1. The Structure of Policy Conflict.
- Author
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Baumgartner, Frank R., Berry, Jeffrey M., Hojnacki, Marie, Kimball, David C., and Leech, Beth L.
- Subjects
- *
POLITICAL systems , *GOVERNMENT policy , *FEDERAL government - Abstract
This is the first in a series of papers reporting the final results of the Advocacy and Public Policymaking Project (http://lobby.la.psu.edu). We interviewed 315 policy advocates and government officials centrally involved in a random sample of 98 issues reflecting the full range of policy activities of the federal government during the last two years of the Clinton Administration and the first two years of the Bush Administration. In this paper we focus on the structure of policy conflict. Each of our 98 issues was conceptually multidimensional and understood in such a way by everyone involved. Policy debate surrounding the issues, however, was far more limited.. We map out the structure of policy disagreement across our issues, describing the surprisingly small numbers of distinct perspectives active on each case. Our findings help understand the causes of low-dimensionality in Washington debates. These structural features are broader than institutional design alone, and stem from the nature of the professional and knowledge-based communities surrounding the policies; the continuing nature of debates, which creates a strong status-quo bias; cost issues; and political and gate-keeping efforts. The paper is the first to lay out these dimensional structures and to describe the nature of policy disagreement and political conflict in a random sample of issues. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2006