Web view– participants drift in and out of decision making and devote varying amounts of time to different subjects, depending on current ... of the word), the

Kingdon, J. W. (1995). Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies (2nd ed.)

Kingdon, John W. (1995)Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies (2nd Ed.)

Chapter 1 – How Does an Idea’s Time Come?

Key Questions to be Answered

Agendas: Why do some subjects become prominent on the policy agenda and other’s do not? How is the governmental agenda set? How and why does the agenda change?

Alternatives: How are alternatives from which officials choose generated? Why are some alternatives considered while others are not?

Ideas: Why does an idea’s time come? How does the diffusion of ideas, good or bad, affect the subjects of attention?

Participants: How do ideas like equity or efficiency affect the participants? What values affect the processes? How do ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ participants affect the process? How much are people affected by personal ideology for change? How does feedback from observing the existing system affect their views? How do changes in political parties, appointments and politicians affect things?

Change: Does the change take place incrementally, gradually, or discontinuously?

Definitions Generalised (and Simplified) Policy Process

Agenda setting Alternative specification Authoritative decision amongst alternatives Implementation of policy Evaluation of policy

Agenda: The list of subjects or problems to which government officials, and people outside the government closely associated with those officials, are paying some serious attention at any given time.

Governmental Agenda: the list of subjects getting attention Decision Agenda: The list of subjects on the governmental agenda that are up for decision

Alternatives: The set of policy options government officials consider for a given set of subjects or problems.

Chapter 2 – Participants on the Inside of Government

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Participants Role in Agendas Role in Alternatives

President High ability to set agenda due to resources of: Institutional resources: vetos, ability to hire and

fire people in key policy positions Organisational resources: unitary decision

making over executive branch Command of public attention: press attention is

very high Direct involvement: President can directly

intervene and pressure (e.g. private notes to staff)Partisan issues – congressional committee chairs don’t want to go against President of their party

Lesser impact on policy alternatives. President can suggest and support options, but has little control over technical details worked out by congress.

Presidential Staff (White House & Executive Office)

Somewhat important due to proximity to President Important role – the president sets the ‘tone’, but staff are responsible for working out detailed negotiations with departments, the Hill, and major interest groups

Political Appointees

Play a large role in placing items on agendas of important people by ‘elevating’ rather than creating issues, usually from their own agencies.

Not discussed in Kingdon

Civil Servants Little influence - mainly take agenda from higher up (president and staff)

Important role due to resources of: Longevity: history and weight to ‘capture’ agency

heads Expertise: administering programs requires high

level of expert knowledge – very important for development of alternatives

Relationships: develop relationships with bureaucrats, congressional committees and interest groups (“iron triangles”)

Congress Highly important role due to resources of: Legal authority: congress makes and cancels laws

and cuts appropriations Publicity: public hearings, speeches, bill

introductions all generate public interest Blended information: congress gets exposed to a

variety of political and technical information and are ‘network’ hubs

Longevity

Not discussed in Kingdon, but I assume that they control alternatives by voting for bills, and being responsible for overseeing development of legislation.

Congressional Staff

Little influence Strong influence on the alternatives generated as congressional staff develops, to a certain extent, policy expertise in some areas, and have much responsibility to draft legislation and can subtly influence.

Chapter 3 – Participants on the Outside of Government

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Participants Role in Agendas Role in Alternatives

Interest Groups Overall, the lower the partisanship, ideological cast, campaign visibility of issues in a policy domain, the greater the importance of interest groups.Types of interest groups: business and industry, professional, labour, public interest, government officials as lobbyists

Moderate ability to set agenda by pressure groups (writing letters, visits, protests). Activity is generally negative – blocking proposals rather than supporting them.

Strong influence – interest groups generally attach their preferred alternative to agendas others have made prominent. Interest group resources are: Geographical dispersion helps during election to

get mobilisation Ability to tie up economy (e.g. labour unions or

transport groups) Cohesion

Academics, Researchers, Consultants

Some long term impact – agenda may be slightly affected by academic theories and ideas

Long-term impact and diffusion of ideas – key players read important books, the ideas then diffuse gradually

Moderate impact on alternatives: Agenda is set by outside forces then government

officials turn to research on a particular agenda item

Short-term – academics as government officials

Media Not as much as expected – media tend to report what is already on agenda. Acts as a communicator within a policy

community Magnifies movements started elsewhere Indirectly affect agenda through public opinion

Kingdon doesn’t address this, but I think that media may garner public support for one alternative over another

Elections-related participants

Overall elections affect agendas an alternatives through changing many of the participants detailed in chapter 2.

Campaigners Depending on the issue, campaign promises moderately affect agenda, providing promises are accompanied by presidential commitments or constituency that holds president to promise

Political Parties Affect agenda through the content of their platforms, impact of leadership in Congress, and ideologies they represent

Public Opinion Generally, public opinion constrains government from doing something (rather than doing something).Affects agenda more than alternatives, as public opinion is rarely coherent to directly affect technical details.

Visible and Hidden Clusters of Participants Visible cluster receive attention (president + staff, agency heads, congress, media, election participants);

hidden cluster don’t receive attention (researchers, academics, Hill staffers, career bureaucrats). Interest groups travel between two sets depending on issue.

Agenda setting is affected by visible cluster; alternative specification is affected by hidden cluster The process of alternative specification is less visible than the agenda setting process. The resources is key – alternative specification requires expertise and willingness to get involved in detail

Chapter 4 – Process: Origins, Rationality, Incrementalism, and Garbage Cans

Origins – From where do Ideas Originate?

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Looking at the origin of ideas does not lead to good theory about agendas and alternative specification because: Ideas can come from anywhere: The ‘climate’ in government of ‘receptivity’ to ideas of a given type; no-

one has a monopoly on ideas Infinite Regress: There is no logical point at which an idea originates – all ideas are connected in some way

to a previous idea Nobody leads anybody else: Analysis from the data suggests that there are no leaders across subjects

Combinations and the Fertile SoilAs attempting to pinpoint a single origin is futile, Kingdon suggests that a complex combination of factors is generally responsible for the movement of a given item to the agenda. Why should this be so?

System Fragmentation: US system designed such that no single actor can dominate No control of information: no formal structure across system means that no one monopolises info

Critical thing is to not understand from where information originates but what makes condition suitable for policy action.

Policy Models

Comprehensive, Rational Decision MakingKingdon has demonstrated that the Rational Model of the policy process clearly does not apply:

Rational model roughly equates to scientific process: define goals / agenda setting specify alternatives (policy formulation) decision making policy implementation policy evaluation

Ability of humans to process information is much more limited than process suggests This type of process is only possible where uniform agreement of definitions and meanings of goals and

alternatives is reached....almost impossible

IncrementalismCharles Lindblom explained that policy making occurs incrementally through small, marginal adjustments being made to the status quo. Incrementalism can also be thought of as a politically expedient strategy to manipulate outcomes. Despite some success as a model, incrementalism is not universally applicable:

Incrementalism does not describe agenda change well as agendas exhibit sharp discontinuous changes Incrementalism more suitably characterises the generation of alternatives

The Garbage Can ModelCohen, March and Olsen (1972) described organisations as ‘organised anarchies’ having 3 general properties:

Preferences – organisations keep their preferences ambiguous because precisely defined goals cause conflict; preferences are discovered only gradually through action

Unclear technology – organisation members do not all understand available processes to the same extent and how their particular roles fit into the overall mission of the organisation

Fluid participation – participants drift in and out of decision making and devote varying amounts of time to different subjects, depending on current contexts; who turns up to meetings tends to be critical

Running through the organisation are 4 sets of streams: problems, solutions, participants, and choice opportunities. Generally streams are independent; however, when a choice opportunity arises it becomes a “garbage can

into which various kinds of problems and solutions are dumped by participants as they are generated” (p. 86).

There is no rational process whereby problems are identified first then solutions found. Organisational outcomes are a function of the coupling of streams: solutions look for problems; random

interactions amongst participants.

Kingdon’s Multiple Streams ModelKingdon outlines his model based on the Garbage can. There are 3 largely independent streams—problems, policies, politics—that operate in the federal government:

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PROBLEM STREAMIndicatorsFocusing eventsFeedbackLoad

POLITICAL STREAMParty ideologyNational moodElectionsChange in office

POLICY STREAMValue acceptabilityTechnical feasibilityIntegration

POLICY ENTREPRENEURSAccessResourcesStrategiesFramingSalami tacticsSymbolsAffect priming

POLICY WINDOWCoupling logic (consequential / doctrinal)Decision style (more / less cautious)

POLICY OUTPUT


Problems – various problems either emerge from crisis or float around as general issues depending on participants and may get ‘captured’ onto the agenda

Policies (solutions) – the generally hidden community of policy specialists concentrates on generating proposals and solutions, but often independent to what is on the agenda

Politics – swings of national mood, vagaries of public opinion, election results, interest group pressure campaigns etc. operates independent of the other two streams

At critical junctures, the policy streams can become coupled when a policy window opens and policy change can result.

“Collective choice is no merely the derivative of individual efforts aggregated in some fashion, but rather the combined result of structural forces and cognitive and affective processes that are highly context dependent” (Zahariadis, 2007, p. 66)

Conceptual Framework(Adapted from Sabatier, 2007, p. 71)

Chapter 5 – Problems

Attention-Grabbing Things

Indicators

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Various activities used to assess magnitude of problem and become aware of changes in the problem (not necessary to establish the existence of a problem):

Routine monitoring of various indicators such as immunisation rates, highway deaths, crime rates by governments or other organisations.

Studies conducted on a particular problem at a particular time Indicators need to be pervasive, necessary and powerful. The policy solutions can be attached to a problem

once an indicator demonstrates its existence and stakeholders agree on the indicator’s worth

Indicators are not simply a straightforward recognition of the facts. Methodological problems and interpretation can affect how the problem and solutions are formulated. Interpretations of data transform conditions into problems.

Focusing Events, Crisis and SymbolsImpact of major events:

Major crisis and catastrophes dramatically focus attention and define a problem, especially in policy domains that are not in forefront of people’s minds (e.g. air traffic control standards).

Generally, the focusing events are less important the more visible a policy domain (e.g. health care – it affects peoples’ lives daily, so there is no need for major catastrophe for people to pay attention.)

Impact of political symbols: Policy makers use symbols from their own personal experiences to affect the political discourse (e.g.

symbol of close relative affected by horrible disease X) The emergence and diffusion of symbols focuses attention In general, a symbol acts to focus attention on something already occurring by “capturing in a nutshell

some sort of reality that people already sense in a vaguer, more diffuse way”.

FeedbackGovernment officials receive feedback from various sources about existing programs which brings things to their attention:

Feedback loops include: monitoring expenditure, policy evaluation, complaints, informal feedback, and bureaucratic operations and experience of administering programs.

Content of feedback messages includes: interpretation of legislation; failure to meet stated goals; cost overruns; unintended effects of policy.

BudgetsBudgets serve as both a promoter and remover of agenda items. Primarily the budgets acts as a constraint for agenda items due to financial limitations.

Problem Definition

Conditions become problems when we believe something should be done about them as a result of values, comparisons, and categories contributing to the translation.

Political values – change your assumption of basic rights (e.g. government healthcare as right) Comparisons – judgements are made relative to something Categories – affects the problem interpretation (e.g. handicap access = transportation or civil rights?)

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Chapter 6 – The Policy Primeval Soup

Generating alternatives and proposals in the policy community resembles process of biological natural selection. The ideas that last meet some special criteria and ‘survive’ and ‘prosper’.

Policy Communities and Policy Soups

Policy CommunitiesPolicy communities are collections of specialists in a given policy area with common interactions amongst each other. The community ‘hums’ along on its own, independent of political events such as administration changes. Policy communities vary in the level of fragmentation depending on the categorisation of subjects in the policy domain (e.g. transportation policy divided into transport modes) and the extent to which government departments act as network conveners. Community fragmentation results in

Policy fragmentation and lack of coordination between policy initiatives (e.g. road policy having adverse affects on rail policy)

Fragmented communities less likely to exhibit shared paradigms and narratives Fragmentation increases instability in policy area: coordinated policy and shared narratives create greater

resilience to crises and agendas are less likely to shift abruptly; fragmented policy areas are more susceptive to sudden agenda change.

Communities and Policy SoupsPolicy entrepreneurs invest their time, resources, energy and reputation in hopes of future return; but why?

Genuine problem – there is a problem that needs fixing Promotion of personal interests Advocacy of values – people want to promote proposals that conform with their values Policy groupies – people like doing the work and enjoy the environment

Within the policy soup there are a large number of proposals floating around that mutate and recombine into different versions. Kingdon thinks that actual ideas are just as important as pressure, strategy and power.

Policy idea generation resembles biological evolution – strong proposals under the right conditions survive. Communities work through proposals and alternatives by evaluations, argumentation / debate, marshelling or

support and evidence and persuasion Policy entrepreneurs must soften up policy stakeholders (policy communities and public) in order to test the

ground, float ideas, get people talking, and generate discussion.

Criteria for Survival of Policy Options Technical feasibility – can it actually be implemented within reasonable cost? Value acceptability – depending on the policy domain, political ideology and the proposals notion of equity and

efficiency can effect survival. Anticipation of future constraints – budget constraint and public acquiescence must be considered

A Short List of Ideas

Consensus diffuses throughout a policy community about awareness of problems and agreements on solutions or policy proposals. Eventually there is a “tipping point” where the idea has become commonplace and everyone has “jumped on the bandwagon”. When a policy window opens and conditions are right, for policy proposals to be excepted, they must have gone through this process of socialisation, alteration, recombination and reached a tipping point.

The chance for a problem to rise on the governmental agenda increase if a solution is availableThe chance for a problem to rise on the decision agenda dramatically increase if a solution is attached

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Chapter 7 – The Political Stream

Use of ‘Political’: Just about any activity related to the allocation of values, or to the redistribution of benefits and costs. Kingdon stresses that policy-making should not be defined only by the agenda and alternatives, but also by politicsThe political stream includes the public mood, pressures, ideological distributions of Congress, and changes of administration. Change is a function of the shifts of important participants (e.g. administration) or as response to shifts in national mood.

National Mood Speaks to the climate of the country Promotes a higher agenda status of some items Perception of mood can constrain agenda items by causing others to fade Impacts elections and receptivity to governmental decision makers Can help push certain ideas

Organised Political Forces Varying interests that have input in the process: interest group pressures, political mobilisation, behaviour

of political elites. Need to understand how pluralistic system affects government officials; however, this is difficult to the individual perceptive issues involved.

More typically, a balance of forces mitigates against change. Government inertia also caused by the inevitable clientele in favour of existing policies.

Government in the Political Stream Turnover of key personnel affects agenda changes because new people bring in new priorities Jurisdiction of administrative agencies and congressional committees affect agenda setting by turf battles

and redrawing of jurisdictional boundaries Specialised agendas can retard agenda items because specialists don’t address / talk about issues

Consensus Building in the Political System Different from policy stream (persuasion) in that the political stream is governed by a bargaining process

and granting of concessions in return for support. Lack of success for coalitions can spell bad news for problems

Proposals have already been discussed and hones in political stream, and people are trying to join the winning coalitions – Bandwagon effect

In the Larger Scheme All important actors play a role in judging whether the balance of forces favours action and if the public

will tolerate proposals that are introduced at the elite level. The political stream is an important promoter or inhibiter of high agenda status. The public mood—elections combination has a high impact on agenda and make it impossible for

government to pay attention to some things. Once item is on agenda, organised forces enter picture and try as best they can to bend outcomes to their advantage.

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Chapter 8 – The Policy Window and Joining Streams

Policy windows are short-lived opportunities for advocates of proposals to push their pet solutions, or push attention to their special problems. When closed, participants must bide time until the next opportunity. “Agenda stars” line up when national mood, policy and political streams come together.

Open Windows Affect the type of agenda: 1) government agenda – more general, or 2) decision agenda – more action

orientated and prioritised. Windows open because of change of administration, turnover of political actors, scheduled change in a

program, or problems becoming pressing. Generally, window opening is affected by political and problem streams. Window close because

o Problem has been addressed through decision or enactmento Problem fails to get action and participants may be unwilling to invest further time and resourceo Precipitating events pass from the sceneo Personnel changes – a change in personnel that opened a window can close it when people leaveo No alternatives / solutions available

Perceptions, estimations, and misestimations influence agenda setting because the window’s openness may be overestimated

Coupling Using solution on many problems, which keeps it on the agenda Problem window – based on pressing problems Political window – based on the adoption of a political theme or initiative Coupling opportunities are precipitated by events that help address a latent issue Coupling causes more solutions that window can possibly handle or strategists overload an issue in an

effort to stall it Unpredictable nature of coupling because the outcome depends on the mix of problems and proposals

under consideration.

Howlett and Ramesh (2007) expanded the categories of window to the following: Routinized political—institutional procedural events allow predictable window openings Discretionary political—the behaviour of political actors leads to less predictable openings Spillover problem—an already open window draws in unrelated problems Random problem—random events or crises open unpredictable windoww

Policy Entrepeneurs Must have claims to be heard, has connections or negotiation skills, and persistence Coupling requires entrepreneurs to be constantly ready and able to ride whatever window comes along Implications include

o structures and individual factorso calling attention to their own special roles in teamso promotion of creativity in the processo more strategic entrepreneurs looking for opportunities

Occurrence of Windows There is lots of place for competition on the agenda Predictable windows come about from regular cycles that open and close on a schedule (budgets, renewals,

or legislation, reports etc.) Unpredictable windows open because of residual randomness

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Spillovers The appearance of a window in one area increases probability that a window will open for another area.

Taking advantage of one window often establishes a principle or getting a foot in the door for another. Spillovers occur when participants view the past success from previous windows

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Andy Williams – Fall 2010 – Class Facilitation

Questions on Kingdon

Aspects of Theory

Is the MS model deductive or inductive? Primarily inductive – it starts with empirical observations and develops theory from these observations

What is the unit of analysis? MS model is a macro-systems theory, meaning that instead of focusing on the individual, group, institution,

or societal level, the theory characterises the interrelationships between appropriate units. (Andy Williams thought)

“Kingdon’s (model) was entirely a theory of institutional decision making and not a mixture of individual and organisational decision making. This avoided confusion, attributed to the Cohen model, over the level of analysis.” (Robinson & Eller, 2010, p. 202)

Is the model complete? The model is a heuristic or rule of thumb A heuristic is a non-generalised, logically consistent model that provides localised, initial, but not necessary

optimal solutions based on the given conditions. Initial solutions can be used to inform about complex situations as a way of learning by trial and error.

Given its ‘heurisism’, is the model useful? To what extent can we use the model as a predictive tool, i.e. in determining when a new policy might

emerge and why? Can the model help us understand what steps various stakeholders can take to promote the chances of a

specific policy being implemented? Apart from the ‘predictable’ window opening events, is the utility of the model compromised by its reliance

on randomness? What are some falsifiable hypotheses made by the model? Does it make hypotheses about policy outcomes

or policy processes, or both?

Is the Model Rational?

What does Kingdon assume about how information affects the opening of a policy window? The rational policy model assumes that more information leads to more precise alternatives and better

decisions. The multiple stream (MS) model emphasises that no single actor has a monopoly on information and that the US policy arena is characterised by multiple sources of information. Moreover, the MS model describes policy making under ambiguity; more information does not counter ambiguity but actually increases it.

The fundamental assumption of the garbage can model was that participants cannot explicate their preferences and organisational processes and technology are unclear, meaning that decision making occurs under ambiguous situations

While the individual actors may make ‘rational’ choices (in the conventional sense of the word), the summative result is a non-rational process at the institutional level.

See debate on pluralism versus elitism theories. Kingdon argues that “policy processes are neither elite nor pluralist in their entirety. Instead, pluralist forces and elitist forces compete for control of separate “streams” of policy-making activity. The elitist and pluralist models...were both correct, but each only described part of the policy process.” (Robinson & Eller, 2010, p. 200)

What are the assumptions in the MS model about the way actors or institutions process information (i.e. ration attention to certain agendas)?

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Individuals are boundedly rational, meaning they can only ever consider a limited set of decision alternatives. Organisations are parallel processors (as result of division of labour) and can consider many simultaneous decisions.

“Political systems...contain many subsystems that facilitate attention to many issues simultaneously...consequently, attention and search can be quite abrupt and disorderly from a systems point of view” (Zahariadis, 2007, p. 68). Key point – there is no overall structure to the attention seeking process and rationality in the model is limited.

Importance is placed on the fact that the streams are independent, mainly in the sense of their participants (e.g. policy community versus political community).

What are the assumptions about time constraints? A key assumption is that many of the participants, especially of the ‘visible’ category are time-constrained,

thus lack the ability to consider a wide range of alternatives.

Is the model structured? Kingdon explicitly says: “in my view, the model developed in this book is structured, but there is also room

for residual randomness.(...)..Once reason that some readers find it difficult to appreciate the structure...is that its structure is not familiar” (Kingdon, 1995, pp. 222-223)

Model Components

What are the distinctions between agenda items and alternative items? Can a clear cut distinction actually be made?

Are there situations where an agenda item’s position is as a consequence of alternatives being discussed? (E.g. recent health laws)

Is it possible to talk about an agenda without the context of an alternative? (Wicked problem issue that you can’t understand the problem without first developing solutions)

Can the existence of policy windows be measured or is it an ex post facto determination only? Some objective features define a window (change in administration or focusing crisis event); however,

participants also subjectively perceive a window Different participants may perceive the window to varying extents. To what extent is the window just a metaphor????

Are the streams really independent?Using an example of local policies to prevent school violence, Robinson and Eller (201) found that many individuals and organizations participated in both the problem identification stream and the policy proposal stream. They also found little evidence for elite, organized interests in the policy making process

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Poli Sci 101: Presidential speeches don't matter, and lobbyists don't run D.C.

By Ezra KleinSunday, September 12, 2010; B02; The Washington Post

Most conventions in Washington are able to attract at least a bit of the city's star power. Obscure trade associations get House members. Larger groups get senators, or maybe, if they're lucky, a member of the White House's senior staff. A glimpse of David Axelrod's mustache, an obscenity from Rahm Emanuel -- these are the brushes with fame that power D.C.'s convention industry. There were no political luminaries in attendance at the American Political Science Association's convention last week, however. The fact that the country's brightest political scholars had all gathered at the Marriott Wardman Park barely seemed to register on the rest of the town. Worse, you got the feeling that the political scientists knew it. One of the conference's highlights, according to its Web site, was a panel titled "Is Political Science Relevant?" I, for one, believe that it is and that this town could benefit from a good dose of it. So as I made my way through the conference, I asked the assembled political scientists what they wished politicians knew about politics. Here are some of their best answers. Presidential speeches don't make a big difference.Washington is obsessed with oratory and persuasion. Lawmakers are constantly begging the White House to take the rhetorical lead on this or that. Pundits and reporters talk incessantly about message and narrative. In the movies and on TV, governing always culminates with a dramatic speech. The only problem? Speeches don't matter. George Edwards, a political scientist at Texas A&M and the author of the book "On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit," has studied the major speeches of every recent presidency. His conclusion: "When we actually looked at what happened to virtually all presidents, the public almost never moves in their direction. That was true with Ronald Reagan, with Bill Clinton. It was even true with Franklin Roosevelt before World War II. The country moved when Hitler did things, rather than when FDR made a speech. And we're seeing the same thing with Barack Obama." If the point of presidential speeches is to move public opinion -- and that's certainly what most of us think -- they simply don't work. So, what does? Well, Edwards says, the public actually has beliefs of its own. Or as he puts it: "The public supports what the president wants to do when they support what the president wants to do." 'Citizen- legislators' empower the very special interests they're meant to fight.In this year of "tea partiers" and political insurgents, we keep hearing the same refrain: The founders envisioned not career politicians but citizen-legislators -- decent folk who'd leave the farm to serve the public, then return home before they became corrupt fat cats. It's this idea that lends term limits such perennial appeal. And yet, says David Canon, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the author of "Actors, Athletes, and Astronauts: Political Amateurs in the United States Congress," term limits would actually have the opposite effect. He explains: "If you have a bunch of rookies in there who don't have much experience, you're basically turning power over to the permanent government in that town: the staffers and the lobbyists the newcomers end up relying on." Lobbyists don't run the show.That's the conclusion of the new book "Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why," which is easily the most comprehensive study of lobbying ever published. The authors randomly chose 98 legislative fights and then sifted through more than 20,000 lobbying reports and 300 interviews with key players to come up with a surprising result: Usually, the lobbyists lost. In fact, the best predictor of action wasn't the money spent or the lobbyists involved. It was the politicians. Action became more likely when major players decided they wanted to act (think Barack Obama winning the White House and deciding to pursue health-care reform) or suddenly were given the power to act (recall how the embarrassment of the Abramoff scandal empowered ethics legislation that had long been stalled in Congress). "Our research indicates that members of Congress don't listen to lobbyists unless they want to," says Beth Leech, a political scientist at Rutgers and one of the co-authors. Politicians should talk to political scientists.This one may not be so surprising, but it is convincing: As the 24-hour news cycle accelerates into the 1,440-minute news cycle, distracting us with an incessant stream of meaningless one-liners and manufactured outrages, the considered, rigorous, historical examinations favored by political scientists offer an increasingly valuable antidote.

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"The 24-hour news cycle is really focused on little, tiny swells and waves on the surface of the ocean," says John Sides, a political scientist at George Washington University. "But in fact, most of the big things affecting the ocean are these currents underneath. They're what's moving the water." And that's what political science studies. So political science is often accused of a sort of nihilism: Lobbyists don't much matter, it says. Speeches are ineffective. Voters are driven by the economy, and campaigns barely move the needle. Most of the stuff that obsesses us during election season has no effect on the eventual outcome. But if politicians took these findings to heart, it would free them to do their jobs better. "The fact that much of what cable news is talking about on any given day is not important probably is empowering," Sides says. Particularly combined with the finding that what does matter, both for elections and for people's lives, is how well the country is doing. Worrying less about tomorrow's polls and news releases and more about the effect of today's policies could make for better bills -- and happier, more successful politicians.

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References

Cohen, M. D., March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1972). A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17(1), 1-25.

Kingdon, J. W. (1995). Agendas, alternatives and public policies. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

Klein, E. (2010, 12 September). Poli Sci 101: Presidential speeches don't matter, and lobbyists don't run D.C. The Washington Post, p. 28.

Robinson, S. E., & Eller, W. S. (2010). Participation in policy streams: Testing the separation of problems and solutions in subnational policy systems. Policy Studies Journal, 38(2), 199-215.

Sabatier, P. A. (Ed.). (2007). Theories of the policy process (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Zahariadis, N. (2007). The multiple streams framework: Structure, limitations, prospects. In P. A. Sabatier (Ed.), Theories of the policy process (pp. 65-92). Boulder, CA: Westview Press.

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