Over the last two decades many alternate theories of the policy process have been developed. This essay covers recent scholarship (from 2008 to 2010) regarding the major policy process theories. In addition, several recent trends in research are discussed including; the use of narrative in policy theory, issues that cross multiple subsystems, bureaucracy in the policy process, and synthesizing multiple theories and frameworks.

This paper analyzes the changes Americans perceive to be taking place in their local weather and tests a series of hypotheses about why they hold these perceptions. Using data from annual nationwide surveys of the American public taken from 2008 to 2011, coupled with geographically specific measures of temperature and precipitation changes over that same period, the authors evaluate the relationship between perceptions of weather changes and actual changes in local weather. In addition, the survey data include measures of individual-level characteristics (age, education level, gender, and income) as well as cultural worldview and political ideology. Rival hypotheses about the origins of Americans' perceptions of weather change are tested, and it is found that actual weather changes are less predictive of perceived changes in local temperatures, but better predictors of perceived flooding and droughts. Cultural biases and political ideology also shape perceptions of changes in local weather. Overall, the analysis herein indicates that beliefs about changes in local temperatures have been more heavily politicized than is true for beliefs about local precipitation patterns. Therefore, risk communications linking changes in local patterns of precipitation to broader changes in the climate are more likely to penetrate identity-protective cognitions about climate.

Nuclear facilities have long been seen as the top of the list of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs), with nuclear waste repositories generating the greatest opposition. Focusing on the case of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southern New Mexico, we test competing hypotheses concerning the sources of opposition and support for siting the facility, including demographics, proximity, political ideology, and partisanship, and the unfolding policy process over time. This study tracks the changes of risk perception and acceptance of WIPP over a decade, using measures taken from 35 statewide surveys of New Mexico citizens spanning an 11-year period from fall 1990 to summer 2001. This time span includes periods before and after WIPP became operational. We find that acceptance of WIPP is greater among those whose residences are closest to the WIPP facility. Surprisingly, and contrary to expectations drawn from the broader literature, acceptance is also greater among those who live closest to the nuclear waste transportation route. We also find that ideology, partisanship, government approval, and broader environmental concerns influence support for WIPP acceptance. Finally, the sequence of procedural steps taken toward formal approval of WIPP by government agencies proved to be important to gaining public acceptance, the most significant being the opening of the WIPP facility itself.

Objective Social scientists from a variety of disciplines have employed concepts drawn from cultural theory (CT) to explain preferences across an array of issues. Recent research has challenged key elements of CT in a number of ways, perhaps most importantly by arguing that cultural types are simply another formulation of political ideology, and that only politically knowledgeable respondents reliably utilize either cultural or ideological categories in formulating preferences. This study reconsiders and expands upon this contention. Methods Principal component analyses of responses to a U.S. national survey of 4,387 people. Results Our findings are threefold: (1) people with low levels of political knowledge are able to sort egalitarianism and individualism into coherent worldviews; (2) people with high levels of knowledge do not collapse egalitarianism and individualism onto a single scale of political ideology; and (3) regardless of levels of knowledge, survey respondents are able to recognize all four of the value orientations proposed by CT. Conclusion CT, which is related to but different than political ideology, offers a robust system of worldviews that both high‐ and low‐knowledge individuals might draw upon to formulate opinions and make decisions.

Issue definitions, the way policy issues are understood, are an important component for understanding the policymaking process. Research on issue definitions has been divided between a macro level that examines collective issue definitions and a micro level focusing on the ways in which policy actors frame policy issues. This article develops a model of issue definitions that assumes issues are multidimensional, competition exists among policy actors in defining issues, and that collective issue definitions can be understood as the aggregation of individual issue definitions. This model is then estimated using quantitative text analysis. While various approaches to text analysis and categorization have been used by scholars, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), a specific type of topic modeling, is used to estimate issue definitions. Using LDA, witness testimony taken from Congressional hearings that occurred from 1975 to 2012 about the issue of used nuclear fuel (UNF) is examined and seven distinct dimensions of the UNF debate are estimated. The construct validity of these dimensions is checked by testing them against two major policy changes that occurred in the UNF domain. I conclude with a discussion of the strengths and weakness of topic modeling, and how this approach could be used to test hypotheses drawn from several of the major policymaking theories.

Many experts see carbon pricing as an effective way to reduce emissions of greenhouses gases; however, political and public support for carbon pricing has faltered. Recent research indicates that revenue recycling and policy design options may induce public support for carbon pricing, but does not examine change in support as a result of revenue use or possible heterogeneity in these inducements across partisan groups. Does support for a carbon tax shift significantly once revenue uses are discussed? Do conservatives and Republicans and liberals and Democrats respond to different revenue reuse options when formulating opinions about carbon taxation? This study employs a survey experiment to examine these questions. Key results indicate that support shifts are largest when the revenue would be refunded and conservatives and Republicans are responsive to different revenue usage options. Specifically, conservatives and Republicans are more supportive of a carbon tax when revenues go towards a tax rebate or deficit reduction. While the differences are relatively small and variable (uncertain), these results provide suggestive insight into the policy design options that may induce a bipartisan basis of public support for carbon taxation policies.

Public administration theorists have long argued that values of administrative actors fundamentally shape the quality and nature of the public services they provide. While there has been some work in recent years to measure values in the public sector like Public Service Motivation, we know relatively little about the role that other (more basic) values play in shaping managerial behaviour. To fill this gap, we argue that Cultural Theory (CT), a prominent theory within research on risk and public opinion, provides a general framework for operationalizing and measuring the values of public managers, which (if pursued) allows scholars to directly test important yet untested hypotheses about the relationship between values and managerial decision‐making. To explore this proposition, we use data from a recent survey of American Indian education directors in public school districts to examine the relationship between cultural worldviews and managerial motivation to engage actors in collaborative arrangements.

Using survey data collected from residents of counties along the South Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States, we use innovative compositional data analysis techniques to examine individuals’ assignment of responsibility for hurricane preparedness across federal, state, and local officials as well as among household residents and their community. We find that the public assigns limited responsibility for hurricane preparedness to governments. Rather, respondents, especially conservatives and those with low trust in government, view individuals themselves as responsible for preparedness. Our results emphasize the role of ideology and the individualistic culture of American politics. These results also have implications for scholars who study individual attribution responsibility in multi-level systems and who may assume that individuals will assign responsibility to one of the various levels of government; however, focusing on disaster preparation in particular, our study shows that a significant number of individuals may not assign responsibility to government at any level.