Policy Tragedy and the Emergence of Regulation: The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938

Carpenter, Daniel; Sin, Gisela

doi:10.1017/s0898588x0700020x

Cited by 48 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(3 reference statements)

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“…“Claimsmakers” generally seek to either expand or contain problem definitions in order to mobilize political support and resources (Cobb & Coughlin, ; Hilgartner & Bosk, ; Spector & Kitsuse, ). Policy entrepreneurs may use focusing events such as disasters, crises, failures, errors, and accidents to galvanize public attention and reframe problem definitions (Birkland, ; Birkland & Warnement, ; Carpenter & Sin, ; Kingdon, ; Lawrence & Birkland, ; Mintrom & Norman, ), though established institutions may buffer status quo definitions (Baumgartner & Jones, ; Lodge & Hood, ).…”

Section: An Alternative: the Problem Definition And Control Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining Trends in Risk Governance: How Problem Definitions Underpin Risk Regimes

Ansell¹,

Baur²

2018

Risk Hazard & Crisis Pub Pol

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Profound changes in risk regulation have been brewing over the last few decades. These changes include an explosion of new institutional forms and strategies that decenter risk regulation and introduce a role for meta-regulation, a growing reliance on risk-based analysis to organize decision making and management, an increasingly preventive approach to regulation that requires an expansion of surveillance to better characterize and monitor risks, and a sharpening of contestation over strategies for evaluating and responding to risk. We distill two perspectives from the existing literature on risk regulation that can plausibly provide overarching explanations for these trends. The first perspective explains these trends as a reflection of the refashioning of state, market, and society to privilege economic libertyan explanatory framework we call "neoliberal governmentality." The second perspective argues that these trends reflect practical demands for more efficient and effective risk regulation and management-an explanatory framework we refer to as "functional adaptation." The central purpose of this paper is to advance a third explanation that we call a "problem definition and control" approach. It argues that trends in risk regulation reflect interactions between how society defines risks and how regulatory regimes seek to control those risks.Explicando las tendencias de la gobernanza de riesgos: C omo las definiciones de los problemas est an detr as de los regímenes Se han estado gestando profundos cambios en la regulaci on de riesgos en las ultimas d ecadas. Estos cambios incluyen el surgimiento de nuevas formas y estrategias institucionales que descentralizan la regulaci on del riesgo y presentan la funci on de la meta regulaci on, una dependencia creciente del an alisis basado en riesgos para organizar la toma de decisiones y la gesti on, un acercamiento cada vez m as preventivo para la regulaci on que requiere una expansi on de la vigilancia para caracterizar y monitorear mejor los riesgos y un refinamiento de la contestaci on que tiene que ver con las estrategias que se utilizan para evaluar y responder al riesgo. Destilamos nos perspectivas de la literatura existente de la regulaci on de riesgos que puede posiblemente proporcionar explicaciones generales para estas tendencias. primera perspectiva explica estas tendencias como una reflexi on de la remodelaci on de un estado, mercado y sociedad para privilegiar la libertad econ omica-un marco te orico explicativo que llamamos "gobernabilidad neoliberal." La segunda perspectiva argumenta que estas tendencias reflejan exigencias pr acticas para una regulaci on de riesgos m as efectiva y eficiente-un marco te orico explicativo al que nos referimos como "adaptaci on funcional." El prop osito central de este documento es avanzar a una tercera explicaci on que llamamos un acercamiento de "definici on y control del problema." Argumenta que las tendencias en la regulaci on reflejan interacciones entre c omo la sociedad define los riesgos y c omo los regímenes regu...

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Section: An Alternative: the Problem Definition And Control Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining Trends in Risk Governance: How Problem Definitions Underpin Risk Regimes

Ansell¹,

Baur²

2018

Risk Hazard & Crisis Pub Pol

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“…In the United States, triggering events have increased federal food regulation several times (e.g., U.S. Department of Agriculture, n.d.). To give but two examples, the public’s reaction to The Jungle is anecdotally credited with spawning the Federal Meat Inspection Act (Carpenter & Sin, ), and E. coli outbreaks in the 1990s led to a strengthening of centralized standards for government inspection (May, ). Notably, in one food policy issue, regulation of raw milk, scholars find that advocacy groups pressured for deregulation risk and decentralization of regulation by refocusing public attention away from collective, uncontrollable risks and toward other localized risks such as loss of personal freedom and business or economic losses (Rahn et al, ).…”

Section: Multilevel Policy Domain Of Food Safety Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fearing Food: The Influence of Risk Perceptions on Public Preferences for Uniform and Centralized Risk Regulation

Maestas¹,

Chattopadhyay²,

Leland³

et al. 2018

Policy Studies Journal

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Public opinion features prominently in policy research because it sets bounds on the definition of policy problems and acceptable policy solutions. We contend that public opinion is also important for setting bounds on the level of government at which policy hazards are regulated by shaping preferences for uniformity of regulation and, relatedly, preferences for centralization. We offer a theoretical argument for why risk creates pressures for uniform standards and examine the extent to which preferences for uniformity and centralization are the product of fairly stable individual-level predispositions (e.g. partisanship and ideology) versus more fluid attitudes like perceptions of risk, which vary in response to crises, new information, and issue framing. We test our argument using survey data in the policy domain of food safety and find that individuals who anticipate greater risk from food-borne illness prefer more uniform food safety regulation, which translates into preferences for federal-level policymaking. Our results imply that contextual circumstances and strategic communications that influence risk perceptions can create not only generalized public demand for more regulatory policy but specific demand for uniform, centralized regulation.

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“…These obvious symbols are likely to carry more emotional weight than industry or governmental assurances that policy usually works well. Carpenter and Sin (2007) found that the images of fragile children who had been poisoned by Sulfanilamide were influential in triggering a strong outcry that lead to more stringent regulation and licensing for medications in the Food and Drug Act of 1938. Thus, media-generated symbols of health, environmental, or other crises or catastrophes are often used by groups as an important recruiting tool -thereby expanding the issue -and as a form of evidence of the need for policy change.…”

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confidence: 99%

Focusing Events, Risk, and Regulation

Birkland¹,

Warnement²

2017

Policy Shock

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In recent years, several major disasters, crises, and catastrophes have occurred in the United States and around the world. The September 11 attacks are the most consequential event of the 21 st century thus far, and changed the course of national and international history and policy in a way unseen since the outset of the Second World War. The September 11 attacks spurred a series of statutory, regulatory, and political changes, the effects of which continue to be discussed and debated to this day. But we need not look only to September 11 to see crises that spurred greater attention to problems and greater pressure for policy change. Events like the global financial crisis of 2008, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, received intensive public interest in policies intended to regulate financial transactions and policies intended to mitigate, respond to, and recover from so-called natural disasters. These sudden crises are called "focusing events." Focusing events are an element of the agendasetting process, in which some issues gain and others lose attention among policy makers and the public. Agenda setting is interesting for political scientists because "the definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power" (Schattschneider 1975, 66), where alternatives can mean issues, events, problems, and solutions. Groups-or advocacy coalitions (Sabatier, Jenkins-Smith, and Lawlor 1996; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1999) engage in rhetorical battles, in different venues, to gain access to the agenda while attempting to deny agenda access to other actors (Cobb and Ross 1997; Hilgartner and Bosk 1988). Group competition is fierce because the agenda space is limited by individual and organizational constraints on information processing, so that no system can accommodate all issues and ideas (Walker 1977; Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Cobb and Elder 1983). This competition is over both which problems are most important, and over what causes and solutions surround any one problem (Hilgartner and Bosk 1988; Lawrence and Birkland 2004; Birkland and Lawrence 2009). The agenda setting process is therefore a system of sifting issues, problems and ideas and implicitly assigning priorities to these issues. John Kingdon (2003) argues that agenda change is

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Policy Tragedy and the Emergence of Regulation: The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938

Cited by 48 publications

References 24 publications

Explaining Trends in Risk Governance: How Problem Definitions Underpin Risk Regimes

Explaining Trends in Risk Governance: How Problem Definitions Underpin Risk Regimes

Fearing Food: The Influence of Risk Perceptions on Public Preferences for Uniform and Centralized Risk Regulation

Focusing Events, Risk, and Regulation

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