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The article presents a list of various papers on policy studies subjects that were presented at the 1977 annual meetings of the Midwest, New England, Northeastern, Southern, Southwestern, and Western Political Science Association. Philip Abbott of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan presented "Philosophy of Political Theory and Public Policy: The Abortion Question in the Classroom." John Shiry of University at Alberta, presented "Policy Type and the Political Process in a Canadian Province: A Test of the Lowi Model."

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article presents information about papers presented at the Florida and Arizona conferences on policy studies in March 1980. Some of the papers are "The Role of the Professional in the Politics of Aging," was presented by Neal Cutler and "Practical Theorizing," has been presented by Fred Frohock. The paper "Demographic Changes and Changing Demography," is presented by Kenneth Godwin.

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper seeks to examine how federal financial support of academic scientists shapes their collaborative behavior. More specifically, it investigates two questions: (i) are there threshold sizes of federal grants that have effects on collaboration? and (ii) do the threshold sizes differ by discipline? To test and model these questions, this paper uses data collected in a 2004-2005 survey by the Research Valuing Mapping Project (a project based at Georgia Tech and led by Barry Bozeman) of 2,086 academically based research scientists and engineers. The analysis in this paper reaffirms the positive relationship between federal funding and collaboration seen in previous works, but the findings suggest that there is in fact a threshold effect-as the positive relationship has a diminishing influence. The findings of this paper are more limited with respect to how academic disciplines' threshold levels differ. The results indicate a difference in the threshold levels between disciplines for three of the eight models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The way in which land is regulated in the United States is undergoing fundamental examination and rethinking. The symposium on land policy in the U.S. for the "Policy Studies Journal" was organized around several of these issues and writers were asked to examine the major conceptual ideas evident in this re-evaluation. Specifically, the symposium was started with the premise that there were two trends most important to understanding present changes in the land policy arena. First, the land policy is being affected by the fundamental re-examination of intergovernmental relations presently taking place in the United States. Historically the system of intergovernmental relations has witnessed continual changes. But at certain times, the depth of these changes is greater than at others.

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Examines symposium papers dealing with community impacts of deregulation in the banking and telecommunications sectors in the United States. History and evolution of banking regulation and institutional changes; Effects of deregulation in the banking industry on local financial markets; Public interest issues involved with telephone deregulation.

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Disproportionate information processing theory asserts that sudden, dramatic changes punctuate otherwise stable growth patterns in U.S. policy and budget processes. The present paper uses state government sub-functional expenditures to explore what factors cause budget stability and punctuations. First, the findings in the present paper generally confirm the observations made in other studies that distributions of governmental budgets are Paretian. Second, while future research is warranted to identify more specific causes, this preliminary analysis suggests that institutional frictions and information oversupply tend to increase both budget stability and punctuations. It also suggests that availability of efficient information reduces budget stability but not necessarily budget punctuations. However, when examined at the level of different fund-type expenditures, which have differing degrees of institutional friction and availability of information that can be efficiently processed, more subtle and distinguishable differences in patterns of budget stability and punctuations emerge, which was not accounted for in disproportionate information processing theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates the value of cost benefit analysis in providing a useful answer to a natural resource policy issue. In 1980 the Georgia Tax Reform Commission, a body of the Georgia Legislature, undertook a consideration of whether the State should impose a severance tax on minerals. A severance tax is essentially an excise tax levied on natural resources as they are severed or extracted from the ground. Numerous arguments were proffered by groups potentially affected by the decision, particularly local governments which might benefit by sharing the tax revenue with the State and the mining companies which were naturally opposed to any additional tax burden.

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent growth in the number of school choice programs across the country has ignited debate on the stratifying effects of these programs. In the context of interdistrict open enrollment, this paper analyzes-both theoretically and empirically-how choice programs affect stratification levels through the mechanisms of (i) the relative characteristics of program participants and nonparticipants and (ii) the schooling choices of different groups of program participants. The theoretical analysis uses Monte Carlo simulation techniques to analyze a hypothetical world where interdistrict choice is available to students in three school districts that are allowed to vary in student composition, the type of students who take advantage of the interdistrict choice program, and schooling choices of students who open enroll. The results of these simulations provide an understanding of the conditions under which an interdistrict open enrollment program leads to increases, decreases, or no changes in stratification levels. The empirical analysis uses data from the universe of students attending Colorado public schools in 2009-10 to examine how the state's interdistrict choice program affects stratification levels. It also analyzes the factors responsible for any increases or decreases in stratification and finds both participation patterns and differences in schooling decisions across groups to play important roles. The paper concludes with a discussion of its implications for research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I present an intensive case study of the development of the National Flood Insurance Program to advance two key arguments. First, the conventional model of adoption of general interest reform neglects an important aspect of political context: whether the relevant policy domain is one with or without “publics.” I argue that in domains without publics the politics of reform will differ substantially from the accepted model. Second, I argue that the type of learning necessary to address a given policy failure matters in reform politics. Instrumental learning is necessary but may not be sufficient for successful general interest reforms. When the social construction of a policy failure is such that many people misconceive of the fundamental purpose of a policy, social learning must take place before instrumental learning can be effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the article the authors respond to an article that commented on their paper and attempt to more clearly express their position on the effectiveness of income transfers in combating poverty. The authors explore the impact that the 2008-2009 economic crisis has had on family incomes, unemployment and instances of poverty in the United States. They discuss some of the ways the U.S. government has attempted to alleviate the financial troubles felt by many citizens. They also examine the male-orientated nature of the recession, noting that nearly 75% of all job losses were among men.

John Kingdon sets out a multiple streams approach to policymaking, whereby problems, solutions, and politics develop independently of one another. Kingdon's work suggests that advocates with pet policies may continually search the problem stream, looking for prominent issues to attach to their preferred solutions. I call this process “problem surfing.” This paper provides an empirical test of problem surfing through the use of a case study of environmental advocacy. The paper examines Wilderness Society and Sierra Club advocacy for sustainable forestry practices from 1971 to 1994 through an analysis of articles in member magazines and interview data. Problem surfing is revealed to be a complex strategic process. I find evidence that advocacy groups adjust the problems they associate their solutions with over time to take advantage of salient issues. However, problem surfing appears to be influenced by more than just problem salience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the Policy Studies Organization (PSO). It is committed to social responsibility and believes that all organizations should contribute positively to the environment. Paul Rich of George Mason University is the president of the organization. Victoria Basolo is vice president and Harrell Rodgers is secretary. The Policy Studies Organization holds meetings with various associations including the Southern Political Science Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Studies Association. It also raises funds for three endowments and sponsors the Seymour Martin Lipset Endowment of the American Political Science Association.

Policies governing the sale of raw milk-making the sales of raw milk more permissive-are gaining traction on the legislative agendas of dozens of states. This paper examines one contributor to this movement on the policy agenda: the role of competitive framing. By combining theoretical approaches from policy studies and political psychology theories of competitive framing, we offer evidence supporting the recent relative success of raw milk activists in several state legislatures. Using an Internet survey-based experiment with a sample size of 1,630 respondents from seven Midwestern states, we show that a frame emphasizing consumer choice and food freedom is more effective than the frame that dominates among the policy establishment, that emphasizing public health risks. This is true in both one-sided and competitive framing contexts. We further show that those previously aware of this issue were less influenced by the public health frame than those naïve to the issue. Our results suggest that the pro-raw milk movement may be making strides on the state policy agenda because their frames are more resonant among the public. We also highlight the advantages gained from considering psychological and policy processes simultaneously to understand policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on three episodes of U.S. policymaking concerning illicit drugs, one during the Nixon administration, one during the Carter administration, and the contemporary war on drugs. Drawing upon evidence from drug-related Congressional hearings, the Gallup Poll, counts of relevant articles in the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature and content analysis of the New York Times Index, the three episodes are characterized as fitting one of Cobb, Ross, and Ross's (1976) models of agenda-setting. The paper then considers the linkage between these differences in agenda setting and the very different policy content of each episode. While the Nixon and Carter episodes exemplify the dynamics of "mobilization" and "inside access" agenda setting respectively, the contemporary drug policy episode is anomalous. It suggests the need for an extension of the Cobb, Ross, and Ross typology to incorporate a new, "network" type of agenda setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the transactions cost approach (TCA) is used to define organizations and to predict their forms under certain conditions. Next, Aaron Wildavsky's approach is used to define the policy process and to predict its form in particular organizations. Two assertions follow: namely, that the most efficient organizational form may be predicted from knowledge of underlying transactions costs, and that the form of the policy process in an organization can be predicted from knowledge of the organization's form (regardless of whether it is the most efficient form). Recent natural gas policy in the U.S.A. is used to illustrate these propositions, and several conclusions are offered about 1) the potential applicability of the TCA to the public sector and to the policy process and 2) about the potential applicability of Wildavsky's version of the policy process to differing organizational forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the Truman presidency through that of Carter, the United States worked fitfully toward the development of an energy policy. Now, consistent with the "free market - get government off the backs of the people" philosophy of the Reagan Administration, the 1981 National Energy Policy Plan proposes that "individual choices" and "reliance on market decisions" replace regulations and subsidies in the nation's strategy for energy. This paper starts from the assumption that the Spring, 1982 oil "glut" may turn out to be a rather temporary thing. If one therefore wants to pursue a policy strategy that will protect us in the case of sudden short-term supply disruptions and also work toward long-term energy supply diversification, how far will market reliance carry us? What is a range of policies and programs that might usefully supplement the market? What are the externalities for which compensatory actions may still be needed if one would like to employ the market strategy as a basic thrust? The scope of the paper includes contingency planning, synthetic fuel development, renewables (especially solar energy), conservation, equity issues, environmental externalities, and the conceptualization of policies differentiated as "energy," "environmental," or "economic." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essence of political culture of the U.S. is found in its Constitution and the Federalist papers. The main theme is, individuals are created equal and are free to make their choices. Political freedom is therefore first, without it other values cannot be fully achieved. The Constitution protects these values by implementing separation of powers by carefully crafting governmental institutions which divide governmental decision making power, check and balance the power of one institution with others and establish clear division of responsibility between levels of government.

The article presents an introduction to a symposium on poverty. This symposium is a first attempt at investigating the questions related to poverty in the United States and England. The authors of the papers in the symposium have, in several different ways, investigated the worth of poverty related research. Authors of the article want to answer the questions as, who has benefited from applied poverty research? and who have the benefits to the poor outweighed the costs to the poor? The articles of the symposium are divided into sections based upon the type of attack that they provide to these issues.

Though the distribution of Federal expenditures among the regions of the country is an issue that has been much studied, comparison of overall spending totals obscures several important differences among the programs that make up those totals. These differences can be expected to relate to the economic effects of Federal outlays on local areas. This paper distinguishes among programs according to their expected community income multipliers and also according to the type of program (e.g., direct outlay, loan, etc.); it finds that there are important differences among the nation's regions which can indicate differential economic effects, [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents proceedings of a symposium on optimizing, implementing and evaluating public policy, held in the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Optimizing, implementing, and evaluating public policy, are three activities that usually are treated separately by researchers rather than together. The fundamental thesis of this symposium is that in the actual world all three activities are so completely interrelated and interdependent that people cannot understand, analyze, or carry out one activity in isolation from others. This symposium has been divided into three separate sections. A separate introduction has been written for each section and papers that are included in the symposium have been summarized there.

This paper discusses the set of organizations, public and private, which fund and/or do agricultural research in the United States. Its purpose is to attempt to unravel the "politics" of that establishment. The name "research establishment" might imply a unitized, cohesive organization dedicated to a collectively agreed upon common purpose. It is the thesis of this paper that such a characterization is not accurate. Rather the "agricultural research establishment" is a morass of Loosely related, sometimes complementary, sometimes competitive, organizations, so intertwined with the 'publics' they serve that it defies simple definition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper states that first, transportation decisions are in fact ideological in character, i.e., they represent differing notions of the proper role of government and the proper distribution of the costs and benefits of government programs among social groups and second, that societies with different dominant ideologies resolve comparable controversies in consistent and different ways. To illustrate this argument, the paper draws upon the experience of the two nations which represent ideological extremes among the western democracies, Sweden and the United States. And, the paper emphasizes on two types of debates which have occurred in both countries, transportation projects versus other community and environmental objectives, and private versus public transportation modes.

This article presents information on members of the American Political Science Association's Public Policy Section and awards related to policy studies. Members of the section who will receive the "Policy Studies Journal" as part of their annual membership dues include, Denise Scheberle of University of Wisconsin, R. Kent Weaver of Georgetown University, David Hedge of the University of Florida and others. Policy Studies Best Paper Award for the best policy studies paper was received by Michele A. Gilbert, Karen Mossberger, and Caroline J. Tolbert of Kent State University for their paper, "Race, Place, and Information Technology."

As debates in industrialized countries over the last century indicate, health care and the role of government in its provision are complex and contentious issues. This article provides an orientation to the variety of topics guiding research and discourse in U.S. health policy, as well as how those topical areas influence and engage each other. This paper introduces five prominent themes in health policy research, namely (i) biomedical policy, (ii) public health policy, (iii) health economics, (iv) health care policy, and (v) health informatics policy. It also provides specific examples from current scholarship. Broad themes that connect those lines of inquiry are highlighted with recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior literature has emphasized demographic, economic, and political explanations for increasing income inequality in the United States, with little attention paid to the role of state-level policy. This is despite great variation across states in both the level of inequality and the rate at which it is rising. This paper asks whether differences in state policy choices can help explain this variation; specifically, we examined a range of state redistributive policies enacted between 1980 and 2005 and identified four common approaches likely to impact inequality: taxes on the wealthy, taxes on the poor, spending on the poor, and labor market policies. We used pooled cross-sectional time-series data and a fixed-effects model to assess the relationship between states' use of each policy approach and two measures of market income inequality: the Gini coefficient and the income share of the top 1 percent. We find policies played a significant role in shaping income inequality in the states. For three of these four policy approaches, we found less inequality following expansions of state redistributive policy. Yet, for another, we identified the opposite pattern. These findings highlight the importance of state policy choices in shaping market inequality, and have implications for designing state policies to reduce income inequality since the success of these efforts depends on the policy approach used to redistribute income and wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the competing forces driving the development of renewable energy in the American states. We formulate a framework of state renewable energy politics and develop a set of hypotheses regarding the role of politics, policies, and prices in renewable energy development. We test these hypotheses with a fixed effect vector decomposition model using a panel data set for the U. S. states from 1990 to 2008. The results indicate that renewable energy development is influenced by regulatory institutions, the party affiliations of the governor and legislators, and the professionalism of the legislature, accompanied by the effects of various policy instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the agenda leadership capability of two American political institutions, Congress and the presidency, in an array of issue areas that include both domestic and foreign policy. The president has long been considered to have the most significant role in setting the policymaking agenda, but there is limited empirical research to support that claim. Examining the issue areas of defense, environment, health care, international affairs, law and crime, and macroeconomics from 1956 to 2005, we find statistically significant positive influence by the president on the congressional agenda in all six of the policy areas under examination, providing compelling evidence of presidential agenda leadership and a reactive Congress. Additionally, we find that the agenda relationship between the president and Congress is issue dependent, in that presidential attention has the largest substantive effect on the congressional agenda in the area of international affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metropolitan smog alerts are prominent public information campaigns designed to enhance public health and to curb driving and other emissions. Unlike many other voluntary information-based environmental policies, air quality alerts target household behavior via forecast information about ambient concentrations rather than firm or product characteristics. This paper explores behaviors with high emissions (driving) and with high exposure (outdoor recreation) and underscores the difference between altruistic and risk aversion motivations. Behavioral impacts are identified using the threshold nature of daily air quality forecasts. A regression discontinuity (RD) design finds elderly users and exercisers tend to curtail their use of a major park following smog alerts. The RD design also reveals that households do not drive less on smog alert days. Juxtaposing high emissions behavior with high exposure behavior in the same study highlights how public forecast information may better trigger some responses and struggle to trigger others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a case study of wetland regulation in the United States to develop elements of a theory about institutional stability and change in policy processes involving large public organizations. This theoretical approach draws on the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to understand events that are not well explained by other policy theories. Our approach accounts for the theoretically unexpected outcomes of the U. S. Supreme Court's ruling in Rapanos v. United States, which stood to change the way the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency regulate the filling of wetlands. We propose a typology of institutional types that operate inside public organizations, and use process tracing to show how tacit institutions, those created informally within public organizations, can play key roles in determining the outcomes of policy processes. In the Rapanos case, informal coordination mechanisms enabled regulators and members of the regulated community to preserve substantially the pre-ruling status quo. The key role of these microlevel interactions in shaping the macrolevel behaviors of public organizations underscores the importance of further research investigating how, in similar cases, different behavioral mechanisms interact in often complex and unexpected ways to determine the outcomes of policy processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an effort to address some of the gaps in homeland security policy analysis—at present a relatively understudied topic from an analytic perspective—Professor Mueller offers an examination of policy decision making for a subset of low probability–high consequence events; particularly the idea of passive asset defense. This article provides a critical examination of Professor Mueller's work, tendering what we identify as a number of critical limitations with his framework and argues it does not provide an adequate basis for sound analysis in this policy area. We also offer several suggestions where one could build upon a portion of the groundwork his paper lays, especially in moving toward a greater appreciation of what terrorism means for an all-hazards management system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion on a paper by Douglas Besharov and Douglas Call featured in the issue that examined poverty in Western Europe and the United States and explored ways to address and reduce this problem from a policy standpoint. The author focuses on the conditions in the U.S. for working class families. The author argues that an effective antipoverty movement hinges on policies that would increase earnings and reduce single and unwed parenthood in addition to selective improvements in income transfers. The author discusses differences between absolute poverty and relative poverty and argues that policies aimed at addressing absolute poverty in the U.S. are unnecessary due to the small number of people in this group.

This paper examines compacts used by U.S. western states to engage in shared governance of interstate rivers. Compacts are viewed as inflexible, rigid governance structures incapable of responding to changing environmental and institutional settings because of the use of unanimity rules and the inability to directly regulate water users. Using data from a study of 14 western interstate river compacts we examine this claim. In particular, we explore the response of compacts to water conflicts. We find that members of compacts, closely related water agencies, and compact governments are capable of responding to conflicts. To better understand this finding, we identify the conditions under which compacts are likely to address conflicts, as well as the types of conflict solutions compact governments adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Jones and Baumgartner's disproportionate information processing model, it is crucial to study fluctuations in congressional attention over time and across policy issues to understand congressional policy decisions including decisions on the federal budget. Drawing on classical ideas about reelection-oriented behavior, on the one hand, and the blocking power of federal agencies, on the other, this paper extends and specifies the attention-spending predictions of the disproportionate information processing model. Specifically, spending effects of congressional attention shifts are argued to be crucially dependent on both the spending preferences expressed by the U.S. public and on pressure from spending advocates. An empirical evaluation of the association between changes in congressional attention measures and federal budget appropriations across 12 spending domains and 33 years (1970–2003) supports this conditional hypothesis derived from the extended disproportionate information processing model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The REAL ID Act was passed in 2005 by Congress in part to address preoccupations with breaches to homeland security after the 9/11 attacks. The Act requires states to introduce more standardized state driver's licenses by 2008. The goal of this paper is to understand citizens' opinions in the area of personal identification and how these opinions may be shaped by alternative framings of the issue. Using survey responses from Michigan residents provides evidence of the following: (i) a majority of the Michigan public supports the current reforms in identification; however, a majority is not willing to incur larger costs or delays; (ii) framing the issue around immigration can generate as much support as framing the issue around terrorism; however, a more balanced discourse can dampen support; and (iii) partisan and ideological leanings moderately structure support for identification reforms. Overall the findings suggest a comfortable margin for reforms around personal identification if public safeguarding interpretations can predominate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has two objectives. First, we examine state adoption and implementation of income support policies under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. We develop a composite measure of income support that includes welfare programs that scholars traditionally investigate and adds optional policies that encourage independence through work. Second, we engage a substantive focus on the administrative ability and willingness of states to adopt and implement sophisticated income support policies. We investigate the extent to which state government professionalism, ideology, economic resources, and racially based policies have shaped state policy. We find that the percentage of the state population is liberal; state racial demographics and governmental professionalism are critical determinants of state welfare and income support regimes. Significantly, we find no evidence that states are converging toward high-quality, effectively financed welfare policies or income regime policies to help the poor move into and economically survive in the job market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoinstitutionalists applying the logic of rational choice institutionalism have leavened our understanding of public agency design and evolution in the domestic and national security policy domains. This paper seeks to advance theory building in empirically grounded ways by assessing the explanatory power of an important theoretical perspective (rational choice institutionalism), in an understudied “hybrid” policy domain where domestic and national security aims interact (domestic environmental policy and national security policy), and in an organizational type (the U.S. military) that has drawn scant attention from students of bureaucracy in political science, public administration, or public management. Analysis of three major efforts to green the U.S. military suggests that the patterns of politics accompanying agency evolution involving hybrid policy domains differ from domestic and national security domains in ways that limit the generalizability of rational choice institutionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the decision-making approaches of two presidents, John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush, in relation to unanticipated international crises. One, President Kennedy, employed a broad body of expert opinion and entertained a wide range of options in meeting the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963. The actions taken avoided a potential worldwide nuclear war. The other, George W. Bush, consulted only a few, like-minded colleagues and appears to have decided early on that a war directed against Iraq and Saddam Hussein was a necessity. The administration's justifications for the war were difficult to prove and the administration chose an essentially bilateral (as against a multi-lateral) approach. The Iraq War was won fairly easily, although its long-range consequences remain unclear. The two styles of decision-making present polarized approaches to international crisis situation management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)