The Conditioning Effects of Policy Salience and Complexity on American Political Institutions

Abstract

Years ago, Bill Gormley introduced public policy scholars to a new and innovative salience‐ complexity typology for regulatory policies. This typology not only helps scholars catalog numerous policies into distinct categories, but also helps explain variation in political processes. Specifically, different policies provide different incentives for political actors to be involved in policymaking. Salience encourages activity on the part of elected officials; complexity often requires policymaking outside of the public sphere. In this article, I extend Gormley’s salience‐complexity typology to more than just regulatory policies and confirm that levels of institutional activity vary across this range of public policies. I also expand on Gormley’s contribution by differentiating the distinct impacts that policy type has on the policy activities of Congress and the presidency, and propose that institutional activity differs according to the dynamics of a policy’s salience.

Patterns of Policy Integration and Administrative Coordination Reforms: A Comparative Empirical Analysis

“…We assume that “technical complexity is high when a policy problem requires the understanding of a specialist or expert, a professional appraisal more than a normative judgment” (Gormley , 89–90). Although technical decisions can also be based on normative criteria, and vice versa, it is fruitful for comparative policy analysis to distinguish between predominantly technical policies, for which the use of knowledge and expertise is prominent in the policy process, and less technical ones, which mostly require other political resources (Gormley , 90; see also Eshbaugh‐Soha ).…”

Explaining Participation Bias in the European Commission's Online Consultations: The Struggle for Policy Gain without too Much Pain

“…Following the typology developed by Gormley (1986), the media should be driven by salient policies. A measurable level of the salience of a particular policy issue at any given time can be provided by the amount of media attention (Eshbaugh-Soha, 2006). Salience measured as media attention is thus applied in a variety of previous studies (for example, Eshbaugh-Soha, 2006;Junk, 2016;Mahoney, 2007;Neshkova, 2014).…”

How Politics Shapes the Growth of Rules

“…The government can act in several ways to salient problems, but one clear and very visible way is to introduce new rules directed at the problem. Attention to problems thus requires political answers (Eshbaugh‐Soha ), and rule‐based bureaucratization represents such an answer (see also Ringquist, Worsham, and Eisner , 146). The implication for governmental rule growth is summarized in the following hypothesis:…”

“…When policy domains are highly complex, it becomes more difficult for the electorate to assign political blame or credit to parties for the developments within a certain policy domain, because it is difficult to make a reasonable connection between political action and result. This makes politicians more likely to defer to bureaucrats when it comes to rule making in such areas (Elgie and McMenamin ; Eshbaugh‐Soha , 227; Gormley , 598; Ringquist, Worsham, and Eisner , 146; Thatcher ). In line with Eshbaugh‐Soha (, 227), we view technical complexity as a relatively stable phenomenon that is far less changeable than the political agenda.…”