Agendas and Instability in American Politics

by Baumgartner, Frank R.

• ISBN13: 9780226039497
• ISBN10: 0226039498
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

WhenAgendas and Instability in American Politicsappeared fifteen years ago, offering a profoundly original account of how policy issues rise and fall on the national agenda, theJournal of Politicspredicted that it would "become a landmark study of public policy making and American politics." That prediction proved true and, in this long-awaited second edition, Bryan Jones and Frank Baumgartner refine their influential argument and expand it to illuminate the workings of democracies beyond the United States. The authors retain all the substance of their contention that short-term, single-issue analyses cast public policy too narrowly as the result of cozy and dependable arrangements among politicians, interest groups, and the media. Jones and Baumgartner provide a different interpretation by taking the long view of several issuesincluding nuclear energy, urban affairs, smoking, and auto safetyto demonstrate that bursts of rapid, unpredictable policy change punctuate the patterns of stability more frequently associated with government. Featuring a new introduction and two additional chapters, this updated edition ensures that their findings will remain a touchstone of policy studies for many years to come.

Author Biography

Bryan D. Jones is the J. J. Pickle Chair in Congressional Studies in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Frank R. Baumgartner is Miller-LaVigne Professor of Political Science at Penn State University. They are the coauthors of several books, including The Politics of Attention, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
Preface to the Second Edition	p. xi
Preface to the First Edition	p. xiii
Introduction	p. xvii
Theoretical Beginnings	p. 1
Punctuated Equilibria in Politics	p. 3
Policy Images and Institutional Venues	p. 25
Studying Agenda Change	p. 39
Tracing Policy Change in America	p. 57
The Construction and Collapse of a Policy Monopoly	p. 59
Two Models of Issue Expansion	p. 83
The Dynamics of Media Attention	p. 103
Cities as a National Political Problem	p. 126
Connecting Solutions to Problems: Three Valence Issues	p. 150
Structural and Contextual Change in Politics	p. 173
Interest Groups and Agenda-Setting	p. 175
Congress as a Jurisdictional Battlefield	p. 193
Federalism as a System of Policy Venues	p. 216
Governing through Institutional Disruption	p. 235
Agendas and Instability, Fifteen Years Later	p. 253
Policy Subsystems, Puncuated Equilibrium, and Theories of Policy Change	p. 255
Punctuated Equilibrium and Disruptive Dynamics	p. 285
Appendix A	p. 291
Appendix B	p. 307
References	p. 315
Index	p. 331
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