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Chicago Studies in American Politics
Agendas and Instability in American Politics
In this innovative account of the way policy issues rise and fall on the national agenda—the first detailed study of so many issues over an extended period—Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones show that rapid change not only can but does happen in the hidebound institutions of government.
Short-term, single-issue analyses of public policy, the authors contend, give a narrow and distorted view of public policy as the result of a cozy arrangement between politicians, interest groups, and the media. Baumgartner and Jones upset these notions by focusing on several issues—including civilian nuclear power, urban affairs, smoking, and auto safety—over a much longer period of time to reveal patterns of stability alternating with bursts of rapid, unpredictable change.
A welcome corrective to conventional political wisdom, Agendas and Instability revises our understanding of the dynamics of agenda-setting and clarifies a subject at the very center of the study of American politics.
Short-term, single-issue analyses of public policy, the authors contend, give a narrow and distorted view of public policy as the result of a cozy arrangement between politicians, interest groups, and the media. Baumgartner and Jones upset these notions by focusing on several issues—including civilian nuclear power, urban affairs, smoking, and auto safety—over a much longer period of time to reveal patterns of stability alternating with bursts of rapid, unpredictable change.
A welcome corrective to conventional political wisdom, Agendas and Instability revises our understanding of the dynamics of agenda-setting and clarifies a subject at the very center of the study of American politics.
312 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 9, 2020
Kingdon is still king when it comes to agenda setting, but Baumgartner and Jones’ punctuated equilibrium model is great. They provide many examples (both cross sectional and longitudinal) of how the theory directly applies. Lots of salient and relevant points throughout.
November 28, 2017
policymaking is a punctuated equilibrium, which is a fancy way of saying when it rains it pours but it doesnt rain very much.
February 14, 2025
Scientists they are; writers they are not. The only thing that saved this book and its authors from receiving a one-star review is that the political agenda-setting theory that the book articulates is thought-provoking and inspiring. Baumgartner and Jones demonstrate why this work is part of the American political science canon. Now, what's bad about it?
This book could have easily been 200 pages shorter. By my count, there was a redundant conclusion every three pages. There are numerous mathematical errors/typos. Some arguments are half-baked, and their models are not convincing. I fear that the book was a sunk-cost fallacy product due to all the work the two authors and their legion of graduates put into what was too much for an article but not enough for a full-length book. Clearly, they had to justify their expenditures to the university's poli sci department by going for a ridiculously repetitive, wordy, and counterproductive book.
These two political scientists should stick with articles in political science journals and not work in the medium of books as what they produce is very much unreadable from cover to cover. (I don't need five pages in a row to tell me everything I've just read and everything that I will read every 50 pages.) Please keep this manuscript away from an elderly literary professor, or they might just have a stroke.
This book could have easily been 200 pages shorter. By my count, there was a redundant conclusion every three pages. There are numerous mathematical errors/typos. Some arguments are half-baked, and their models are not convincing. I fear that the book was a sunk-cost fallacy product due to all the work the two authors and their legion of graduates put into what was too much for an article but not enough for a full-length book. Clearly, they had to justify their expenditures to the university's poli sci department by going for a ridiculously repetitive, wordy, and counterproductive book.
These two political scientists should stick with articles in political science journals and not work in the medium of books as what they produce is very much unreadable from cover to cover. (I don't need five pages in a row to tell me everything I've just read and everything that I will read every 50 pages.) Please keep this manuscript away from an elderly literary professor, or they might just have a stroke.
July 22, 2014
It's worthwhile to note the things that are good about this book first. For one, it does offer a semi-convincing explanation of why long periods of stability in American politics are interrupted by periods of sudden and radical change, or "punctuated equilibrium," as the authors call it, taking a cue from contemporary biology. They argue that "policy monopolies," the classic iron triangles of interest groups, bureaucrats, and congressional committees that control areas like agricultural subsidies or nuclear power, are often maintained in many areas due to a lack of popular attention to them. They show that American politics is limited by the bottleneck of attention, but that when popular attention is directed at what was once considered a secure, self-sustaining enclave, the possibilities for change are limitless. This change in attention occurs when reformers redefine the popular agenda and the issues at stake, widen the sphere of those who believe themselves to be affected or interested in a topic, and, importantly for American politics, change the venue of debate and decision.
This last is especially interesting because the authors show that in American politics there are a variety of different spheres that allow for policy innovation, and these all provide possibilities for change. Unlike in more centralized governments, in America one can debate policy through different congressional committees, state, federal, or local governments, executive or legal changes or others, and changing the venue can often change the nature of the debate. The authors show how moving discussions on pesticides from the supportive agricultural congressional committees to more querulous environmental committees in the 1970s helped push a sea change in public perceptions and then regulation. Likewise nuclear power, which from the 1950s was controlled by the Joint Committee on Nuclear Power and the Atomic Energy Commission, both of whom were both mainly concerned with increasing development, seemed immune from attack. Yet in the 1960s the topic was suddenly thrust into a variety of committees and state and local discussions that focused on different issues like safety, cost, and the environment. By 1979, 36 different congressional bodies held 94 hearings on every aspect of nuclear power, and the AEC was broken up into different regulatory and research spheres, and the policy monopoly and nuclear growth were basically dead. Similarly, once airline regulation moved out of the commerce committees and the Civil Aeronautics Board into the judiciary and public works committees in the 1970s, its fate was sealed.
Much of the book is taken up with charts showing changing levels and types of media and congressional attention to different issues, and this obviously constitutes the real research contribution of the authors. Still, there's little surprise there. Showing that different topics interest the public at different times is not much of a coup. Also, despite claiming to have waded deep into the myriad of different policy areas they discuss, there is almost nothing on the substantive changes in policy practice in those areas. The remainder of the book, as with so much political science, is taken up with citing other political scientists and debating the minute points of rhetorical difference between their theories. For a few good ideas and some interesting points, then, this book has a ton of unnecessary dross.
This last is especially interesting because the authors show that in American politics there are a variety of different spheres that allow for policy innovation, and these all provide possibilities for change. Unlike in more centralized governments, in America one can debate policy through different congressional committees, state, federal, or local governments, executive or legal changes or others, and changing the venue can often change the nature of the debate. The authors show how moving discussions on pesticides from the supportive agricultural congressional committees to more querulous environmental committees in the 1970s helped push a sea change in public perceptions and then regulation. Likewise nuclear power, which from the 1950s was controlled by the Joint Committee on Nuclear Power and the Atomic Energy Commission, both of whom were both mainly concerned with increasing development, seemed immune from attack. Yet in the 1960s the topic was suddenly thrust into a variety of committees and state and local discussions that focused on different issues like safety, cost, and the environment. By 1979, 36 different congressional bodies held 94 hearings on every aspect of nuclear power, and the AEC was broken up into different regulatory and research spheres, and the policy monopoly and nuclear growth were basically dead. Similarly, once airline regulation moved out of the commerce committees and the Civil Aeronautics Board into the judiciary and public works committees in the 1970s, its fate was sealed.
Much of the book is taken up with charts showing changing levels and types of media and congressional attention to different issues, and this obviously constitutes the real research contribution of the authors. Still, there's little surprise there. Showing that different topics interest the public at different times is not much of a coup. Also, despite claiming to have waded deep into the myriad of different policy areas they discuss, there is almost nothing on the substantive changes in policy practice in those areas. The remainder of the book, as with so much political science, is taken up with citing other political scientists and debating the minute points of rhetorical difference between their theories. For a few good ideas and some interesting points, then, this book has a ton of unnecessary dross.
June 7, 2022
This is essentially an academic work, and as such the prose is thick, using precise and complicated language, though not much technical jargon (except in the appendices). I found it a bit hard to digest, and it's a good thing the book is broken up into short chapters. The subject is Punctuated Equilibrium Theory applied to political science, with the basic theory being that policy surrounding an issue tends to be stable for long periods, and then change rapidly based on shifts in public image and media attention. Concepts include the idea of a venue where policy is made, political "subsystems" where policy action is contained, and image as being either postive (enthusiastic) or negative (critical). The theory is backed up using data on media reports and congressional hearings, with the topic and tone coded by graduate students, as a way of measuring image and policy focus. The overall conclusion is that shifts in public and media attention can result in changes of venue and agenda access, resulting in rapid, cascading policy change. There can be mobilizations of enthusiasm leading to strengthening of isolated policy subsystems, and mobilizations of criticism which dismantle the subsytems. Either type of mobilization results in a period of rapid change in policy, the "punctuation" of change between different periods of relative stability. There is an unmistakeable pattern of systems strengthening and centralizing in the immediate postwar decades, and being dismantled from the 1970s on, but the idea that there could be a broader cycle at work is dismissed. There is some speculation about new political subsystems having formed around finance in the 1980s. The specific issues examined are nuclear power, tobacco use, pesticide use, automobile safety, urban affairs, air transportation regulation, and the valence issues of drug/alchohol abuse and child abuse. The results are presented in simple and easy to understand graphs, with some more complex regression analysis done in the appendices. The first edition came out in 1992, and the period studied is primarily from the end of WWII up until then. In the second edition (2009) some additional chapters were added looking at developments in nuclear power, tobacco use and urban affairs. Other researchers have picked up on the idea of applying PET to political science, based on scholarly papers I have found online. Overall I find this line of study fascinating, though this book was a difficult read that took me quite some time. I would recommend this only if you are very interested in the subject.
November 22, 2009
Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones have written an imaginative and important work on the rhythm of the policy process. Their thesis is straightforward: policy often moves in cycles of stasis (relative stability in the policy arena) over a period of time, followed by a fairly rapid burst of change. Using the language of the evolutionary argument by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould, they refer to their model as "punctuated equilibrium." Eldredge and Gould posted that evolutionary change was often characterized by long periods of stasis (or stability) in a species, followed by a dramatic burst of rapid change (in evolutionary terms).
Baumgartner and Jones do not leave it at that. Merely describing a pattern that they see in different arenas over time is only a first step. How to explain such change? The authors provide a reasonably convincing argument: One, institutions produce a considerable degree of stability; two, particular policy "images" shape debate and constrain change over periods of time. However, institutions cannot forever prevent change. And policy images can change. As new views come into the policy debate, this can lead to a breakdown of the old "order" and punctuational (rapid) change.
The book provide some examples of this, such as budgetary change (and see Baumgartner and Jones' edited volume, "Policy Dynamics," for an even broader range of examples of the theory in operation).
If one is interested in the dynamics of policy change, then "Agendas and Instability in American Politics" is a good book to look at. It is not the only approach to explaining policy change (e.g., see Paul Sabatier's work for another effort to explain stasis and change), but it is a rich perspective and has seen a number of applications.
Baumgartner and Jones do not leave it at that. Merely describing a pattern that they see in different arenas over time is only a first step. How to explain such change? The authors provide a reasonably convincing argument: One, institutions produce a considerable degree of stability; two, particular policy "images" shape debate and constrain change over periods of time. However, institutions cannot forever prevent change. And policy images can change. As new views come into the policy debate, this can lead to a breakdown of the old "order" and punctuational (rapid) change.
The book provide some examples of this, such as budgetary change (and see Baumgartner and Jones' edited volume, "Policy Dynamics," for an even broader range of examples of the theory in operation).
If one is interested in the dynamics of policy change, then "Agendas and Instability in American Politics" is a good book to look at. It is not the only approach to explaining policy change (e.g., see Paul Sabatier's work for another effort to explain stasis and change), but it is a rich perspective and has seen a number of applications.
February 18, 2012
Yet another text from my Public Policy class. Baumgartner and Jones are readable and relatively free of jargon. Moreover, of the various theories of public policy I read about, their Punctuated Equilibrium is one of the more plausible ones.
PE is a close cousin of multiple streams theory, identifying a combination of "triggering events," sympathetic policy actors, and ready-made solutions for a given problem. This view of the policymaking process tracked relatively closely to what I experienced as a Hill staffer when I was in DC.
The rarity of substantial triggering events, and the stability of policy coalitions (or iron triangles, if you prefer) serve to explain the long periods of stasis that seem to dominate some policy fields, as well as the abrupt change that can come with right set of circumstances.
Agendas and Instability serves up some good case studies that apply the theory to actual political dynamics, and demonstrates for the reader how to apply the theory. Worthwhile for those that are looking for a meta-text on policymaking in general, beyond policy disputes in the realm of a single issue area.
PE is a close cousin of multiple streams theory, identifying a combination of "triggering events," sympathetic policy actors, and ready-made solutions for a given problem. This view of the policymaking process tracked relatively closely to what I experienced as a Hill staffer when I was in DC.
The rarity of substantial triggering events, and the stability of policy coalitions (or iron triangles, if you prefer) serve to explain the long periods of stasis that seem to dominate some policy fields, as well as the abrupt change that can come with right set of circumstances.
Agendas and Instability serves up some good case studies that apply the theory to actual political dynamics, and demonstrates for the reader how to apply the theory. Worthwhile for those that are looking for a meta-text on policymaking in general, beyond policy disputes in the realm of a single issue area.
September 21, 2014
Though I agree with the premise of this book I find that premise itself not that revealing. Voters don't pay attention to every issue but when they do they get results and change them. Voter activism makes a difference even if it only happens between long periods of stability. This book makes good arguments for a good point, but not a very surprising argument overall.
August 25, 2016
Truly a remarkable book. This is political science at its bset.
December 17, 2021
This is an incredible book even though it's riddled with spelling and grammar errors.
Highly recommend.
Highly recommend.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews