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Page 1 of 2

Democratic Policymaking
  • An Analytic Approach
  • Charles Barrilleaux, Christopher Reenock, Mark Souva
  • Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016
  • This introduction applies analytic models to policymaking challenges, equipping students with tools to evaluate core policymaking dilemmas. Students are introduced to the approaches of game theory, social choice theory, research design and causal inference. Key terms, along with current research, are highlighted to build an understanding of public policy study. Exercises and thought questions enable students to develop skills to assess public policy dilemmas. The analytically rigorous style of the text is accessible and avoids lengthy descriptions. Supplementary resources for instructors include extensive notes, ancillaries and online resources, including a test bank, quizzes and editable lecture slides for all chapters that can be modified to fit particular courses. This textbook is suitable for introductory public policy and public administration courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

  • Introduction

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 1-10

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • What is public policy?

  • • What are the opportunities and challenges of democratic policymaking?

  • • Why is public policymaking often inefficient?

  • • What is an analytic approach to public policy?

  • • What is a scientific approach to public policy?

  • • What is the scientific method?

    • Overview

  • • Public policy is government decisions (including not deciding) on societal rules.

  • • Core opportunities in policymaking include preference identification, agenda setting, alternative specification of an issue, implementation, and evaluation.

  • • Core challenges in policymaking include preference aggregation, delegation dilemmas, credible commitment problems, bargaining problems, cooperation, and coordination.

  • • This text uses an analytic approach to understanding public policy. An analytic approach uses models, game-theoretic, and political economy to understand how individuals’ choices are shaped by the policy context and rules that characterize their decision-making environment.

  • • This text uses the scientific method for evaluating public policy.

  • • The scientific method requires theory construction, research designs that rule out alternative explanations, testing, and replicability.

    • Introduction

    Public policy encompasses a wide range of topics (for example, health care, tax policy, defense policy, environmental policy, and more), and public policy decisions have a wide range of effects. Many policy topics are complex, making them difficult to understand, as well as hard to improve or solve. Is deficit spending by governments desirable? Is it equitable for some citizens to pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes or for some not to pay income taxes at all? Why does the United States spend so much on health care, yet have such poor health outcomes? To enhance the prospects of peace between countries, is it better to focus on a strong defense or international organizations? Does getting tough on crime reduce crime? If Americans prize liberty so much, why do we have the USA Freedom and Protect America Acts? Why do US students lag behind students of other wealthy nations in educational attainment? Each of these questions reflects a salient and complex public policy question.

    This book introduces readers to a set of simple tools that are useful for understanding public policy problems. We believe that by the end of this book readers will have a better understanding of how public policy is made, why we observe some of the policies that we do, and why improving or even changing public policy is often very difficult.

  • 4 - Scientific Inquiry and Uncertainty

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 114-147

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • How do policy analysts evaluate causal claims empirically?

  • • What are acceptable levels of uncertainty in scientific research?

  • • What is the difference between scientific uncertainty and ill-informed skepticism?

  • • How is ill-informed skepticism used as a political tactic to achieve policy goals?

    • Overview

  • • The counterfactual model of causal inference is a useful tool to understand causation.

  • • To isolate a causal effect between an input and a policy output, analysts must rule out other confounding factors.

  • • In experimental designs, random assignment of subjects to treatment and control helps rule out confounding factors.

  • • In observational studies, statistical control helps to rule out confounding factors.

  • • Scientific uncertainty derives from sampling error, measurement error, and random error.

  • • Scientists use probabilities to express their uncertainty about specific scientific claims.

  • • For a scientific claim to be considered valid, it must have less than a 5 percent chance of not being successfully replicated.

  • • Ill-informed skepticism is not scientifically rigorous and does not assign probabilities to assessments of doubt.

  • • Despite these weaknesses, ill-informed skepticism is a powerful political tool to advance or block policy initiatives.

    • Introduction

    Science is an evidence-based endeavor. Only through rigorous empirical evaluations can scientific claims be pitted against one another to reveal which, if any, are valid. Public policy analysis is no different from other sciences. Academic models of the policy process, bureaucratic evaluations of new regulations, and legislative analysis of program evaluations all depend upon rigorous empirical evaluation to sort out legitimate from illegitimate empirical claims. The promotion of scientifically sound public policies faces several challenges, including demonstrating that the policy has the purported causal effect as well as persuading people to accept a policy when it goes against their self-interest or prior belief on the topic.

    Consider child car seat policy in the United States. Many of you probably grew up in a time when car seats were mandatory for infants and toddlers. But this was not always the case. In the 1950s, 1960s, and well into the 1970s, car seats for children were not required. However, with each passing decade, scientific evidence began to accumulate revealing that infants, toddlers, and young children were being exposed to risk of injury due to not being restrained in their car.

  • 11 - Homeland Security

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 387-414

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • How should a state allocate limited resources to defend against a strategic adversary like a terrorist group?

  • • How much will people trade off civil liberties for greater security?

    • Overview

  • • The primary analytic concepts we use to provide insights on homeland security are delegation and coordination problems.

  • • Bureaucracies are central to the implementation of public policy.

  • • Politicians take more of a fire alarm than a police-patrol approach to bureaucratic change and creation. At the same time, bureaucratic change and creation is a window of opportunity for advancing particular political interests.

  • • Key homeland security functions are protection, policing, mitigation, and resilience.

  • • Given that resources are limited and adversaries are strategic, the best way to allocate resources for protection is to apply risk management, which assesses each target's vulnerability, threat, and impact on society if destroyed and harmed. However, in practice, pork-barrel politics is a more decisive influence on homeland security allocations.

  • • Many individuals perceive a trade-off between civil liberties and security. As threat perceptions and trust in government increase, individuals are more willing to give up civil liberties for greater security.

  • • The Patriot Act and Protect America Act both trade off civil liberties for security. They aim to increase security by expanding the use of National Security Letters, warrantless wiretapping, and data mining.

  • • Efficient emergency response is a function of planning, training, exercising, equipping, and public education. As recent events attest, the federal government has been deficient in each of these areas.

    • Introduction

    Imagine you are a politician running for a national political office in 1992. The Cold War is over and the economy is coming out of recession. Would reforming homeland security or the intelligence community be a major part of your campaign? Probably not, even though there had been blue ribbon commissions calling for a reorganization of the country's intelligence community. Now imagine you are running for a national political office in 2002. Would reforming homeland security or the intelligence community be a major part of your campaign? With the terrorist attacks of 9/11 still looming large in people's minds, there is a good chance you would make it part of your campaign.

  • 13 - Foreign and Defense Policy

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 446-477

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • Why is there variation in defense policy across presidential administrations?

  • • Do negative domestic political conditions cause states to go to war? Do leaders “wag the dog”?

  • • What are the central causes of war between countries?

  • • What sorts of policies can promote peace between countries?

  • • Why is trade policy so controversial?

  • • Why are some politicians more likely than others to support protectionist policies?

    • Overview

  • • The primary analytic concepts we use to provide insight on foreign policy are principal–agent theory, bargaining theory, comparative advantage, and collective action.

  • • Leaders respond to their winning coalitions. As the composition of the winning coalition changes, government policy changes. It is the change in the composition of winning coalitions that accounts for variation in defense policy.

  • • Negative domestic political conditions may make leaders more hawkish, but they cannot cause war, for war is a strategic process that involves at least two states.

  • • Because different winning coalitions represent different interests, the impact of domestic political conditions varies across leaders. For example, Democratic presidents are more hawkish when unemployment is high, while Republican presidents are more hawkish when inflation is high.

  • • War results from bargaining failures over perceived disagreements. Bargaining failures result from incomplete information about resolve, capabilities, or an inability for at least one side to credibly commit to abide by the terms of a deal.

  • • In crisis bargaining, costly signals reduce uncertainty and may reduce conflict escalation. The expected cost of war has a significant influence on the outcome of crisis bargaining.

  • • The principle of comparative advantage explains the benefits and costs of trade.

  • • Collective action and institutional incentives account for support for protectionism and free trade.

    • Introduction

    With each new president, American foreign policy undergoes some significant changes. Shortly after his inauguration in January 2009, President Obama made changes to US foreign policy. He shut down overseas secret prisons and worked to end significant military involvement in Iraq by 2011. Similarly, when President Clinton took office in January 1993, he immediately ended the Mexico City policy, which prohibits foreign aid to foreign groups that provide assistance with abortion. President George W. Bush reinstituted the policy when he took office in 2001. President Obama terminated the policy when he took office in 2009.

  • 2 - Individuals and Social Dilemmas

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 57-79

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • Why do economic and political systems of all stripes regularly come up short with their attempts to find effective solutions to social problems?

  • • Under what conditions does the individual pursuit of self-interest fail to generate socially optimal outcomes?

    • Overview

  • • Individual pursuit of self-interest is a powerful motivator that generally is sufficient to improve one's position.

  • • Under certain conditions, pursuit of self-interest is not sufficient to improve one's position.

  • • Cooperation and coordination dilemmas are unique conditions that undermine individual abilities to secure improvements. In fact, under certain circumstances, individuals pursuing their own self-interest can lead to deteriorations in all individuals’ positions.

  • • Analytic models assist us in understanding solutions to cooperation and coordination dilemmas.

    • Introduction: Origins of Social Problems

    Society faces numerous problems on the public policy landscape. Whether under-education, environmental hazards, malnutrition, economic malaise, or rising health care costs, the policy palette is infused with a rich spectrum of challenges. Most individuals would agree that many of these areas would benefit from a healthy dose of improvement. But that is likely where citizen consensus ends. Opinion polling suggests that there is often plurality consensus on what citizens believe to be the most important policy problems facing their country. However, there is less consensus on what citizens believe to be the proper solutions to these problems and who precisely ought to address them. One thing appears certain: elected leaders are willing to respond to citizen concerns. Political parties offer a variety of what they believe to be the most appropriate solutions to society's problems. But why look to government or political parties for answers to society's problems? Couldn't individuals, seeking a mutually agreeable goal, simply agree to work on a solution together?

    In some cases, individuals each pursuing their own interest can be beneficial for others in a community (or at a minimum their pursuit may not harm anyone). For example, if a homeowner in a neighborhood puts sweat equity into his or her house in the form of new paint, better landscaping, and greater attention to detail to overall upkeep, that person's individual actions will likely benefit other landowners in the neighborhood.

  • Preface

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp xix-xx

  • Summary

    Public policy is the core of politics. Understanding how public policy is created is an essential component of a liberal education. In this book we challenge students to think critically about why policies are the way they are. Developing such an understanding among students can help them work to demand and create better public policies.

    We wrote this book as a result of our experience teaching introductory public policy courses over the course of a decade. Our goal was to combine the dense policy description that often is provided in undergraduate texts with the analytic rigor that is available in more advanced policy analysis books and research that draws from academic and scientific sources. We taught from a blend of descriptive texts and more analytic texts and found it difficult to hit the right note: the books were typically too much of one and too little of the other, too much of both, or too little of both. We believe this book strikes a good balance between the descriptive and analytic. We'v e taught versions of the book to large classes over the past four semesters and have received positive reviews on it from students. We hope you have the same experience.

    Democratic Policymaking assumes that students have a rudimentary understanding of political systems, on the level of a good high school civics course. Students who have completed an introductory American or comparative government course should be able to understand the text with little difficulty. We have taught the text to undergraduate students from a variety of majors, including the social sciences, business, natural sciences, and liberal arts, and we have encountered little difficulty in their ability to comprehend the materials.

    We apply a broad theoretical framework that allows students to analyze core challenges in the formation and implementation of all public policies; we apply the scientific method to evaluate empirical evidence on public policies; and we draw on contemporary professional public policy scholarship. We believe this distinguishes our approach in Democratic Policymaking from that of the majority of texts that are available for general public policy courses.

  • 8 - Education

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 273-315

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • How is education provided and paid for in the United States?

  • • Why is the public dissatisfied with US education?

  • • Why do US students lag students of other wealthy nations in educational attainment?

  • • Is a national standard for education scores desirable?

  • • Can the states manage education adequately?

  • • Are charter, choice, and other reforms a solution to education problems?

  • • Who should decide what's to be taught in schools?

  • • Can we provide higher education effectively online?

  • • Can we reduce the debts accrued by college students?

    • Overview

  • • The primary analytic concept we use to provide insight on education policy is agency theory.

  • • There is a strong commitment to public education in the United States, but disagreement over how best to organize and provide that education.

  • • Despite showing strong support for public education and their local schools, citizens are critical of the state of public education.

  • • Educational performance among students educated in elementary and secondary schools in the United States lags behind that of most advanced industrialized nations.

  • • There is a strong reform movement in US education, although there is disagreement about which reforms are most desirable or promising.

  • • The school choice movement has strengthened over the past thirty years and choice has become institutionalized in most public school systems.

  • • There is controversy over what is to be taught in schools.

  • • State legislatures are pushing schools in their states to reduce the price of education.

    • Introduction: Education Choices, Reforms, and Persistent Problems

    Americans have more choice in public education than at any time in the history of public schools. In the past thirty years, the range of choices available to families has increased, and schools now compete for students. Families may choose among specialized schools for the arts and sciences, charter schools, magnet schools, and other varieties of programs. Schools and school districts are innovating with curriculum, evaluation, teacher training, and even in how they manage the school day.

    These education reforms are the product of concerns with the quality of education and with the desire to make schools better. The greatest problems are in urban schools, where test scores are persistently lower than in rural and suburban schools. The United States lags behind a number of industrialized democracies in the test scores of its students.

  • 7 - Health Policy

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 240-272

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • How can we ensure access to care while controlling health spending?

  • • Can we provide health care that is affordable and available to all?

  • • How are individuals who have health insurance linked to those who do not?

  • • Why does the United States spend so much, yet have such poor health outcomes?

  • • Can Medicare and Medicaid continue to provide public insurance?

  • • Can we learn to manage health care efficiently?

    • Overview

  • • The primary analytic concepts we use to assess health policy are externalities, adverse selection, and moral hazard.

  • • The health economy is a case of market failure.

  • • It is possible to provide health insurance, but not to guarantee health outcomes.

  • • Health care is the fastest growing segment of the US economy.

  • • Health inflation has slowed, but still exceeds inflation in other sectors in the US economy.

  • • Health insurance is more affordable for the entire community if all members of the community are insured, but that may result in higher prices for the healthiest members of the community.

  • • Young people's health costs and health needs differ from those of older people.

  • • Moral hazard is a problem in health insurance.

  • • Health providers have more and better information than health consumers; there is information asymmetry in health care.

    • Introduction

    Francis is a reasonably healthy 45-year-old man. He is a little overweight and smokes, but has not had any serious medical problems. Francis has health insurance. If Francis experiences a health crisis, who pays for his care? He will seek care from his primary physician and may require treatment in a hospital. In either case, Francis will bear some portion of the total costs to manage his crisis under the terms of his policy and his insurance company will pay the remainder. In contrast, Leo is a healthy 21-year-old man. He has no serious or chronic medical problems, is physically active, does not smoke, drinks infrequently, eats well, and is not obese. Leo does not have health insurance. If Leo experiences a health crisis, who pays for his care?

  • 6 - Environmental Policy

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 194-239

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • What role do markets and government play in addressing environmental issues?

  • • What is public opinion on environmental issues and does it influence the policy process?

  • • What role do bureaucrats play in implementing environmental legislation?

  • • What different elements are involved in evaluating an environmental program?

    • Overview

  • • The primary analytic concepts we use to provide insights on environmental policy are negative externalities and agency theory.

  • • Environmental pollution is a negative externality generated as a by-product of market exchanges.

  • • A variety of corrective mechanisms can be used to deter the production of such negative externalities.

  • • Command and control regulation is the most often employed corrective mechanism in environmental policy.

  • • While individuals tend to support government intervention in the affairs of private enterprise to resolve pollution concerns, they are less supportive of regulation or taxes that affect them directly.

  • • Environmental issues tend to be less salient relative to other public policy issues.

  • • The success of any regulatory program depends in part on the ability of the chief executive or legislative principals to properly incentivize their bureaucratic agents to perform. In the absence of proper incentives, agents are more likely to deliver suboptimal outputs.

  • • Evaluating a regulatory program involves assessing both the total costs and benefits of the program. Total benefits are nearly always more difficult to quantify relative to costs, and this has both policy and political consequences.

    • Introduction

    We often make decisions that have little consequence for others. For example, on any given day you can either choose to go for a walk or a run. And, while important for you, your choice likely has little consequence for other people. There are infinite examples of such decisions in our daily lives. However, we also make decisions that have great consequence for others, either positively or negatively. Consider the following example: at the encouragement of my passengers, I choose to speed in my car. I could potentially harm not only myself, but also my passengers if I were to crash the car. Now, someone may say, “Well, that's not a problem. All of the parties involved consented to my speeding, so there is no ethical conflict here.” However, what if I had harmed a person walking down the street?

  • 3 - Public Policy as a Solution to Social Dilemmas

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 80-113

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • What role do markets play in creating and solving social dilemmas?

  • • What role does government play in creating and solving social dilemmas?

    • Overview

  • • In this chapter, we examine the role of markets and governments as devices to solve social dilemmas. While markets provide efficient solutions to certain kinds of social problems there are certain features that handicap markets’ ability to provide effective solutions.

  • • Institutions, like markets and governments, help facilitate individual and collective action. But these institutions have limitations.

  • • Markets can efficiently allocate resources when certain conditions are met.

  • • In the absence of these conditions, markets are said to fail.

  • • Market failure derives from certain characteristics: lack of competition, incomplete information, and transaction costs.

  • • Government was originally intended to provide citizens with security. However, government itself can also be a threat to security.

  • • To harness the support and productivity of their citizens, governments must alleviate citizens’ fears of predation by other citizens, while simultaneously alleviating their concerns about government predation of their assets.

  • • To credibly commit to not predating upon their citizens, governments must effectively bind their hands with institutional devices that citizens believe limit state power.

  • • Governments can also experience failure.

  • • Government failure includes the dilemma of majority rule, market distortions, and principal–agent delegation problems.

  • • Analytic models assist us in understanding the role of markets and government in public policy.

    • Introduction: Institutions and Social Problems

    In the last chapter, we saw that individuals each pursuing their own interest can sometimes be beneficial for others in a community. But sometimes the pursuit of self-interest may lead to suboptimal outcomes for all parties. Where might citizens look for solutions to such social problems? For some Americans, it is almost natural to look to government for a solution to many if not all of these problems. For others, the market is seen to offer the best hope of solving society's most nagging dilemmas. But what does it mean for government or the market to solve a social problem? What larger social dilemmas are these institutions, government, and markets thought to resolve? And are these institutions, whether government or markets, similarly equipped to solve all types of social problems? Does the introduction of a market or government institution create new social problems? These are a few of the questions that we take up in this chapter.

  • 1 - Public Policy Models

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 11-56

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • What are the expected benefits of studying public policy?

  • • What are the major areas of the policymaking process?

  • • How are policy “problems” and “solutions” defined?

  • • Do policy problems always precede policy solutions?

  • • How do political interests place items on the policy agenda for consideration?

  • • Why do some policy issues never seem to make it onto the agenda?

  • • Why do some policies register little change over lengthy periods, only to then give way to a rapid burst of change?

  • • What are the critical features of a theoretical model of public policy?

    • Overview

  • • Public policy is the study of government activity, including laws, regulations, and funding priorities, and its influence on society.

  • • We study public policy to satisfy three basic needs: our desire to ensure that government actions are accountable to the public, whether government expenditures are efficient, and that government is fair or equitable in its application.

  • • The policy process can be characterized, albeit not perfectly, by a “stages of the policy process” model.

  • • A good model of public policy will be multivariate, probabilistic, parsimonious, generalizable, falsifiable, clear, logically consistent, and ideologically neutral.

  • • Public policy outputs and outcomes can be understood via the interplay of actors, incentives, and rules of operation.

    • Introduction

    Public opinion on public policy is often based less on rigorous evidence and more on what many citizens view as their own form of common sense. If you scan the television, you are likely to land on a person sharing his or her opinion about some public policy, and how he or she thinks the world ought to be. Personal blogs are scattered throughout the web. Individuals, often with very little training, share their insights on various topics hoping to expand their readership. The popularity of social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat offer further evidence that in addition to sharing photographs and anecdotes, many people are also interested in sharing their opinions. Yet, we have reason to be skeptical of many of these broadly distributed opinions. To what degree are opinions and beliefs about public policy based on fact?

  • 5 - The Economy and Income Security

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 148-193

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • Why is it difficult to arrange collective action institutions to support the widely agreed-upon idea that citizens should not fall below a basic income floor?

  • • Can governments manage their economies to achieve desirable goals?

  • • Is deficit spending by governments desirable?

  • • Is it equitable for some citizens not to pay income taxes?

  • • Can the Social Security program be redesigned to provide benefits more equitably and more affordably?

    • Overview

  • • The primary analytic concept we apply in this chapter is redistributive analysis via ultimatum and dictator games.

  • • Political management of the economy is difficult given strong external forces.

  • • Governments seek economic growth, full employment, low inflation, and a positive balance of trade.

  • • There is disagreement over austerity versus a Keynesian approach to managing the economy.

  • • Citizens appear to support the idea of there being an income floor beneath which people should not fall.

  • • Economic inequality is rising.

  • • Private savings rates have declined since the 1930s.

  • • Social Security is a large portion of many people's retirement savings.

  • • There are several forms of income redistribution practiced in the United States and elsewhere.

  • • Housing represents an important portion of many people's nest eggs.

    • Introduction

    Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 largely due to voters’ unhappiness with the state of the economy. On September 22, 2008, Gallup surveys showed that Democratic nominee Barack Obama and Republican nominee John McCain were tied. One week later, Obama held a 7-point lead. This huge change resulted from the financial crisis that began in late September of 2008. President Obama entered office with strong support from the public, and the Democratic Party also held the House and the Senate. By Obama's mid-term election in 2010, the Republican Party won the House and left the Democrats with a small majority in the Senate.

    President Obama's mid-term losses were due to a number of factors, not the least of which is that incumbent presidents typically lose Congressional seats in mid-term elections. However, he went from high popularity to under 50 percent approval fairly quickly. He was hurt by weak economic growth, controversy over policies to manage the recession, and his passage of a health reform bill, of which only about 40 to 45 percent of citizens have supported at any time.

  • 10 - Civil Rights

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 355-386

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • What are rights?

  • • How can a majority credibly commit to protecting minority rights?

    • Overview

  • • The primary analytic concept we use to provide insight on civil rights is credible commitment.

  • • Rights grant individuals privileges and immunities.

  • • Rights depend on consent of the governed.

  • • A majority has a difficult time credibly committing to protect minority rights.

  • • Protests and institutional rules increase the probability that the majority can solve its credible commitment problem.

  • • The Citizens United Supreme Court decision has led to an increase in political campaign spending.

  • • Changes to the Fairness Doctrine led to the rise of AM talk radio.

  • • Electronic Health Records and behavioral marketing may be reducing individuals’ privacy rights.

  • • Marriage rights, rights for disabled people, and women's rights have increased in recent years.

    • Introduction

    A 63-year-old woman who decides to buy a condominium in a safe, modestly priced retirement community in central Florida may not be discriminated against because of her gender, religion, country or origin, the language she speaks, family status, or physical handicap. The US Fair Housing Act of 1968, amended in 1988, does not allow this type of discrimination. However, if she is an “out” homosexual she may be discriminated against simply because the law does not say home salespeople and landlords cannot discriminate against people due to their sexual preference. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 as amended in 1988 says nothing about sexual preferences. And if she has a minor child who wants to live with her she may be discriminated against for a second reason, for the law says real estate agents or landlords may discriminate against the young in areas that are intended for the elderly. The US Fair Housing Act of 1968, amended in 1988, says so. In one case, she has a right because of certain personal characteristics. In another case, she may be discriminated against because of something the law does not say. In the last case, she may be discriminated against because of something the law says.

  • 12 - Immigration Policy

  • Charles Barrilleaux, Florida State University, Christopher Reenock, Florida State University, Mark Souva, Florida State University
  • Book:
    Democratic Policymaking
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016, pp 415-445

  • Summary

    Questions

  • • How does immigration policy work in the United States?

  • • Who is immigrating to the United States?

  • • How many people are immigrating to the United States?

  • • Why do people immigrate to the United States?

  • • Does immigration benefit the United States?

  • • Do immigrants assimilate?

  • • How does immigration affect US security?

    • Overview

  • • The primary analytic concepts we use to provide insight on immigration policy are comparative advantage, collective action, and commitment problems.

  • • The United States admits a certain number of legal immigrants each year for political and economic reasons.

  • • Immigration and visas are both well liked by most segments of the business community, but criticized by many in society at large.

  • • Since 1875, the US Government has restricted immigration in a variety of ways. The 1965 Immigration Act is particularly noteworthy as it ended a system of national origin quotas, though it maintained a ceiling on the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country.

  • • A set of push and pull factors help explain immigration to the United States. Push factors include political repression, political violence, and poverty in one's home country. Pull factors include political freedom and economic opportunity in the United States.

  • • Fundamental principles of international trade apply to immigration. Immigration is a substitute for labor. As such, labor-intensive states tend to export labor and capital-intensive states tend to import labor. This accurately describes the relationship between Mexico and the United States.

  • • Cost-benefit analysis shows that immigration tends to economically benefit the overall economy, but may hurt particular groups in society.

  • • In support of the melting pot thesis, past and current immigrants tend to learn English and are very patriotic. At the same time, most immigrants, even if their families have lived in the United States for decades, tend to identify with their ethnic group.

  • • Public opinion on immigration is as much a function of perceived economic threat as cultural threat.

  • • Reforming immigration policy in the United States is very difficult because of political entrepreneurs and credible commitment problems.

    • Introduction

    In celebration of the 4th of July, America's Independence Day, federal courthouses across the United States induct new citizens.

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