Politics and Policy in the 103rd and 104th Congresses: Evaluating the Effects of Divided Government in the Postreform Era

The 1980 Reagan transition and the 1988 Bush transition offer important case studies for understanding the challenges of presidential transitions. Although not without its shortcomings, the 1980 transition was, at least comparably, the most successful of the transfers in power since the modern era of presidential transitions commenced with the Carter effort in 1976. 1988 offers useful lessons about "friendly takeovers": the passing of power from a president to a president-elect of the same party. The 1988 transition is also of interest because it offers the only instance of a sitting vice president elected to the presidency since Martin Van Buren in 1836. The 1988 transition, moreover, marked the ascendancy of President George W. Bush's father to the office, and it was a transition in which he and several members of this administration participated, Chief of Staff Andrew Card most notably.     

The Intersection of Narrative Policy Analysis and Policy Change Theory

Narrative policy analysis and policy change theory rarely intersect in the literature. This research proposes an integration of these approaches through an empirical analysis of the narrative political strategies of two interest groups involved in policy debate and change over an eight‐year period in the Greater Yellowstone Area. Three research questions are explored: (i) Is it possible to reconcile these seemingly disparate approaches? (ii) Do policy narrative strategies explain how interest groups expand or contain policy issues despite divergent core policy beliefs? (3) How does this new method of analysis add to the literature? One hundred and five documents from the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Blue Ribbon Coalition were content analyzed for policy narrative strategies: identification of winners and losers, diffusion or concentration of costs and benefits, and use of condensation symbols, policy surrogates, and science. Five of seven hypotheses were confirmed while controlling for presidential administration and technical expertise. The results indicate that interest groups do use distinctive narrative strategies in the turbulent policy environment.     

The Right Tool for the Job: The Canalization of Presidential Policy Attention by Policy Instrument

This article investigates how presidential policy attention is allocated across policy tools and whether there is a channeling of tool use by policy area. I also examine whether there is evidence of disproportionate information processing within presidential policy attention allocation and whether it is common across presidential policy tools. Presidential messages, hearings on administrations' legislative proposals, amicus briefs, and executive orders are employed to capture presidential policy tools. The allocation of attention via these four instruments is examined from 1957–2007 in the policy areas of defense and foreign affairs, macroeconomics, banking and commerce, civil rights, law and crime, and labor and immigration. I find that there is a canalization of presidential policy attention by instrument, and that the opportunity structure of policy tools shapes attention allocation. Additionally, I find evidence for punctuated equilibrium theory in the allocation of presidential policy attention via these four tools. When presidents do shift their attention to an issue area, they often attack the issue with some coordination of their policy instruments.     

Rural Failure: The Linkage Between Policy and Lobbies

The failure of a national rural policy is a complex phenomenon. Suffice to say that such policy never emerged, despite frequent appearances on the presidential agenda. This analysis looks beyond institutional inertia and examines the reasons why no sustained rural lobby was ever created independent of farm interests. The circular explanation finds (hat lobbies fail to develop in the absence of a supportive base on which to place their demands for change.     

Presidential Position-Taking,Presidential Success,and Interest Group Activity

Do lobby groups help the American president achieve policy objectives? Existing research seldom evaluates interest groups and the president in conjunction, and as a result we have little systematic knowledge about how groups respond to presidential actions or whether they assist in realizing the president’s policy agenda. Building on existing data obtained through interviews with 776 lobbyists, combined with variables we generate describing issue salience, congressional attention, the political context, and policy adoption, we show that interest groups adjusted their lobbying activity to better reflect the president’s voiced preferences. Despite this strategy, we find that lobby groups had no significant marginal effect on policy adoption when controlling for the overwhelming influence of the president. The strong association between policy adoption and position-taking by the president withstands the inclusion of five alternative variables found in previous studies to condition the influence of the president over policy adoption.     

Searching for the Right Balance? Managing Foreign Policy Decisions under Eisenhower and Kennedy

Foreign policy decision making during a U.S. presidential administration's tenure in office is dynamic. The evolution model of decision making suggests that Presidents will use three structures to make decisions: a formal interagency process, and informal process based in a small group of senior advisers, and a confidence–based process where the President seeks often-private advice from the advisers he trusts the most. This essay goes beyond the evolution model by focusing on how Presidents and their senior advisers continually re-evaluate decision making, often concluding that the process needs major restructuring. Pressures to change are typically institutional; however, whether meaningful changes in the process are actually implemented depends on the President's idiosyncratic decision style. Case studies of Eisenhower (a preference for a formal style) and Kennedy (a preference for an informal style) illustrate how both men contemplated significant changes in their decision making process, but neither could ultimately implement them.     

The Pendulum of Congressional Power: Agenda Change,Partisanship and the Demise of the Post-World War II Foreign Policy Consensus

Many scholars contend that Congress rarely matters in the realm of foreign policy. The source of this collective impotence is often explained by the weaknesses in congressional institutions vis-a-vis the president, as well as a general inability to respond effectively to a dynamic international political environment. We contend that the debate over congressional activism has not adequately addressed the role of agenda change. We analyze all roll call votes in the House of Representatives relating to the international affairs agenda between 1953 and 1998. We find that presidents have become significantly more likely to stake out positions on economic and trade issues as compared to other international issues. We also observe that presidential positions in the realm of foreign policy are increasingly characterized by interparty and interinstitutional conflict. While this increased conflict has dramatically decreased the president's ability to successfully pass executive priorities in foreign affairs more generally, presidential success on economic and trade issues has witnessed a significantly greater decline. We infer from these results that changes to the foreign policy issue agenda represent one important factor that has affected not only the incentives for political parties to participate actively, but also the willingness of Congress to challenge the president in the foreign policy debate.Asked one day whether it was true that the navy yard in his district was too small to accommodate the latest battleships. Henry Stimson (chair of the House Naval Affairs Committee early in the century) replied, 'That is true, and that is the reason I have always been in favor of small ships.'1Carriers have been, are and will be for the foreseeable future an absolutely essential part of our deterrence force…2John Warner, senator from Virginia, home state of Newport News Shipbuilding     

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.     

Ideological Warriors and Constituent Servants: Understanding the Determinants of Participation on Health Care Legislation in the Polarized Senate

Recent scholarship on the Senate indicates that partisanship and polarization have fundamentally changed the dynamics and the nature of policy making in the institution. To understand how senators balance their roles as constituent servants and partisan warriors, we examine senators’ participation in floor amending on major health legislation over a 10-year period (2000–2010). Health care is central to the ideological divide over the nature of the welfare state and has a significant impact on constituents. Unlike previous studies, we develop a fuller picture of the factors that motivate senators to participate by analyzing both amendments filed to a bill and amendments considered on the floor. We find that minority party status and ideology, both the liberal-conservative dimension and ideological extremism, are important indicators of participation. Furthermore, senators elevate ideology in comparison to constituent need when an issue is a presidential priority. Finally, the influence of constituency factors varies by party. For Democrats, their ideological commitment to the social welfare state makes them more likely to participate on health issues regardless of constituent need. However, Republican senators become more likely to sponsor amendments as the level of observable constituent factors increases.     

Global Horizons: Mexico,the Third World,and the Non-Aligned Movement at the Time of the 1961 Belgrade Conference

This paper analyses the autonomous streak that marked Mexico's foreign policy during the presidency of Adolfo López Mateos (1958–64). Throughout this period, Mexico showed reluctance to participate fully in the flagship Kennedy programme for Latin America, the Alliance for Progress. At the same time, the López Mateos government adopted a position of defence for Cuba's right to self-determination in spite of Washington's attempts to eradicate the Cuban Revolution from the Western Hemisphere. During López Mateos's term, Mexico tried for the first time in its history to elaborate a foreign policy with broader international outreach, an effort highlighted by the Mexican presidential trips to Latin America and Asia as well as other countries that belonged to the Non-Aligned Movement. While historiography has explored Mexico's attitude towards the Alliance for Progress and, more consistently, the country's Cuban policy, much less attention has been dedicated to López Mateos's engagement with the Non-Aligned Movement. Focusing on Mexico's failed participation at the First Conference of Heads of State of Non-Aligned Countries celebrated in Belgrade in 1961, this article aims to fill this research gap. Indeed, even if Mexico did not ultimately participate in the conference, Mexican diplomacy did show great interest in the gathering. For a country that had formally sided with the United States after the beginning of the cold war, Mexico's flirtation with the Non-Aligned Movement represented a detour from the diplomatic path it had adopted at the end of the Second World War. This work argues that Mexico's engagement with the Non-Aligned Movement presents a different dimension of the country's international strategy during the 1960s, reflecting Mexico's desire to loosen the bipolar constraints that limited its economic development and increase its leverage with Washington.     

Unrest in the Arab world: why the 2011 uprisings still matter

This article reviews the current state of analysis of the 2011 Arab uprisings. It argues that valuable literature on the uprisings is emerging just at a time when the international policy agenda has moved away from 2011's flirtation with visions of a democratic Middle East. This literature presents a timely reminder that the uprisings were part of long‐term processes of political change, rather than isolated phenomena. Understanding the very different post‐uprising trajectories of different Arab countries requires comparative analysis of the political economy, state institutions, the role of the security sector and strategies of opposition movements, among other factors. Moreover, comparative experiences from transitions in other regions indicate that the conflicts, economic problems and social polarization that have ensued in most of the transition countries are not evidence of an Arab exception, but, rather, have parallels with political transitions elsewhere, which have rarely been peaceful or simple. Compared to 2011, the perceived costs of political change are higher today, while the gains remain uncertain. But the drivers of unrest remain unresolved; and a small minority will seek change through brutal and violent means. Western policy‐makers need to understand what is driving these movements. Yet they also, crucially, need to understand what is motivating and preoccupying the larger publics in the Arab world, in order to build broad‐based relations with these countries, and avoid inadvertently empower violent groups by allowing them to set the political agenda.     

Interest Groups,Federalism, and Water Quality in the Great Lakes: Chasing a Moving Target

Federalism often creates additional decisions for interest groups in determining how best to advocate for their policy recommendations in the legislative process. Should they focus their advocacy at the local, state, or national level of government? This article examines interest group behaviors in water quality policy in the Great Lakes region from 1960 to 2000. I evaluate the reasons for interest group decisions about which level of government to target, using historical analysis of Great Lakes water quality policy in the United States and Canada. The results of this analysis show that in many cases groups are influenced in their decision-making based on the level of government that has the greatest jurisdiction over the policy, supporting a neoinstitutional argument.     

Participatory action in the age of green urbanism. How Futurefarmers leapfrogged the culture consumer?

This article looks at a shift in urban governance and policy-making from a culture-led approach towards a ‘green turn’ and an environmentally informed approach. The particular focus of this exploration is how public art practices participate in this ongoing reconfiguration. We are especially concerned with the parallel effort by public administration and the art community to activate citizens through nature-oriented, public spaces. Our main target of interest is the city of Oslo where we investigate the art group that goes by the name of Futurefarmers, whose engagement with land development relates to planning, cultural strategies, curatorial approaches and related art projects. Our findings indicate that while this work pursues a mission of its own, it also has the potential to advance its position in public space by representing green values in decision-making processes. We argue that through this ability to operate both within and outside the system, art practice can introduce interdisciplinary collaborations that can drive change in cultural policy.     

Poverty in Transition: An Ethnographic Critique of Household Surveys in Post-Soviet Central Asia

Post-Soviet transitions have prompted a search for new policy tools and methods of data collection. The shift from universal welfare provision under the Soviet system to targeted assistance and poverty monitoring has stimulated a new interest in the measurement of living standards and poverty lines. This has promoted the use of quantitative techniques and sample surveys (household surveys, in particular) as privileged tools for the collection of policy-relevant information. This paper contends that survey techniques have particular limitations as research tools in an environment where local level case studies are scarce and where a host of new socio-economic processes are creating fundamental shifts in the landscape of social provision, redistribution and employment. These limitations are illustrated by drawing upon a household survey conducted by the author in four villages from two regions in Uzbekistan, Andijan and Kashkadarya, between October 1997 and August 1998. The ambiguities surrounding five basic concepts, those of household, employment, access to land, income and expenditure are discussed in detail, as are the changes in their contents and meanings in the context of transition. The gender differentiated outcomes of current changes and their possible implications are highlighted throughout the text. The conclusion suggests that Uzbekistan finds itself at an uneasy juncture where the policies deployed to ‘cushion’ the social costs of transition may reach the limits of their sustainability. A more contextually sensitive approach to the mechanisms that generate new forms of vulnerability and the use of qualitative and longitudinal methodologies are essential to an adequate monitoring of further changes.     

The President and the Environment: A Reinterpretation of Neustadt's Theory of Presidential Leadership

Neustadt's theory of presidential leadership is conventionally viewed as based on a model of the Bargaining President, in which presidents focus on twisting arms and trading favors rather than on making public appeals. However, Neustadt's theory has a deeper logic—the logic of strategic choice, in which both effective bargaining and rhetorical appeals are techniques of presidential persuasion enabled by a President's choices. This reinterpretation of Neustadt's theory is supported by an original case study of President George H.W. Bush's leadership on the 1990 Clean Air Act. The President presented an initiative in a manner that capitalized on the public mood and he made key strategic choices aimed at persuading congressional leaders to engage with his administration in a non-zero sum game to enact a law that served their mutual policy and political interests. Rhetorical appeals were few in number. Quid pro quo bargaining played a limited role.     

Assessing Presidential Agenda-Setting Capacity: Dynamic Comparisons of Presidential,Mass Media,and Public Attention to Economic Issues

Research on presidential agenda setting has rarely attempted to simultaneously assess the ability of the president to influence the policy agendas of the mass media and the public. This is primarily due to the lack of time-refined measures of public issue attention. With advances in technology, information about Internet search engine behavior can provide an indication of the level of interest the public has over time about specific issues. Using Google Trends weekly data about public search interest levels, this project contrasts dynamic attention to several economic issues: unemployment, recession, and inflation. The vector autoregression analyses performed suggest the president does not have the capacity to directly guide public attention, nor does the president have the capacity to indirectly guide public attention through the media. There is some indication that the president can indirectly guide public attention by influencing actual economic conditions, and that the president is responsive to attention from the mass media and the public. The moving-average representation analyses indicate that an increase in presidential attention has the potential to produce a small contemporaneous increase in either mass media or public attention to some economic issues. The duration of these positive shifts in mass media or public attention are all very brief, indicating the president has a limited capacity through either direct or indirect leadership to sustain the attention other actors in the political system place on the specific issues studied. Strong evidence in all three of the issue areas studied supports that mass media attention and public attention are closely related.     

Narrative policy images: Intersecting narrative & attention in presidential stories about the environment

Drawing on ideas about how narratives focus attention, this paper develops a “narrative policy image” using the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and Narrative Policy Framework explanations of the policy process. The concept of a narrative policy image is applied to test partisan expectations about presidential environmental policy stories in State of the Union Addresses over 73 years. This research finds that Democratic stories focus on problems like climate change and victims and Republican stories emphasize solutions like new programs and upholding the status quo. These trends point to potential story types and suggest a narrative policy image, including both narrative components and valence, may be a useful concept for understanding narrative attention in macropolitics.     

Reconceptualizing Major Policy Change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework: A Discourse Network Analysis of German Pension Politics

How does major policy change come about? This article identifies and rectifies weaknesses in the conceptualization of innovative policy change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework. In a case study of policy belief change preceding an innovative reform in the German subsystem of old‐age security, important new aspects of major policy change are carved out. In particular, the analysis traces a transition from one single hegemonic advocacy coalition to another stable coalition, with a transition phase between the two equilibria. The transition phase is characterized (i) by a bipolarization of policy beliefs in the subsystem and (ii) by state actors with shifting coalition memberships due to policy learning across coalitions or due to executive turnover. Apparently, there are subsystems with specific characteristics (presumably redistributive rather than regulative subsystems) in which one hegemonic coalition is the default, or the “normal state.” In these subsystems, polarization and shifting coalition memberships seem to interact to produce coalition turnover and major policy change. The case study is based on discourse network analysis, a combination of qualitative content analysis and social network analysis, which provides an intertemporal measurement of advocacy coalition realignment at the level of policy beliefs in a subsystem.     

Ronald Reagan's Indian Policy in Retrospect

This article examines presidential politics during the Reagan era with regard to the formulation, implementation, and aftermath of Reagan's Indian policy. Indian affairs proved to be a formidable testing ground for the drastic administrative budget cuts that transpired in the 1980s. Although the ill-effects of this policy were felt immediately in Indian Country, economic crisis inspired some tribes to seize control of their own political and economic destinies, ultimately influencing federal policy in their favor.     

Presidential Signing Statements and the Durability of the Law

Prior literature suggests that presidents use signing statements to unilaterally move policy closer to their own ideal point after Congress has already voted on and passed a particular bill. Congress, however, retains the ability to revisit and amend the law by passing another bill. A presidential signing statement may thus make a law less durable and more likely to be amended in the future. To investigate this relationship, we examine all laws passed from the 95th through the 108th Congresses in order to demonstrate the specific influence of presidential signing statements on future congressional amendment activity. The results of our analysis lend support to the theory that laws receiving presidential signing statements are in fact more likely to be revisited and revised by Congress. These findings add to the literature both on presidential signing statements as well as the evolution of laws.