Search

Policy researchers suggest that governments respond to societal problems with public policy. However, empirical evidence is mixed regarding the effect of problem severity on state policy adoption in diverse policy areas. One possible cause of these inconsistencies may be attributable to the fact that states' other internal characteristics can affect the way problem severity influences state policy adoption. In this paper, I apply Mohr's (1969) organizational innovation theory to the case of state body-worn camera (BWC) legislation. I examine how the interaction of problem severity with factors representing states' obstacles against innovation and resources supporting innovation explains states' adoption of BWC legislation. The results of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis support the importance of considering this interactive effect. Specifically, results suggest that the problem of police use of deadly force against minority residents has led to the adoption of BWC legislation only when strong resistance from police unions is absent, political or socioeconomic resources are present, or both. This study also discusses implications for scholars and policymakers about the important role of police unions in shaping policy related to police practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that government can strategically trigger the emergence of customary law in order to achieve specific policy ends. While much has been written on customary law, the idea that the State can stimulate its emergence is a radical notion with clear policy implications. Harnessed correctly, such an approach could be a powerful legislative weapon to create, sustain, and even redirect social order. Building upon basic insights from, game theory, the paper posits a way to do this: policymakers can deliberately recreate the social conditions that foster the emergence of customary order. The paper, however, draws a sharp divide between the technical and the normative. After laying out how this may technically be achieved, the paper considers the normative legitimacy of this kind of socio-legal engineering, concluding that, while it may be theoretically possible to trigger the emergence of customary law, the normative implications of doing so are quite another matter, and as such it is difficult to see how such policies could ever be casually pursued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines micro-processes of institutionalization, using the case of stewardship contracting within the US Forest Service. Our basic premise is that, until a new policy becomes an everyday practice among local actors, it will not become institutionalized at the macro-scale. We find that micro-processes of institutionalization are driven by a mixture of large-scale institutional dynamics and how frontline decision-makers understand and interpret these dynamics, given the local social and ecological context in which they operate. For example, this paper suggests that a new policy may become institutionalized when it is understood to solve problems that old institutions at once create and demand to be solved. Agency actors cannot be conceptualized as untethered from the institutions in which they operate. Yet, within larger institutional dynamics, field personnel make key choices about whether to adopt a new policy, making them important players in the micro-processes of policy institutionalization. The interplay of actors and institutions turns agencies, such as the Forest Service, into complex systems that cannot be understood as artifacts of their own history or as a sum of the decisions of individual actors. This dynamic also implies that macro-level institutional change will be uneven, incomplete, and gradual, mirroring uneven, contingent micro-level processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to debate the new paradigms of international development aid, with a specific focus on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and their implementation within the context of Latin America. The paper will start drawing both the conceptual framework and the international environment, and afterwards will provide readers with an analysis of a success story occurred in the Department of Antioquia (Colombia). A further analytical approach will be proposed to appraise the potential of the North-South and South-South developmental co-operations. These may be linked one to each other with the first strengthening and widening up the second, thus creating innovative enabling environments for fruitful exchanges between local actors and organized civil societies of the North and the South of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to discuss the importance of developing a national communication and information infrastructure that meets near-term needs and capabilities. Design/methodology/approach - The current status of Electronic Frontier Foundation's Open Platform Proposal, which is based on narrowband ISDN implementation, is described. Findings - The advantages and drawbacks of Electronic Frontier Foundation's Open Platform Proposal are presented. Originality/value - The paper provides recommendations for public policy criteria that should be used in evaluating different infrastructure proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question has been asked about what kind of health reform will occur in the US. Will it be a radical transformation or muddling through? Muddling through in health policy is clearly the approach that is more consistent with American history and political traditions than radical reform. But how, and how fast, we muddle through is itself an interesting question. This paper explores the market and public policy forces that are likely to affect the future of health policy in the US. Will the US follow the example of the European countries by expanding public financing and control, or will it take a different approach based more on consumer choice and provider competition? As background, the paper reviews some important events that shaped the US healthcare system and explains why our current market situation complicates our ability to achieve efficient reform. It also discusses why the future of reform will be strongly influenced by how the market for health insurance develops over the next decade. If the new forms of high deductible, catastrophic plans combined with personal savings accounts meet the market test and are considered successful, this will give policy makers new options for expanding coverage to the uninsured and reforming Medicare and Medicaid. But, as we know from the history of other markets, much can go wrong. Some predictions about the future course of reform are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some events have such an impact on society that it is unclear whether the standard rules of political decision making still apply. This paper analyses the planning process of rebuilding Ground Zero as a case in which politics was unhinged and new procedures were invented on the spot. The politics of planning was not only about what should be done on the site, but also about the sort of procedure that should be followed to take a legitimate decision. The paper conceives of the political process as a sequence of staged performances and introduces a model that analyses policy processes in terms of discourse, dramaturgy and deliberation. It describes the rebuilding of Ground Zero as a case of an ‘unhappy performance’ in which, as the process continued, the wider publicly-shared determination to create a bold symbolic response to terrorism lost out to uninspired political-economic reasoning. It argues that this analysis of policy processes as performance deserves a much wider application as today's world is full of situations in which decisions are made in networks marked by unclear rules as to how to arrive at a legitimate decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the progress to date in developing public policy, national infrastructure, and services in support of persons with disabilities seeking to enter and sustain meaningful employment. It reports on a study of 'best practices' in the aftermath of the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) and the Workforce Investment Act (1998). Unresolved disability-employment issues are explored and the paper concludes by calling for greater involvement by persons with disabilities to help resolve existing issues and improve services by identifying and promoting the adoption of 'best practices.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this era of competitive capitalism, American cities have sought to orchestrate strategies of both image and material regeneration. The recent revival of central Milwaukee demonstrates the convergence of three discourses in the city's image-making and redevelopment schemes. These three are the cultural discourse of neo-traditionalism, the planning discourse of the New Urbanism, and neo-liberalism in the arena of public policy. This paper examines the convergence of these three as a case study of the role of culture in contemporary urban development. We structure our argument in three parts. First, we give attention to a campaign designed to promote metropolitan Milwaukee, reflecting its most recent incarnation as a city that nostalgically embraces its industrial past. The promotional image includes the city's grounding in traditional Midwestern values, the cultural capital represented by its late nineteenth-century industrial landscape, and its claim to the title 'Genuine American City'. This reflection on 'genuineness' and 'tradition' reveals nostalgia for an earlier era that appeals to a significant segment of the population. The second portion of the paper examines the links between Milwaukee's 'traditional' urban form, its design and investment strategies, and the city's evolving New Urbanist landscape. The third section addresses the mayor's neo-liberal views as they relate to his particular vision of Milwaukee. We conclude our exploration by examining the potential consequences of such neo-traditional ideologies for various communities within the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some natural resource-based political conflicts so controversial, acrimonious and intractable? What factors drive these conflicts? And what turns the common political conflict into the high-level, symbolic, and sustained political conflict? This paper conceptualizes the `drivers' of natural resource-based political conflict in the, United States. It examines the dominant themes, patterns and underlying logic of these conflicts. The very nature and context of these cases some- times promise intractability, but they are also often `wicked by design' in that political actors, institutions and policy processes often compound them. The following drivers of conflict are discussed: scarcity, the policy surrogate, the sacred and spiritual and importance of place, policy design (historical and budgetary), policy frames, scientific disagreement and uncertainty, electoral politics and the use of wedge issues, political and interest group strategy, media framing, adversarial governance, Constitutional, statutory and administrative language, and distrust. The paper finishes by placing natural resource-based conflict in political perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides commentary from a policy maker''s perspective to researchers seeking to inform public policy and practice. It points to a number of issues that limit the usefulness of researchers'' work. These issues are grouped into the two broad areas: format and forum. Format issues include the manner in which research reports are presented, their often equivocal nature, and their failure to take into account the cycles and calendars of executive or legislative policy makers. Forum issues involve, among other things, undertaking a systematic response to substance abuse, and related problems, among adult and juvenile offenders—so as to guide systemic action. The paper ends with some practical steps researchers can take to make their work more accessible, and useful, to policy makers and practitioners. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper presents an analysis of the policy advocacy strategies used by both proponents and opponents of needle exchange programs in the US, drawing on the analytic framework developed by Stone. Based on a case study of the politics of needle exchange in Massachusetts, we argue that proponents of needle exchange have relied almost exclusively on empirical scientific arguments to build their case, while opponents have generally resorted to normative ethical arguments. Since the frames of argument are unrelated, the two sides talk past one another, bypassing progress towards resolution or consensus. By failing to address the ethical concerns raised by opponents, public health advocates of needle exchange are losing the larger public debate. The paper concludes with specific recommendations for how public health advocates should respond to the normative dimensions of this public policy issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efforts of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies ( PEN) in seeking to influence nanotechnology policy in the United States. Using the conceptual framework of anticipatory governance to guide the analysis, a series of strategies that PEN adopted will be described, including leveraging external expertise, developing cross-disciplinary research products, providing a future-oriented view on policy analysis, and building a brand for communications and outreach. This case study is a useful example in demonstrating the recent conceptual shift away from relying on government-led technology assessment efforts to consider the longer-term implications of new technologies toward the concept of anticipatory governance that includes a more substantive role for nongovernmental actors, that in providing forward-looking, actionable intelligence for decision makers. Considering the example of PEN also highlights the critical role that boundary-spanning organizations play in linking together disparate communities of expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies a two-actor, causal, deductive theory of implementation (the contextual interaction theory) to analyze 48 wetland restoration cases. The theory uses motivation, information, and power of the policy implementer and target to predict the nature of the implementation process (e.g. cooperation, obstruction, etc.). The research question centers on the predictability potential of the contextual interaction theory. It asks if the theory accurately predicts process interactions, based on the quantification of actor motivation, information, and power. In the analysis, a strong correlation was found between expected and observed results, or a high predictability potential. To overcome limitations, a formula version was also tested using a correlation design. These results did not produce an equivalent fit. One explanation is that implementation entails threshold values in the core variables, and a broad neutral category that fails to influence action in the same manner. This theory is found to be a useful tool for consistent, comparative, and replicable analyses that should be applied more broadly in implementation studies to better understand its strengths and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite its historic nature, passage of federal healthcare reform in March of 2010 represented only one step forward in a multistep policy-making process. The locus of policy-making has now shifted to the states, a key venue for implementing health care exchanges and other central provisions of the law. Yet, rather than moving forward on implementation of the law, the majority of states have resisted federal reform in one form or another. This paper examines this state-level resistance to 'ObamaCare' during its first two years and considers potential explanations, identifying a much larger role for political factors than for economic considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anniversary issue of the Journal of Public Affairs is an appropriate time to reflect on decades of developments in the public affairs field and to put ideas into perspective. In this article, I revisit the paper I wrote for the first edition of this journal in which I tried to describe the state of the art of US public affairs practice under the rubric of the 2000+ PA Model as it existed at the start of the last decade (2001-2010). Much of what was envisioned came to pass, although some elements in greater or lesser fashion will be described. I also provide some perspective on how the PA state of the art will unfold in the current decade (2011-2020), using a model I characterize as Public Affairs 2. 0. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After clearing away some misconceptions about the power of the religious right in Colorado Springs, this article will examine three areas, education, medical marijuana, and gay rights, where the city's religious conservatives have tried to influence public policy. With each area their efforts have only been partially successful. While the reasons for this uneven success are often particular to each policy dispute, taken together these issues point to discernible changes in the political behavior and ambitions of the city's religious conservatives. Most importantly, religious conservatives have become far less confrontational and have turned away, to a significant degree, from direct political action and are focusing much more on community outreach programs. The paper will conclude by discussing some of the reasons for those changes and how they might have national implications for religious and social conservatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between scientific research and public policy. After explaining why the simple conversion of research into public law is unlikely, several factors are identified that can promote the use of research by public officials. Examples of use and non-use are cited from early childhood education, where empirical evidence on program effects is relatively strong. Some specific suggestions are offered for improving the connection between science and public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the Second World War a central component of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration's post-war planning was an attempt to win the support of Great Britain for a multilateral economic system, based on the internationalist principles of free and equal access to the world's markets and resources. This paper explores the impact on Anglo-American economic diplomacy of a faction within the Roosevelt administration, defined as 'Hemisphere isolationists'. United by a preoccupation with Latin American affairs, alongside an instinctive disdain for the European powers, this group pursued policies which had the effect of excluding British interests from Latin America for the post-war era. As such, they represented a regionalist challenge to broader internationalist conceptions of the post-war world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of information technology (IT) on emergency preparedness and planning by analysing a survey of US state government departments of emergency management. The research results show that there has been a significant impact of IT on emergency planning. IT has proven to be effective for all phases of emergency management, but especially for the response phase. There are numerous technologies used in emergency management, ranging from the internet, Geographic Information Systems and wireless technologies to more advanced hazard analysis models. All were generally viewed as being effective. Lack of financial resources and support from elected officials is a perennial problem in public administration, and was found to be prevalent in this study of IT and emergency management. There was evidence that state governments rating high on a performance index were more likely to use IT for emergency management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the United States welcomes foreign-born students and trainees and, less warmly, temporary workers such as H-1B visa holders, it places an array of requirements, obstacles, and delays upon persons who would like to make the U.S. their permanent home. The number of people in the queue for legal permanent residence (LPR) is, however, difficult to ascertain. This paper estimates the number of highly skilled foreign-born persons waiting for LPR via the three main employment-based categories, separately by whether they are living in the United States or abroad, as well as the number of family members. We find that as of the end of FY 2006 there were about half a million employment-based principals awaiting LPR in the United States, together with over half a million family members, plus over 125 thousand principals and family members waiting abroad. These numbers dwarf the visas available annually – 120,120 plus any not used in the family preferences – suggesting that the long delays in gaining legal permanent residence are a visa number problem, not an administrative processing problem, as many believe. The backlog thus cannot be eliminated without a large change in public policy. The delay in gaining legal permanent residence could contribute to the decision of many highly skilled foreign-born to leave the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commentators have documented the disturbing use of the courtroom to silence those who speak out on important issues. Too often, parties resort to meritless lawsuits in response to another's free expression or communication with the government. These lawsuits are called SLAPPs, or Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. In the USA, they have emerged as a significant threat to the rights of expression and petition guaranteed in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. A majority of the US States have passed ‘anti-SLAPP laws’, but there is no uniform protection. The model legislation outlined in this paper is intended to guide those who seek uniform, comprehensive protection against SLAPPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) protections lead to changes in the dynamic and complex interactions between private citizens, environmental regulators and polluting entities. Direct impacts are legally significant, but if our interest is in environmental and enforcement outcomes, indirect effects are likely to be more important. Changes in perceived legal and regulatory threats impact the choices of many parties who are never involved in an actual SLAPP suit. This paper describes the expected direction and type of interactions when anti-SLAPP protections are enacted and discuss the conclusions that follow from research to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In moving health and social service programs from planning into action, it is essential to understand the extent to which the knowledge gained from research should influence the actions taken by organizations and agencies that provide services (e.g., government, nongovernment organizations [NGOs]). The complexity of the challenges in translating lessons learned from science into different service settings, as well as into public policy, requires a multifaceted approach to accelerate the integration of research with practice. In this paper, the relationship between science and service is examined within the contexts of the scientific, health practice, and policy communities largely from a public sector perspective within the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of metropolitan governance tend to underemphasize the salience of jurisdictional politics and jurisdictional institutions. This paper uses a one-shot prisoner's dilemma experiment, embedded within a questionnaire that was administered to local government officials in a metropolitan region, to evaluate how jurisdictionally based institutional roles (i.e., mayors, city-council members, executive-level administrators, department directors) affect the willingness of government officials to participate in metropolitan governance. Even though the incentives of one-shot prisoner's dilemma games favor defection, we find government officials to be generally inclined toward participating in our proposed metropolitan governance scenario. Contrary to common views that metropolitan cooperation is an unnatural and uncomfortable environment for elected officials, we find elected executives to be particularly supportive of the proposed project. We also find that local government officials are likely to consider the expected benefits to the residents of other jurisdictions when deciding whether their government will participate in an interjurisdictional project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have investigated the diffusion of public policies, often focusing on the ways in which learning among governments influences that process. We know relatively little, however, about those policies that diffuse very rapidly, rather than in the familiar S-shaped distribution associated with policy learning, or about what causes variation in temporal diffusion patterns. This study focuses on policy characteristics as a way to develop a priori expectations about the diffusion patterns of public policies. It argues that the salience and complexity of an issue condition lawmakers' willingness to discount long-term consequences in favor of short-term electoral gain and, thus, to forgo policy learning in favor of immediate adoption. It tests those expectations in an analysis of 57 previously studied policies that diffused between 1850 and 2001 and finds evidence that salience increases the likelihood of rapid diffusion, particularly in noncomplex policies. The paper also explores the causal mechanisms behind these empirical findings in a case study of two policy adoption decisions in California. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that there is an emerging consensus among realists that the US should abandon its hegemonic strategy and adopt an offshore balancing strategy. Here, Iraq and the so called war on terrorism (or long war, or global counter-insurgency, as some American officials sometimes refer to it) have been the catalysts. Increasingly, it is recognised that US aims in the Persian Gulf/Middle East and the American military presence in the region have fuelled terrorism, and caused Iran to self-defensively seek to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. A number of leading realists now argue that the best strategy for the US is to extricate itself from Iraq, reduce its regional footprint, and adopt an offshore balancing strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Survey research has been frequently criticized for reflecting hastily drawn and poorly formed responses as opposed to more deeply held attitudes or opinions. James Fishkin (1991 ), for example, has argued that public opinion surveys miss the normatively and substantively important deliberative component of public opinion formation. In this paper, we consider two questions relative to deliberative public opinion. First, who shows up for deliberative opinion forums? And second, what difference does their participation make in terms of their general attitudes toward the political process? To answer these questions, we make use of a unique set of data collected as part of a series of monthly television programs, Louisiana Public Square, which aired on Louisiana Public Broadcasting from June 2004 to March 2005. These programs covered a range of issues (e.g., public education, roads and transportation, health care, religion, and public life) and included participants selected using random digit dialing. Each month, participants learned about the issues, discussed the issues with a trained moderator, and directed questions to relevant state policy makers. Data were collected on relevant attitudes both before and after the program, allowing us to (1) compare attitudinal and demographic differences among participants (preshow and postshow) and nonparticipants (preshow only), and (2) analyze attitude change among participants particularly with respect to levels of trust in government and perceptions of the responsiveness of the political process to public concerns. According to our results, the socioeconomic biases that predict other forms of participation are equally present when considering participation in a deliberative forum. Unlike other forms of participation, however, the deliberative forums considered in the present analysis attracted more ideologically moderate participants who valued the role of discussion in democratic governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tobacco control policy usually has been framed in terms of public health and political economy, but it also has been called a morality issue. Through a systematic historical analysis, this paper examines dimensions of morality policy and evaluates tobacco control in the United States for its fit with those characteristics. Moral concerns have been a part of tobacco control policy at certain times, first in the early twentieth century, and, more recently, since the mid-1980s with the rise of “denormalization” of tobacco as a goal of some antitobacco organizations. Drawing from recent studies of other “morality” policy issues, it argues that tobacco control is a “blended” issue, one which can take on different dimensions depending on successful interest group framing. The adoption of Healthy Public Policy as a governmental goal has coincided with a movement toward a “secular morality” in the political culture, facilitating a broader appeal to the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the government and society of the Republic of China's (ROC or Taiwan) have changed markedly in the new millennium, the fundamentals of US policy toward the island remain intact. This study outlines recent developments in Taiwan and shows how they represent challenges to the US. It also discusses American policy toward Taiwan and examines several proposals for change that an American administration may wish to consider. In conclusion, the paper explains why the current policy, albeit contradictory and ambiguous, is in the best interest of the United States. There is a strong possibility that any major change in policy would succeed only in undermining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite large public policy efforts over the past 30 years, a large minority of households remains consistently inadequately prepared for retirement. If policymakers want to address this shortcoming, public policy has to change from its current path. This paper suggests a system of mandatory private pensions funded by a minimum mandatory contribution of 3% of payroll. In addition, a number of institutional changes are suggested to reduce the costs and risks of individual accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the Policy Agendas Project, which involves the application of a coding scheme to the content of policy documents, and is used by several of the contributors to this volume. The review describes the evolution and application of the coding frame, which can classify the content of policy documents, and has been used to analyse agenda change in the United States of America. It then examines more recent work that extends the codeframe to European countries and other institutions. After assessing the challenges of applying the method in the comparative context, it concludes that a research programme is underway, which involves a reliable and valid procedure for describing and analysing the content of public policies as they change over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying agenda-setting and policy dynamics is a well-established research tradition dating back to the work of Bachrach and Baratz and Schattschneider. The research tradition provides considerable insights into how changes in agendas and political attention affect public policy. However, the research tradition has been strongly dominated by studies of the US and has suffered from a lack of comparative studies. This paper discusses the different ways in which such comparative studies can be conducted as well as the potential insights which may be gained from them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I identify whether budgets in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States are punctuated and investigate the variation in budget punctuations over time. Building on stochastic process methods, I find that budgets in all four cases exhibit mostly incremental changes punctuated by extreme shifts. In order to explain variation in budget punctuations over time, I rely on two models: partisan control of government and partisan distance of the assembly. The two models are tested using national budgetary data across all government functions for the four countries from the mid-1960s to 1989. I find that greater distance in strength and ideology among parties leads to increases in the degree of punctuations in the German and the British cases, whereas there is some evidence for the partisan control model in the American cases. In the Danish cases, partisan distance reduces the degree of budget punctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on agenda-setting often requires long time frames to illustrate and explain the rise and fall of issues on agendas and the punctuated nature of policy change. But less common are studies which treat time itself as a variable that helps to explain the particular trajectory of a policy issue or set of issues. To appreciate the importance of timing, we must examine agenda-setting and policy change processes around similar issues in two contexts where the timing and sequence of key events and strategies differ. This paper examines differences in agenda-setting and policy change around the issue of lawn care pesticides in the United States and Canada. I argue that the timing and sequencing of events, actor mobilization, and venue shifts significantly shaped the divergent paths of the conflicts. The relative mobilization of competing advocacy groups at the start of the campaigns, and successful venue shifts at key moments in the conflicts, led to different policy outcomes in the two cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1990 the United States Congress approved the Television Decoder Circuitry Act, which mandated that all television sets 13 inches or larger for sale in the United States be manufactured with caption‐decoding microchips. This legislation allowed millions of deaf and hearing‐impaired people throughout the US access to captions on commercials and television programs. Access to technology is one determinant of who can participate in the social, cultural, political and economic facets of a society. Scholars recognize that communication processes in the public sphere often are unbalanced. Access to media outlets creates a gap between those with media power and those without. Using a contextual analysis framework supported by a social model of disability, this paper defines the roles of parties involved in the passage of closed‐captioning legislation and highlights how social forces were successful in passing legislation beneficial to the Deaf and Hearing‐impaired community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002 was the first major change in US federal campaign finance law in a quarter of a century. Many attempts at reform had failed in that period. Few members of Congress were enthusiasts for reform, the two parties and two chambers had conflicting interests to protect, successive presidents did not promote the issue and public pressure for reform was weak. When reform was achieved in 2002, many of these formidable obstacles remained in place. This paper draws on the literature of public interest reform and policy innovation to attribute the change to a policy entrepreneur whose resources had undergone a sharp increase, the neutralization of opposition, the impact of an event (the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation) and membership turnover in Congress. The substantial support for the bill in Congress from Democrats, the party with most to lose from reform, is attributed to the inescapability of past commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work exploring the relationship between public opinion and public policy over time has largely been restricted to the US. However, a wider application of this line of research can provide valuable insights into whether and how representation varies across political systems. This paper takes a step in this direction using a new body of data on public opinion and government spending in Canada. Analyses reveal that the Canadian public notices and responds (thermostatically) to changes in public spending in particular domains, and also that Canadian policymakers represent these public preferences in spending. The extent and nature of public responsiveness and policy representation varies across domains. Relationships are more pronounced in certain domains, and they are more 'specific' in some domains and more 'global' in others. The findings generally accord with the results of similar work in the US and the UK, although the details differ in important ways. Indeed, the differences are strongly suggestive about the structuring role of institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1944 G.I. Bill is often thought to have democratized higher education in the United States. This paper reviews evidence showing that the G.I. Bill's impact on education enrollments was more limited than is generally recognized. It attributes the gap between the law's perceived and documented effects to the symbolism surrounding postwar educational expansion and concludes by discussing the legacy of the G.I. Bill for contemporary policies in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of the U.S. national strategy on the behavior of the Arab states. Are the U.S. demands having any response from the Arab states? Special attention has been given to the behavior of the Arab states as a response to the U.S. demands. How the U.S. would like to see the Arab world behave? What are the main criteria that the Arab states have to follow in order to meet the U.S. standards? More importantly, how these Arab procedures will affect security in the Arab world namely in the Arab Gulf states. The paper concentrates on one important U.S. demand: democracy and political change.

This paper addresses an issue of public policy regarding the Internet. It is motivated by the belief that the Internet is in danger of being controlled by a few megacorporations. We seek to understand the nature of such control by performing a textual analysis of the 'Internet Policy Statement' released by AOLTimeWarner in 2001. Our analysis reveals hidden assumptions, ideology and metaphor; highlights how rhetoric influences social expectations; and generally helps us make sense of the words of a mega-corporate managerial elite and how this elite views the Internet. We reveal a self-serving and persuasive public policy statement made by a corporate Juggernaut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature concerning political action committee (PAC) influence over congressional roll-call decisions offers mixed findings. Some studies find strong effects, others weak effects, while some detect no PAC impact on congressional roll-call voting. These mixed results imply that PAC influence might vary across contexts and perhaps interact with other variables. In this paper, we suggest that PAC influence might vary with two contexts. First, we hypothesize that PAC influence will vary with chamber, and in particular, PAC effects will be stronger in the House than in the Senate. Second, we hypothesize that PAC effects will be stronger in policy subsystems than at the macropolitical level. We test these hypotheses with the votes on the 1992 Cable Television Reregulation Act. The fact that both chambers twice voted upon identically worded bills, once for passage, once to override President Bush’s veto, allows us to construct a quasi-experimental design. Results of the analysis generally support our hypotheses. We conclude with some suggestions for future research on the linkage between interest groups, PAC contributions, and congressional policy making. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

On April 27, 1993, a large landslide in the Tully Valley, Onondaga County, NY, destroyed three houses and resulted in the evacuation of four others; it also triggered a loss of potable drinking water for about 15 homes north of the slide area and affected a total of 20 ha of land. In the 7 years following this slide, several studies have been conducted by federal and state environmental agencies and by local universities. The goal of these investigations has been to determine what caused this slide, document the history of past landslides in the region, and establish whether future slides are likely to occur. This paper reports on the results of these investigations and examines their effect on the Tully Valley community. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper critiques Los work on the Asian Crisis (see Spring 1999 issue of Capital & Class) and offers a regulationist alternative. This suggests there was a certain structural coherence between the production and financial forms in the post-Plaza period and that this productive-financial configuration was prone to crises of overproduction-underconsumption, overborrowing, and exchange weaknesses. This vulnerability was exacerbated by specific conjunctural developments that disrupted the previous coherence. The resulting disarticulation has had differential effects on economies in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on planning and politics in the U.S. Papers by former Chief Officer Les Sparks and Chairman of the Planning Committee Peter Johnson; Commonalities in British and American approaches to planning.

The president's appointments to senior-level administrative positions provide a mechanism through which the economic and political elites in the United States maintain control of public policy. This paper analyzes the extent to which such appointments are given to individuals who can be defined as members of an elite, beginning with the Kennedy administration and continuing through the Reagan administration. The results indicate that an extraordinary proportion of appointees may be considered members of an elite and support the notion that elites dominate U.S. national politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The years from the early 1960s to the late 1980s in the United States represent a unique era in the history of public policy experimentation. During these years a number of social programmes were implemented and evaluated using the 'medical' model of the randomised controlled trial design. The reasons for the widespread acceptance among policy-makers of this approach to evaluation included recognition of the chaos and inefficiency in existing welfare services, and the consequent need to adopt a more rational means of solving policy issues; a government mandate specifying that a proportion of social programme budgets be devoted to evaluation; a long-standing tradition of social experimentation among behavioural scientists; and the conceptual and methodological tools for applying experimental models of evaluation to the social domain. The paper examines nine public policy experiments carried out during this period in the fields of income maintenance, employment-support and penal policy. These experiments demonstrate that rigorous evaluations of public policy programmes can be carried out using a randomised controlled design. Other lessons to be drawn from the 'golden era' of evaluation in the USA are the complex relationship between research findings and policy; the changing nature of the social contexts in which such experiments are done; the need to include process and qualitative data, and to consider research participants as active agents rather than merely as passive subjects; and the importance of involving different social science disciplines in evaluating different approaches to public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private, nonprofit organizations constitute a growing portion of the United States economy that has, until recently, escaped significant attention by many scholars interested in public policy. The papers in this symposium address four types of interactions between nonprofits and public policymakers - service provision and program implementations, policy advocacy, public policies toward nonprofits, organizations produce public goods that can supplement or substitute for government action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlikely as it seems, labor unions and foundations have been involved in the same policy issues as actors, affected parties, or both. Virtually no research has been done on connections between these institutions. This paper briefly reviews and illustrates their roles in public policy. Two detailed case studies are presented. In the case of recent public school reform efforts in Chicago, a few foundations supported reform elements before favorable legislation was passed in 1988. Afterward, foundation engagement expanded dramatically, including an unprecedented $1 million grant form the Mac???Arthur foundation to the Chicago Teachers Union. In the second case, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFT???A), some foundations backed a spectrum of opponents, while others supported research that favored passage. One major foundation withheld any NAFT???A-related grants until the issue was settled. Growing diversity in foundations and organized labor suggests they may find more common ground in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]