Problem definition and information provision by federal bureaucrats

Workman, Samuel; Shafran, JoBeth S.; Bark, Tracey

doi:10.1016/j.cogsys.2016.11.002

Cited by 29 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(14 reference statements)

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“…Shafran (2015) reports variation in the participation of bureaucrats and interest groups depending on the issue addressed. Workman, Shafran, and Bark (2017) show that as problem uncertainty increases, committees call more bureaucrats to testify. Moreover, committees have a tendency to call more careerist bureaucrats rather than political appointees as problem uncertainty increases.…”

Section: Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Policy Punctuations

Jones¹,

Epp²,

Baumgartner³

2019

irpp

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Do democracies perform better than more autocratic political systems? Most existing literature focuses on single issues, such as maintaining the peace, avoiding famines, or promoting stable economic growth. The key to policy success for all these and other issues is adaptive policymaking in complex, dynamic environments. Relying on theory and empirical tests from policy process studies, we focus on extreme policy punctuations as indicators of maladaptive policymaking. We conceive of a continuum from the most open democracies to the most closed authoritarian systems, with intermediate forms of less open democracies, hybrid regimes, and less closed authoritarian systems. Based on a review of the existing literature, we extract four factors that seem to affect maladaptive and hence more punctuated policymaking: friction imposed by formal rules and informal norms on the policymaking process, the absence of incentives to address problems, centralization in policymaking, and lack of diversity in channels of information. Many of these factors cluster, so it is difficult to discern their specific effects, but our approach allows a start at doing so.

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Section: Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Policy Punctuations

Jones¹,

Epp²,

Baumgartner³

2019

irpp

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“…Winnowing has tremendous implications on later phases of the legislative process. The prioritization of issues at the committee stage shapes institutional discourse around particular policy problems, determines how and from whom information is gathered to define those problems, and drives considerations of which solutions should be employed (Jones 1994; Jones and Baumgartner 2005; Workman, Jones, and Jochim 2009; Workman, Shafran, and Bark 2017).…”

Section: Legislative Agenda Setting and Racial Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporation is Not Enough: The Agenda Influence of Black Lawmakers in Congressional Committees

Peay

2020

J. Race Ethnicity Politics

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Traditionally, scholars argue that the committee structure is central to the policymaking process in congress, and that those that wield the gavel in committees enjoy a great deal of influence over the legislative agenda. The most recent iterations of Congress are more diverse than ever before. With 55 members—of whom, five chair full committees and 28 sit atop subcommittees—the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is in a place to wield a significant leverage over the legislative agenda in the 116th Congress. However, noticeable proportional gains in minority membership in Congress have yet to produce sizable policy gains for the communities they represent. An examination of bill sponsorship from the 103rd–112th congresses reveals underlying institutional forces—i.e., marginalization and negative agenda setting—leave Black lawmakers at a distinct disadvantage compared to their non-black counterparts. Bills in policy areas targeted by the CBC are subject to disproportionate winnowing in congressional committees. Unfortunately, a number of institutional resources often found to increase a bill's prospects—including placements and leadership on committees with jurisdiction over policy areas of interest—are relatively ineffective for CBC members looking to forward those key issues onto the legislative agenda.

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“…This information is rarely scarce, as modern democracies are characterized by an oversupply of information (Jones and Baumgartner, 2005). Information can come from a variety of sources, including outside actors and interest groups (Hall and Deardorff, 2006), the bureaucracy (Shafran, 2015; Workman, 2015; Workman et al, 2017), and the media (Boydstun, 2013; Wolfe, 2012). Parties must drink from this fire hose, process information, craft policy proposals, prioritize the most important issues, make arguments in public debates, and ultimately make policy decisions.…”

Section: Research Design and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Issue ownership and the priorities of party elites in the United States, 2004–2016

Fagan

2019

Party Politics

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Parties in government prioritize issues that voters trust them to handle more than other parties. However, scholars disagree about whether this relationship exists because parties strategically prioritize issues that voters trust them to handle or whether voters first observe core party priorities while in government and then trust them to handle those issues. This article disentangles these two explanations, arguing that issue ownership is caused by the core priorities of elites. I evaluate this argument by leveraging the privately financed structure of US party-aligned think tanks, which provide important policy information to US political parties. I introduce new data on the policy content of 15,897 white papers published by the leading party-aligned think tanks in the United States. I find that think tanks aligned with both parties tend to distribute more policy attention to their owned issues, although the process works differently for Republicans and Democrats, and that these patterns are durable. I conclude that these results are strong evidence to support elite prioritization explanations for issue ownership, although they do not rule out other explanations.

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Problem definition and information provision by federal bureaucrats

Cited by 29 publications

References 15 publications

Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Policy Punctuations

Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Policy Punctuations

Incorporation is Not Enough: The Agenda Influence of Black Lawmakers in Congressional Committees

Issue ownership and the priorities of party elites in the United States, 2004–2016

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