Why Does Policy Change

During the 2008 election season, politicians from both sides of the aisle promised to rid government of lobbyists’ undue influence. For the authors of Lobbying and Policy Change, the most extensive study ever done on the topic, these promises ring hollow—not because politicians fail to keep them but because lobbies are far less influential than political rhetoric suggests. Based on a comprehensive examination of ninety-eight issues, this volume demonstrates that sixty percent of recent lobbying campaigns failed to change policy despite millions of dollars spent trying. Why? The authors find that resources explain less than five percent of the difference between successful and unsuccessful efforts. Moreover, they show, these attempts must overcome an entrenched Washington system with a tremendous bias in favor of the status quo. Though elected officials and existing policies carry more weight, lobbies have an impact too, and when advocates for a given issue finally succeed, policy tends to change significantly. The authors argue, however, that the lobbying community so strongly reflects elite interests that it will not fundamentally alter the balance of power unless its makeup shifts dramatically in favor of average Americans’ concerns.

Why Does Policy Change? uses detailed case-studies from British transport policy since 1945 to examine and explain the dynamics of major policy change.

Public policy issues directly and indirectly affect many everyday aspects of the lives of all Americans. Yet, most of us don’t fully understand how policy evolves. Why do public policies exist? What different types of policies are there and how controversial have they become over time? How can we better understand the continuity and change in public policies? Expanding upon the first and second editions, the author uses theoretical and historical approaches to answer these questions and highlight changes that have occurred with public policies over the past decade. He explains the complex relationship of political and social theories that explain the modifications and restructuring of public policies that exist today. Through his engaging writing style, Wilson examines a variety of controversial issues and legal cases to deconstruct each aspect of public policy. His explanations provide detailed information in clear, comfortable language that encourages the reader to better understand and appreciate policies and theories. A list of referenced websites after each chapter allows for exploration outside of the text for up-to-date information on the ever-changing world of public policy.

This book beings with an attempt to clarify the notion of problem definition. The problem-definition task is placed in "policy-making arenas." In this context, problems are (implicitly and explicitly) defined so as to guide future policy, and to make sense out of past action. The second part examines the taken-for-granted complexity of public problems. A problem is rendered "complex" when solutions pursue conflicting or incompatible values. A new direction has to do with placing public organizations in the center of a utilization formula, in line with suggestions in the sociology of knowledge that view utilization as an organizational phenomenon.

This is a work on "hostile" data and the conditions under which they are accepted and rejected. What is the place of data in politics and organization? Why are politicians and administrators so often hostile to research data, or why do they tend to perceive data as hostile to them? How can data become relevant to policy? These questions are the focus of this book. In answer I try to show how political and administrative institutions cope with "hostile" data; how they seek to maintain closedness to disconfirming data, and how they are led, in a free society, to change their policies despite the epistemological bias in favor of the already known and the initial inclination to resist change. At the same time, I demonstrate that data producers must learn that while their research findings may be subjected to science's own standards of verifiability, such data must also meet standards of contestability by the various interests involved in political and administrative decisions. The production and "appropriate" publication of a research report may at best buy one an admission ticket to participate in political and administrative contests, but not the power nor the justification to determine the outcomes of the contest. I begin with two hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: Politicians or administrators reject data that do not coincide with behavior they are unwilling to change. Hypothesis II: Politicians or administrators change behavior that does not coincide with data they are unwilling to reject.

This is the first book to offer a systematic account of feminist philosophy as a distinctive field of philosophy. The book introduces key issues and debates in feminist philosophy including: the nature of sex, gender, and the body; the relation between gender, sexuality, and sexual difference; whether there is anything that all women have in common; and the nature of birth and its centrality to human existence. An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy shows how feminist thinking on these and related topics has developed since the 1960s. The book also explains how feminist philosophy relates to the many forms of feminist politics. The book provides clear, succinct and readable accounts of key feminist thinkers including de Beauvoir, Butler, Gilligan, Irigaray, and MacKinnon. The book also introduces other thinkers who have influenced feminist philosophy including Arendt, Foucault, Freud, and Lacan. Accessible in approach, this book is ideal for students and researchers interested in feminist philosophy, feminist theory, women's studies, and political theory. It will also appeal to the general reader.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

"Policy change is not predictable from election results or public opinion. The amount, issue content, and ideological direction of policy depend on the joint actions of policy entrepreneurs, especially presidents, legislators, and interest groups. This makes policymaking in each issue area and time period distinct and undermines unchanging models of policymaking"--

New thinking is needed on the age-old conundrum of how to connect research and policymaking. Why does a disconnect exist between the research community, which is producing thousands of studies relevant to public policy, and the policy community, which is making thousands of decisions that would benefit from research evidence? The second edition updates community dissonance theory and provides an even stronger, more substantiated story of why research is underutilized in policymaking, and what it will take to connect researchers and policymakers. This book offers a fresh look into what policymakers and the policy process are like, as told by policymakers themselves and the researchers who study and work with them. New to the second edition: • The point of view of policymakers is infused throughout this book based on a remarkable new study of 225 state legislators with an extraordinarily high response rate in this hard-to-access population. • A new theory holds promise for guiding the study and practice of evidence-based policy by building on how policymakers say research contributes to policymaking. • A new chapter features pioneering researchers who have effectively influenced public policy by engaging policymakers in ways rewarding to both. • A new chapter proposes how an engaged university could provide culturally competent training to create a new type of scholar and scholarship. This review of state-of-the-art research on evidence-based policy is a benefit to readers who find it hard to keep abreast of a field that spans the disciplines of business, economics, education, family sciences, health services, political science, psychology, public administration, social work, sociology, and so forth. For those who study evidence-based policy, the book provides the basics of producing policy relevant research by introducing researchers to policymakers and the policy process. Strategies are provided for identifying research questions that are relevant to the societal problems that confront and confound policymakers. Researchers will have at their fingertips a breath-taking overview of classic and cutting-edge studies on the multi-disciplinary field of evidence-based policy. For instructors, the book is written in a language and style that students find engaging. A topic that many students find mundane becomes germane when they read stories of what policymakers are like, and when they learn of researcher’s tribulations and triumphs as they work to build evidence-based policy. To point students to the most important ideas, the key concepts are highlighted in text boxes. For those who desire to engage policymakers, a new chapter summarizes the breakthroughs of several researchers who have been successful at driving policy change. The book provides 12 innovative best practices drawn from the science and practice of engaging policymakers, including insights from some of the best and brightest researchers and science communicators. The book also takes on the daunting task of evaluating the effectiveness of efforts to engage policymakers around research. A theory of change identifies seven key elements that are fundamental to increasing policymaker’s use of research along with evaluation protocols and preliminary evidence on each element.