Widespread Policy Disruption: Terrorism, Public Risks, and Homeland Security

We address theoretical and empirical aspects of policy disruptions that affect multiple areas of policymaking. Our theorizing leads us to consider the effects of widespread disruptions in gaining the attention of elected officials, in affecting policymaking, and in reshaping the involvement of federal agencies. Our empirical analyses concern the threat of terrorism in the United States and its implications for public risk subsystems over the past 25 years. Our analyses of the attention of policymakers and resultant policymaking volatility show selective patterns of subsystem disruption related to the threat of terrorism. We show that capturing the attention of policymakers in multiple subsystems is insufficient to motivate heightened levels of policymaking across the board. In addition, we find more muted impacts for federal agency involvement than might have been expected from the massive reorganization that created the Department of Homeland Security. More generally, the disjunctions we observe show the powerful influence of policy subsystems in buffering against widespread policy disruptions.     

Trans-Subsystem Dynamics: Policy Topography, Mass Opinion, and Policy Change

We argue that the treatment of trans-subsystem change, and particularly the role of public opinion in fostering such change, within the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) has been underspecified. We propose a model of "policy topography" that combines the concepts of public opinion, clusters of linked subsystems, and policy issue venues. While the ACF has characterized subsystems as relatively self-contained, we argue that they are more usefully understood as operating in a relatively permeable fashion among evolving clusters of subsystems linked together by networked relations, strategically overlapping policy considerations, and public opinion disruptions. The "policy topography" model offers opportunities to assess the relationships across policy subsystems, and to better specify the critical relationship between public policy and mass opinions. We offer examples, and suggest hypotheses along with avenues for appropriate empirical analysis.     

Lobbying after 9/11: Policy Regime Emergence and Interest Group Mobilization

Does the emergence of a new boundary‐spanning policy regime shift the focus of well‐established organized interests, or does it mobilize new ones? In this article, I show that interest groups with a presence in Washington before 9/11 rapidly—but temporarily—shift their attention to the homeland security issues. Established groups' entrenchment in antecedent subsystems appears to buffer against widespread policy disruption and interest upheaval. However, a new set of previously latent groups opportunistically mobilizes after the regime is institutionalized. Newly mobilized groups replace those that retreat back to the regime's antecedent subsystems. Though the policy regime fails to resolve the jurisdictional turf conflicts that triggered its creation, the institutionalization of homeland security generates its own original, distinct government demand for lobbying. Interests that previously had no business in Washington before 9/11 took advantage of the new opportunities the regime offered without supplanting interests established long before the Department of Homeland Security and its congressional committees existed.     

Beyond Subsystems: Policy Regimes and Governance

We suggest attention to policy regimes provides a fruitful means for joining the contributions of scholars who study policy processes with those who are concerned with governance challenges. Our research synthesis underscores the limits of existing theorizing about policy processes for problems that span multiple areas of policy and highlights the prospects for and limitations of governing beyond the boundaries of subsystems. We suggest new avenues for theorizing and research in policy processes based on the concept of a boundary‐spanning policy regime. We develop notions about this type of policy regime within the context of the broader literature about regimes in political science, discuss the forces that shape the strength and durability of such regimes, and provide a variety of examples. This synthesis challenges the focus of policy process scholars on subsystems and broadens the traditional focus on policymaking to consideration of the dynamics of governing.     

The uncertain merger of values and interests in UK foreign policy

How should ethics and values relate to the British national interest? The idea that ethical commitments to distant non‐citizens should occupy a position within British foreign policy was a controversial element of Labour's foreign policy during the early part of their 1997–2010 tenure. Rather than undermining traditional national interest concerns, one of the defining themes within Labour's foreign policy was that values and national interests were becoming increasingly merged in a globalized world. The post‐2010 coalition government has made distinct efforts to differentiate themselves from their predecessors, crafting a more pragmatic and national interest‐based foreign policy approach. Despite this, significant continuities with Labour's ‘ethical dimension’ are evident and many associated policies and practices have survived the transition. Moreover, the suggestion that British values and interests are interrelated and mutually reinforcing has been re‐asserted, with renewed vigour, by coalition policy‐makers. The article traces the ways in which values and interests have become increasingly merged in the language of recent British foreign policy and examines the implications for our understanding of the UK's national interest. It argues that the idea of an almost symbiotic relationship between values and interests is fundamentally unhelpful and makes the case for greater disaggregation of the two. Although a zero–sum game need not exist between core national interests and ethical obligations abroad, the suggestion that they are mutually reinforcing obscures the tensions that frequently arise between these different realms of obligation. Using the examples of failed state stabilization and UK arms trade regulation, the article demonstrates how uncritical acceptance of the values–interests merger risks producing unstable policy formulations.     

Coalition cascades: The politics of tipping points in clean energy transitions

Policy change often involves multiple policy subsystems, as in the case of clean energy transitions. We argue that trans-subsystem policy feedback is a central dynamic in policy change across subsystems. Policy in one subsystem creates benefits/costs and/or learning effects that mobilize actors for policy change in another subsystem, resulting in “coalition cascades” across interdependent subsystems. If coalition cascades lead to the resolution of coordination problems across subsystems, the system reaches a tipping point in policy change. Coalition cascades are thus the transmission belts of trans-subsystem policy feedback. We illustrate our argument in the case of California's clean energy transition. We show how early renewable energy policy spilled over into the subsystems on grid policy—leading to energy storage policy—and on transport policy—resulting in electric vehicle charging policy. The article advances our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning trans-subsystem policy change, offering a model of the politics of tipping points.     

A Web of Interests: Stalemate on the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel

The United States has adopted a policy of geological disposal to resolve the problem of permanent disposition of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel (SNF), but has been unable to implement this policy. This study draws upon literature on policymaking and interest group representation to examine that inability. It develops and explores a conceptualization of policy stalemate to analyze the case.
The study finds that the United States has arrived at a stalemate over SNF disposal policy in part because of its pluralist system of interest group representation, and in part because of the nature of the problem. The case demonstrates how, in a pluralist system, the interaction of interests over a complex and difficult policy problem can result in stalemate. Few of the involved interest groups have sufficient incentives to either implement current SNF disposal policy or to revisit the policy. Barring significant change in the nature of the problem, the balance of interests, or other factors in the policy environment, the stalemate will continue.
The central question of this symposium is how institutionalized systems of interest group representation manage competing demands for environmental protection with demands for energy. In the case of SNF disposal, the United States in effect is managing these competing demands by not addressing them. SNF disposal policy does not appear to pose directly the expected tradeoff between demands for environmental protection and accessible energy, as the conflict tends to be defined primarily in environmental terms. However, the trade-off is implicit; failure to resolve the problem will eventually impact continued access to nuclear energy.     

Policy Coherence and Policy Domains

Policy scholars generally agree that greater coherence of policies is desirable, but the concept is under-theorized and has received little empirical examination. This research examines the policy coherence of 18 policy domains and considers institutional factors that affect variation among them. There is considerable variation in coherence among substantive, regional, and identity-based policy domains. Greater degrees of policy coherence exist for policy domains that have dominant congressional committees or have more involvement of lead federal agencies. These findings extend what policy scholars know about policy subsystems in American policymaking to consideration of the coherence of policy domains.     

Taking Part in Mutawintji: Aboriginal Involvement in Mootwingee National Park

Aboriginal involvement in the management of parks was conceived as a means by which Aboriginal and conservationist interests could be reconciled. Participation in the management of parks increases Aboriginal control over land deemed to be of conservation value. Involvement in the management of parks as a means of empowering Aborigines is examined through a case study of Mootwingee National Park, in far western NSW. The management history of the park reveals that Aboriginal involvement has been facilitated by a policy commitment to consultation. Participation premised only on policy provisions has resulted in Aboriginal interests being underestimated or ignored. Aborigines will truly be empowered if their involvement is based on Aboriginal ownership of parks and a formal commitment to joint management.     

Pet Sounds: Subsystems,Regimes, Policy Punctuations,and the Neglect of African American Farmers, 1935–2006

Punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) has reoriented the study of public policy and American politics in particular. In this study, we documented how a policy punctuation that appears to take hold at the macro level of the polity in the form of a policy regime has difficulty penetrating subsystem politics. We drew on subsystems theory, PET, and the latest work on policy regimes to document the resistance of the agriculture subsystem to efforts to add a civil rights dimension to agriculture policy between 1935 and 2006. We concluded that the issue evolution of agricultural support programs, and their insulation from civil rights policy, is a prime example of how subsystems use negative feedback to resist change.     

Reconceptualizing the Policy Subsystem: Integration with Complexity Theory and Social Network Analysis

The concept of the policy subsystem is an essential building block for several of the basic frameworks of policy process studies. Over time issues have become more complex, crossing subsystem boundaries, and so subsystems have escalated in their complexity as well. It is increasingly insufficient to study just one policy subsystem and so scholars have turned to studying boundary‐spanning regimes or policy networks. In this essay, we review the major contributions to developing the concept of a policy subsystem and trace its evolution into broader conceptualizations like issue and policy networks. We argue that the future for theories of the policy process is in more explicit integration of complexity theory and more effective modeling of subsystems with the utilization of social network analysis. In closing, we discuss the enduring nature of the concept of policy subsystems and highlight studies that continue using it in innovative ways.     

Analyzing the association of policy narratives with problem tractability in the implementation of EU decisions: Evidence from the phytosanitary policy area

The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) suggests that narratives can be employed to define and contest policy problems. Yet, few NPF studies have explicitly addressed the narrative portrayal of problem intractability. What role do narratives play in a situation of uncertainty about the causes and solutions of the problem, when strong divergences regarding the values and interests of the policy actors exist? The article anchors the NPF to the literatures on problem definition and implementation to advance two propositions about (a) how differences in the use of narrative elements can be suggestive of the degree of problem (in-)tractability; and (b) whether other elements of tractability, namely the presence of a valid causal theory, are associated with the usage of narrative strategies. I test the propositions by analyzing media commentaries surrounding the implementation of European decisions to tackle a tree-killing epidemic in Italy. The findings suggest that narratives can helpfully illustrate the intractability inherent in the policy debate. However, narratives can also develop independently of factors that the implementation literature understands as conducive to lowering intractability, namely knowledge accumulation. The NPF may represent a promising alternative to understand policy implementation processes.     

Gender as national interest at the UN Security Council

The United Nations Security Council has often been identified as a key actor responsible for the uneven trajectory of the international Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. It is, however, the Council members—who also seek to advance their national interest at this intergovernmental forum—that are pivotal in the Council's deliberations and shape its policies. Yet, little attention has been paid to this aspect of deliberative politics at the Council in feminist scholarship on WPS. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature. It notes that gender has increasingly become part of foreign policy interests of UN member states, as evidenced by practices such as invocation of ‘women's rights’ and ‘gender equality’ in broader international security policy discourse. The article demonstrates that this national interest in gender has featured in WPS‐related developments at the Security Council. Using specific illustrations, it examines three sets of member states: the permanent and non‐permanent members as well as non‐members invited to take part in Council meetings. The main argument of this article relates to highlighting member states’ interests underpinning their diplomatic activities around WPS issues in the Security Council, with the aim to present a fuller understanding of political engagements with UNSCR 1325, the first WPS resolution, in its institutional home.     

Police unions and use-of-force reforms in American cities

Following the murder of George Floyd, there was widespread debate about the policies that govern the use of force by police, but municipal leaders suggested that police unions kept many of the proposed changes from being adopted. Although there is anecdotal and scholarly evidence that unions frequently oppose policing reform, the limited literature in this area actually offers somewhat mixed conclusions about the relationship between union strength and the success of previous reform efforts. In this study, we draw on Halpin's theory of interest groups as politically adaptive organizations to develop expectations about the behavior of police unions in police governance subsystems. We hypothesize that union attempts to influence policy will correlate positively with reform adoption when the political environment is conducive to victory on that front or makes the cost of opposition too high and negatively when the opposite conditions hold. Analyses of the impact of union campaign contributions on the adoption of use-of-force policies in the 100 largest U.S. cities demonstrate that the nature and direction of union influence are moderated by the political climate of the jurisdiction in which they operate.     

国际合作抑或金融监管——以胡佛与斯特朗对欧洲经济重建分歧为中心

作为1920年代美国经济外交的重要制订者和参与者,胡佛和斯特朗都支持美欧经济合作,并鼓励美国民间私人力量参与一战后欧洲的重建,但面对美国对外贷款及其带来的国内投机,二人的分歧也日益突出。胡佛和斯特朗之间分歧反映了他们在欧洲重建方面不同的利益诉求,其背后则是美国不同利益集团的矛盾和冲突。而这种分歧和冲突导致了美国国内的对外经济决策权力分散和碎化,缺乏有力的决策核心,使美国的对欧政策缺乏一致性和连续性,并自相矛盾。     

Social Policy Perspectives on Economic Inequality in Wealthy Countries

This essay reviews the policy‐oriented literature on economic inequality in wealthy countries published from 2008 to 2018. We focus on this decade because it is a period bookended by both the beginnings of the Great Recession of 2008–2009 as well as the recovery. During this timeframe, attention to inequality by social policy scholars grew substantially, which we argue reflects an interest in both inequality trends as well as redistributive social policy. We observe in the literature sustained efforts to understand both the relationship between social policy and economic inequality, as well as determinants of changes to redistributive social policy. We also note substantial variation in research traditions, as well as opportunities to address substantive, methodological, and theoretical gaps. Our review summarizes the approaches and findings from the literature and discusses the implications of the findings for the study of economic inequality within the academic field of public policy.     

Bureaucratic Competition in the Policy Process

Recent scholarship has emphasized the important role that strategic bureaucratic actors play in the formulation of public policy. This study builds on that research by exploring the ways in which agencies strategically compete with one another over the content and character of public policy. Using insights from the literature that explicitly models bureaucratic competition, the study adapts an existing model of policymaking in subsystems to generate expectations about the causes and consequences of bureaucratic competition in the policy process. Finally, the article explores the utility of these propositions through a case study of a protracted policy battle over the management of natural resources in the western United States.     

Expert‐Based Information and Policy Subsystems: A Review and Synthesis

This article reviews and synthesizes the uses of expert‐based information in policy subsystems. The review begins by summarizing the different uses of information in the multiple streams theory, the punctuated equilibrium theory, the social construction theory, and the advocacy coalition framework. Three uses of expert‐based information are identified as instrumental, learning, and political. The three uses of expert‐based information are then compared across unitary, collaborative, and adversarial policy subsystems. This article synthesizes the findings in a set of propositions about the use of expert‐based information in policy subsystems and about the factors that contribute to shifts from one policy subsystem to another.