POLICY-MAKING IN THE AMERICAN STATES: TYPOLOGY, PROCESS, AND INSTITUTIONS

The three levels of government in the U.S. federal system maintain a different set of policy priorities because they operate under varying environmental constraints and resources. Efforts to categorize and specify the politics in terms of policy types have been particularly fruitful at both the federal (e.g., Lowi) and the local (e.g., Peterson) levels. At the state level, however, the typology perspective has yet to be more fully developed. This paper makes a preliminary effort to construct a typology framework in understanding state politics and policy. First, politics can be differentiated between growth and redistribution in the structural economic context. While redistributive politics are largely structured by class-oriented issues, growth politics are predominantly shaped by territorial concerns that temper class and ideological differences. Equally important, the growth-redistribution distinction can be supplemented by the politics of routine services, such as public education. The latter remains dominated by service-provider groups. Moreover, based on an empirical analysis of hundreds of bills in one state legislature, these political differences are found to have contributed to variations in policy consensus among lawmakers as well as interest group representation in agenda setting and legitimation across policy arenas. Our findings also suggest limitations to the typology framework.     

THE POLITICS OF MICROPOLICY: INNOVATION AND INDUSTRIAL POLICY IN THE UNITED STATES

The author compares the origins and prominence of efforts in the U.S. to initiate innovation policy and industrial policy. Efforts to develop innovation policy have proven t o be obscure, episodic, relatively noncontroversial, and confined to a narrow political arena. They typically resulted in short-lived spending programs. In contrast, in less than four years the industrial policy proposals introduced have been far more ambitious, generated broad interest groups support and opposition, and sparked vigorous, widely publicized controversy. These differences cannot be explained by differences in analytical difficulties or in the uncertainty of benefits derived. They derive from the failure and success of the two issues to engage politically active constituencies and from the corresponding roles of Congress and the bureaucracy.