Unbroken Government

Success and the Illusion of Failure in Policymaking

Kenneth A. Loparo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137352521
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Unbroken Government demonstrates how institutional and electoral characteristics present since the writing of the Constitution influence policy development. Utilizing policy areas as diverse as human spaceflight, clean air, homeland security, and foreign policy, this work shows how these patterns manifest themselves in the policymaking process.

CHAPTER 1

Institutions and Policy

Government is making decisions all the time—what agenda items to consider, what hearings to hold, what issues to prioritize, and even when not to act. Most of the time, however, we, the American public, either don’t see these decisions being made or do not realize that these decisions are being made. As such, it has been a common refrain for some years now that American government is “broken,” that politicians do nothing in Washington, and that years of hyperpartisanship have taken their toll on the ability of individuals to work together.

In addition to the argument that we believe that the government doesn’t work because we don’t see it working, it is equally plausible that different institutions of government simply aren’t influential at different points in time with respect to different policy areas. There are multiple sets of political actors that can be working alone or in concert at any given time to make policy, or implement policy, the outcomes of governing decisions, with most of these actors working “under the radar.” The few major issues that the media and politicians may focus our attention on are usually not representative of the vast set of policies the government continually deals with. Just because politicians may be stuck on one or two issues doesn’t mean that government isn’t working on 99 percent of the policy agenda.

In other words, the government isn’t broken; it does work and it works in a way that is quite consistent with the Constitution. The rules of the game—in other words, the institutions—set up by the founding fathers, essentially lay out a road map of how to expect politicians to act. Though we may not recognize it on the surface, the government is working and working as planned.

On October 29, 1998, an otherwise unremarkable day, the school I was attending in Central Florida held an unplanned fire drill around noon. This fire drill coincided with the launch of space shuttle Discovery, carrying not only the first Spaniard in outer space but also a man who had been the first American to orbit the earth in 1962. That man was then senator John Glenn. Watching this launch, I was vaguely aware of the historical significance of the 77-year-old who was on board. Although Alan Shepherd was the first American in space, most people remember John Glenn’s first orbital trip more. Following that first mission in 1962 which lasted just under five hours, Glenn, the perpetual boy scout, became an instant hero. Praised from New York to Washington, D.C., to his hometown in Ohio, Glenn quickly became a celebrity, a celebrity too valuable to risk on another spaceflight. He soon left the astronaut corps among speculation that he wanted to run for president.

While it wasn’t for the presidency, Glenn did indeed run for political office and win. In 1974, he was elected senator from the state of Ohio and began a 25-year career in that office. Incredibly, Glenn was not the first elected official in outer space but the third. In the mid-1980s, NASA invited Senator Jake Garn of Utah and then Representative Bill Nelson of Florida to participate in space shuttle missions. The flying of such officials ceased after the Challenger disaster in 1986, along with plans to orbit a reporter and an artist (ironically, Nelson’s flight was the launch directly preceding Challenger’s demise). Glenn’s flight, while catering to the political crowd, also afforded a rare opportunity to examine the effects of weightless flight on older persons as well as to compare Glenn’s reactions to spaceflight across the years.

The flights of Garn, Nelson, and Glenn demonstrate the lengths to which NASA has gone to generate political support for its spaceflight programs. Recognizing the need for Congressional support, NASA has courted not only presidents but also members of Congress. It is little coincidence that two of NASA’s field centers are named after presidents (Kennedy and Johnson), while two more are named after senators (John Glenn and John Stennis). At various times in NASA’s history, both institutions have held particular sway over the direction the agency has taken. While one can easily cite Kennedy’s audacious proposal to go to the moon by the end of the decade in 1961 as an example of presidential initiative, presidents George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and, now, Barack Obama have all proposed significant space policies of their own. In the meantime, Congress has driven, to a large extent, the direction of NASA in the periods between spikes in presidential attention. While the seesaw between the Congress and the president seems to tip in an unrelated pattern, there is a cyclical nature to the way these institutions have treated policy.

This book proposes to undertake an examination of such cycles. To do so, I advance a new theory of the policy lifecycle, incorporating the beginning of policy consideration and the nature of presidential, congressional, and bureaucratic involvement in the formation of policy. In short, I hypothesize that as new policy areas emerge, the president and the Senate take the lead in formulating an initial policy response. As the policy becomes “normalized,” in the sense that it is ingratiated into the normal political process, the president and the Senate recede in importance, giving way to the bureaucracy and the House of Representatives. However, in times of policy crises, these other actors reemerge in importance, helping set the stage for a new policy regime to take shape.

It is easy to recognize the basic contours of this pattern in NASA’s history. After meandering through the space race in the late 1950s, NASA was presented with the jarring presidential goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Kennedy’s attention to the program soon waned, leading some space policy analysts today to wonder whether the moon landing would have been accomplished in that time frame had Kennedy lived. By the time Apollo 11 landed on the moon, not only had political attention decreased, but so had public attention. As NASA shifted from the Apollo program to the Apollo Applications program and eventually to the space shuttle, the agency began to assert itself in directing the pace of American space activities. Certainly, presidential and political attention would peak again, but it would come at times of crises: Challenger in 1986, funding battles over the now International Space Station in the early 1990s, and Columbia in 2003.

It is not enough, however, to recognize that this cycle occurs; we must be able to explain why. I believe the key to this puzzle is in the structure of the very institutions that must guide not only space policy but also all of national policy. The ways in which the executive and legislative branches along with the bureaucracy, shape the dynamics through which policy has been considered in the United States. For example, the president is the only nationally elected figure in the United States and, as such, must consider a wide range of issues, some of which dominate the agenda more than others do. For the average member of the House of Representatives, though, their district presents a much more homogenous slate of issues, allowing the member to focus on a smaller number of issues that are important to the constituency.

To test this theory, I will primarily examine two different policy areas and the institutional patterns surrounding them—space and the environment, more specifically human spaceflight and clean air politics. While related in some aspects (Apollo 8’s famous “Earth Rise” picture from the moon is often cited as a catalyst for the public embrace of environmental programs), these two areas are distinct enough to serve as strong tests of the theory proposed here. Major bursts of new policy activity occurred for both space and environmental policy in the same time period, allowing for the control of extraneous institutional variables that may affect their policy involvement, including the major bursts of institutional reform and social change that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the nature of each policy is still quite varied, with the types of bureaucratic and administrative controls available different in each. Utilizing these two policies as cases will test the applicability of the theory to diverse policy areas.

Certainly, a close examination of just two policy areas allows for a much closer and critical analysis, capitalizing on detailed case studies and narratives. This foundation will then be built upon in later chapters, which test the limits of the institutional-policy cycle by briefly examining other domestic policy areas as well as economic and foreign policy.

To be sure, this choice of human spaceflight and clean air is somewhat conservative in the sense that these tests will isolate two policy areas that are related in the same time period. A more-stringent test might randomly choose two policy areas to examine or even take two policies that found their beginnings in different time periods as its focus. However, the choice of human spaceflight and clean air means that we can reliably control for changes in the political environment through the second half of the twentieth century. Further, despite their similarities, their differences (which will be laid out in Chapter 3) provide enough variation to put the institutional–policy cycle through its paces.

One may also ask if human spaceflight and clean air policy are truly comparable. Since the vast majority of policy areas are subject to the same political processes and pressures, there is nothing, aside from subject matter, that would make these areas so dissimilar as to rule out all comparisons. Because the theory under discussion focuses on institutional processes and not policy content, both human spaceflight and clean air policy are acceptable choices with which to test the cycle.

Policy Lifecycles

This institutionally based theory of policy cycles is built on earlier work related to patterns of policy change. One of the earliest works was the issue-attention cycle proposed by Anthony Downs in 1972. His theory revolved around the amount of attention that the public paid to policy problems. In the pre-problem stage, few people are aware of a steadily worsening policy issue but, all of a sudden, become aware in the second stage, which Downs called “alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm.” As the costs associated with fully addressing the problem become apparent (stage three), the public’s interest begins to dwindle (stage four). In the final “post-problem stage,” the issue attains a “prolonged limbo— a twilight realm of lesser attention or spasmodic recurrences of interest” (Downs 1972, 40). Although not focusing on it, Downs does note that following this cycle, new programs, policies, and agencies may exist to address the policy problem and will most likely persist following it. Apart from this consideration of institutional impact, Downs virtually ignores the role that institutions play in forming policy responses during either the cycle or future episodes of policy change.

In a different theory of policy cycles, Carmines and Stimson (1981; 1986) propose a theory of issue evolution, where changes in policy reflect changes in party positions, as signaled by party elites. As party elites demonstrate their new issue positions, this information is filtered down to the general electorate. If the issue is salient enough, the public, theoretically, will pick up on the change and realign their positions on the given issue. Because the positions of the public and the parties have changed, policy differences will occur.

There are a number of problems inherent in issue evolution, as presented by Carmines and Stimson. First, there is no guarantee that the signals of party elites will actually be picked up on by the populace. It could be the case that if parties change positions on less salient issues, the issue just may not be important enough to constituents to actually pay attention to and pick up on. Second, what drives party elites to change their issue positions in the first place? Souva and Rhode (2007) find that elected representatives tend to reflect the foreign policy positions of their primary election voters, while Wlezien’s (2004) analysis of constituency positions and representatives’ positions across spending domains finds that the degree of responsiveness from elected officials varies based on the saliency of the issue. These two arguments are similar to Mayhew’s (1974) assumption that politicians are interested in reelection and, as a result, must pay attention to the positions of their constituencies. This poses two problems for issue evolution: one, how do politicians react as the party changes position on an issue and that position is contrary to the views of their constituents; and two, why would party elites independently change positions with little regard for the views of the electorate, as seems to be the case for Carmines and Stimson?

Disregarding the issue positions of the electorate and individual constituencies seems to be a dangerous thing for politicians interested in successful elections. Similarly left out of the work of Carmines and Stimson is consideration of the initial position a party took on new issues. Party positions on civil rights, to use their example, existed long before the 1960s; what motivations caused parties to take a particular position in the first place?

Another theory of policy change into which perspectives on party policy positions can be integrated is Baumgartner and Jones’s punctuated equilibrium (1991; 1993). According to Baumgartner and Jones, a policy can not only remain fairly stable over time but also undergo periods of rapid change and upheaval. During these “punctuated” periods, policy has the ability to change before developing a new policy regime and returning to its stable, equilibrium state. Under this theory, a key concept Baumgartner and Jones use is that of the policy image. During periods of extended stability, the policy image remains the same and is protected by policy subsystems that develop. Over time, however, the policy image may become negative and as this occurs, policy actors gain incentives to engage in a debate over the issue. As they do so, they seek out political arenas that will be most helpful to their own cause. “The image of a policy and its venue are closely related. As venues change, images may change as well; as the image of a policy changes, venue changes become more likely” (Baumgartner and Jones 1991, 1047).

Wilson (2000) builds on Baumgartner and Jones’s theory of punctuated equilibrium in elaborating on the idea of a policy regime and delineating a four-stage theory of policy regime change. Wilson argues that policy regimes consist of four dimensions: the power arrangement, the policy paradigm, the organization within government to carry out the paradigm, and the policy itself. For the most part, all four parts of the regime contribute to its overall stability, resulting in long periods in which the policy does not change. When policies do change, Wilson argues, it occurs in four, sometimes overlapping, phases. In the first, the regime is subjected to some sort of stressor that acts as a trigger. This contributes to the second phase, where the dominant paradigm begins to change, setting off shifts in the power arrangement (step three) and a legitimacy crisis (step four). Finally, organizations and the policy change in response to the process.

The theories discussed above suffer from two key problems. First, there has been no systematic consideration of institutional effects. In the cases of “Downs’ ” issue-attention cycle and Carmines and Stimson’s issue evolution, policies seem to develop on their own, independent of any guidance or interference from political institutions. Although Baumgartner and Jones provide a role for institutions, where the policy image can be altered, this institutional impact is never fully explored. More importantly, Baumgartner and Jones do not distinguish between the types of institutional actors working to change the policy image and, consequently, cannot explain why particular players act when they do.

The second major problem arising from these theories is that these policy lifecycles rarely consider the beginning of a policy’s history; in other words, the policy lifecycles discussed here pick up in the middle of an actual policy cycle. Downs is the one exception to this problem, as the issue-attention cycle seems to explicitly cover newly arising issues. However, Downs never takes his cycle a step further and places it in an actual cyclical context. In sum, then, these policy lifecycles are not as comprehensive as they initially appear.

Which Institutions? The Congress, President, and Bureaucracy

Because the theory presented here explicitly considers the role of institutions in policymaking, we must consider how our major political players go about doing so. The methods of policy intervention offered to each vary greatly and are often used under different conditions and contexts. For example, the president may have a difficult time trying to change policy through an agency that lacks regulatory powers that can be used unilaterally. Similarly, bureaucracies may be unable to exert an independent measure of control over a policy area when its saliency rises. As a result, it is necessary to review the methods and motivations of the major actors involved.

Congress

The Congress retains a number of resources in their fight to make and control national policy. First, however, one must ask why Members of Congress (MCs) seek to control policy at any given time. To answer this question, we can examine a classic of political science, David Mayhew’s Congress: The Electoral Connection. Mayhew argues the primary motivation of MCs is election and reelection. As such, the activities they undertake are structured around that goal and designed to help reach it. Mayhew proposes that the majority of congressional activities fall into one of three categories: advertising, credit claiming, and position taking. Additionally, he notes that the structures of Congress are such that they aid MCs in their election activities. Committees, for example, allow members to specialize in policy areas that are critical to their constituents, giving way to opportunities for credit claiming. “Every member can aspire to occupy a part of at least one piece of policy turf small enough so that he can claim personal responsibility for some of the things that happen on it” (Mayhew 1974, 95).

As we can see from Mayhew’s exploration, we can view MCs as pursuing policy objectives consistent with their electoral goals. It follows, then, that they will want to intervene in policy when it (a) impacts their constituents and, more importantly, (b) when the impact of the policy is negative on their constituents.

When MCs do decide they want to intervene in policy, the Congress provides a number of tools to allow them to do so. We can view these activities along a continuum ranging from very direct and specific influences (for example, statutory or authorizing legislation that directs agencies to undertake specific activities in a particular way) to more-indirect and signal-based activities, such as changes in committee ideology or make-up. Utilizing such a continuum, we can look at the following activities, ranging from the most direct to the least direct: lawmaking and statutory control, budgeting, oversight and investigations, deck stacking, particularly involving interest groups and other constituent groups, and signaling through changes in party and ideology.

One of the primary means through which the Congress can affect national policy is through legislation. Although often overlooked by the political science literature examining congressional influence, authorizing legislation or even amendments to authorizing legislation can allow Congress to specifically direct agency activities (Dodd and Schott 1979). Although quite powerful, Dodd and Schott acknowledge that the use of such mechanisms is quite dependent on a large number of other factors that can impact the ability of Congress as a whole to pass legislation. As opposed to committee-specific activity, authorizing or statutory amendments require legislation to pass both chambers, meaning that there often needs to be a general consensus among MCs to change policy directions. Nevertheless, the threat of new statutory language can be a significant signal to agencies to change the direction of their behavior.

Because major legislation creating new agencies or reauthorizing them is fairly infrequent, few studi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Preface
• 1. Institutions and Policy
• 2. The Institutional-Policy Cycle
• 3. Human Spaceflight and Clean Air Policy
• 4. A Tale of Two Chambers
• 5. Executives and Policy
• 6. Bureaucratic Influence and Discretion
• 7. Something Old, Something New, Something Federal
• 8. A Path Forward
• Notes
• References
• Index