinkers such as Dilthey, Gadamar and Charles Taylor have been pointing out a critical difference between the natural and social sciences, which renders the methods of the first inappropriate for the latter. Natural objects exist independently of what the researcher thinks about them; they cannot, in Anthony Giddens’s words,answer back to the investigator. In the social sciences, however, the facts may be changed by the desire to change [them]; and this desire, already present in the mind of the investigator, may be extended, as the result of this investigation, to a sufficient number of other human beings to make it effective. The purpose is not, as in the physical sciences, irrelevant to the investigation and separable from it: it is itself one of the facts (E. H. Carr). The mainstream of American political science ignored this hermeneutic critique and had increasingly become committed to a positivist epistemology patterned after the model of the natural sciences. Interestingly, the discipline’s continuing aspiration to become a science coincides with a growing aspiration to become relevant to public debates and policymaking. For example, recent APSA president Robert Putnam launched an initiative to enhance the public presence of political science. The putative contradiction between these aspirations -- to be detached from the politics we study while seeking to influence these politics -- is rarely discussed. I seek to (re)open such a discussion through a critique of three important books in IR: Jack Snyder’s Myths of Empire, Yuen Foong Khong’s Analogies at War, and Fareed Zakaria’s From Wealth to Power. All three books were written in the idiom of science, and all of them offer generalizations claimed to apply across time and space. All three books empirically observe a pathology in the international body politic; and all of them have normative implications that, if acted upon by their readers, would cure the pathology. Herein lies the tension: if the policymakers to whom the books are partly addressed were to modify their behavior according to the lessons implicit the books, the empirical generalizations elaborated in these studies would cease to be valid. For example, if national leaders learned that the belief in security through expansion is a dangerous myth (Snyder), they might avoid expansionary policies in the future. If they do so, the empirical regularity documented by Snyder’s analysis -- the striking proclivity of great powers for over-expansion -- would no longer hold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative legislative research has contributed to an examination of the validity of roll-call votes as measures of legislators' policy preferences. It has prompted an awareness of the influence of legislative structure on the composition of the voting record. Comparative research on members' ideal points has confronted the problem of selection effects, abstentions, the influence of the agenda setter, and the effect of party strategy. It has encouraged the search for alternate measures of members' preferences, including members' speech, co-sponsorship, survey responses, and party manifestos. In the non-American setting, ideal points have been regarded as group-level as well as individual level variables. The game theoretic approach to the study of legislatures has led to the formulation of hypotheses relating legislative structure to members' ideal points. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains the concept of nascient political ambition and the assessment of potential candidates' initial interest in seeking elective office. The authors' analysis is based on the Citizen Political Ambition Study in the professions that most frequently precede a career in politics. They found that that a general sense of efficacy as a candidate, as well as a politicized upbringing, motivate well-situated potential candidates' inclinations to run for office. Alternatively, status as a member of a group historically excluded from politics depresses the likelihood of considering a candidacy.

Why have most of the governments in Latin America increased social spending in the 1990s despite a weakening of organized labor under globalization? I argue that the increase in social spending in Latin American countries is explained by policy makers’ desire to achieve the simultaneous goals of economic growth and social equity under globalization. The current dominant literature on comparative political economy in the OECD countries claims that leftist governments linked to a strong labor power are more likely to expand social spending in order to compensate the “new political constituencies,” who are supposed to be adversely affected by globalization. Unlike in the advanced industrial economies, however, such leftist power does not seem to explain the change in social spending in Latin America. More specifically, globalization contributes to an expansion of the informal sector and the consequent de-alignment of traditional left-labor alliance. In this context, a more plausible explanation is that the policy makers, regardless of partisanship, are more inclined to increase social spending, particularly human capital expenditures, to improve the skill level of labor force aiming at enhancing economic efficiency. Using a time-series cross-sectional panel data set for 13 Latin American countries from 1980 to 1997, this study presents the following findings. First, globalization measured as trade openness and capital account liberalization does affect the change in social spending. Second, the spending increase attributable to enhancing human capital expenditures is not aimed at compensating the expanding informal sector, which is supposed to exert electoral pressure as the “new political constituencies.” Instead, it reflects the policy makers’ economic concern for achieving both economic growth and social equity, which have been considered an unsolvable trade-off in the region. Third, partisan politics matters less than in the advanced industrial countries. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that economic rather than political logic works behind the increase in social spending in Latin American countries under globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I explore whether ideological diversity helps legislatures cope with the massive complexity involved in policy-making, and whether two-party systems tend to produce more reactionary policy-making than multi-party systems. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that different growth patterns entail distinct state-society relations. Those differences contribute to different income thresholds of democratic transitions and democratic consolidation, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the private sector?s preferences with regard to policy responses to speculative attacks, as well as the transmission of these preferences into the policymaking process. The findings are illustrated with three case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing insights from both social science and humanistic approaches, this paper offers a model of the policymaking process that highlights the role of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What determine the variation of city managers’ policy leadership role? This study finds that it is supported by and collaborative with a strong elected body, which challenges the untested perception of substitution model in the literature. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizens vary in the amount of risk that they are willing to tolerate (and the amount of risk they are eager to seek). Our project contributes examines the impact of attitudes towards risk on susceptibility to policy frames. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, in conjunction with historical findings of sharp and punctuated policy change, newer findings in gun control and U.S. state tobacco policy have found largely symbolic punctuated changes. What are the implications for future research in Punctuated Equilibrium theory? Since the 1980s, traditional pluralist analysis has evolved to a broader political process theory that examines key historical policy events, why advocacy coalitions cooperate, how advocacy coalitions frame causal stories, policy norms of governmental bodies, degree of influence by a social or public interest group movement and whether state repression of these movements occurred. These various independent variables can gauge the degree and extent that the attempt to punctuate equilibrium resulted in material, limited material or symbolic changes in public policy. Testing this combined policy analysis approach, I conclude that U.S. state tobacco policy making from 1990 to 2005 was characterized by limited material and symbolic punctuation that favored the pro-tobacco advocacy coalition's policy agenda with its framed story that tobacco is a legal product and adult choice. There was no significant state repression of these public interest anti-tobacco coalitions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that egalitarian theory should provide a framework for policymaking. It should emphasize responsiveness to public conceptions of justice and provide methods for formulating just policy using the limited information available to policymakers. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]