REPRESENTATIVE IDEOLOGY AND THE VOTE FOR WELFARE REFORM

This article examines the congressional vote for HR3734, The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The primary concern is to identify the factors that had a significant influence over the voting decision, paying special attention to representative ideology measured by Americans for Democratic Action and American Conservative Union voting scores. An empirical model is developed and estimated using logistic regression. The model incorporates proxies for representative ideology, constituent ideology, constituent economic interests, and the potential for legislative shirking. The results indicate that representative ideology was an important factor in the vote, but that constituent ideology and interests were also influential. Knowledge of the pattern of voting on the original legislation should prove useful to policymakers as the need for further refinement of the welfare system becomes evident, as it almost surely will.     

POVERTY, THE POLL TAX AND THATCHERITE WELFARE POLICY

Our clergy in outer urban estates and in old inner-city areas tell us that they have not met so many desperately poor people for a long time (the Anglican Bishop and Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Good Friday, 1991).     

IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND POLICY FAILURE: THE NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY ACT OF 1982

We examine the role of environmental assessments in the siting process mandated under the ambitious Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. We analyze the effect of these assessments in both the western and eastern United States using the original documents, critiques of the methodology of the assessments, and public comments on the siting process, including a content analysis of hearings in Wisconsin and Maine. We conclude that the major effect of the assessments on the policy process was to stimulate public and state opposition to the Department of Energy's efforts to implement NWPA, leading to what could be called policy failure and a significant redirection of the act by Congress in late 1987. The paper represents an early report of a more comprehensive and ongoing study of the politics of nuclear waste disposal.     

POLITICS, POLICY MAKING AND PRESSURE GROUPS: SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR REFORM OF THE AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

Abstract: In Australia, current policy making is characterized by immobilism, drift and "pluralistic stagnation". The problem is not lack of technical expertise, but the mobilization of political consent in a polity in which pressure groups have proliferated. In the post-war period, the welfare state/managed economy has transformed the role of government and the potential power of pressure groups. New networks of interdependency have developed. Some of the principal groups are beneficiaries of redistributive programs, producer groups, state and local government agencies and professionals in government. Their potential power has been made actual by a new participative ethic. The post-materialist values of which this is part also result in the growth of groups focusing on quality of life and moral issues. In this context the political parties are losing their central place in the polity and the centralized organs of executive government appear over-secretive and aloof. Reforms are needed to realign institutions with the new cultural and structural realities. Broader interest group involvement is needed. Parliament, through a committee system, could play a major role and its historical function as custodian of the public interest should be revived. Departments must find new ways to involve more groups in policy formulation and implementation. Information must be shared more widely and policy analysts and advisors should work more closely with groups in defining issues, negotiating alternatives and encouraging the development of supportive coalitions. New "intelligence" and "outreach" functions within the public service are required, and the existing approaches of policy units and research bureaux should be remodelled.     

THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION'S WELFARE RETRENCHMENT POLICY: TERMINATING SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS FOR THE DISABLED

Large numbers of the permanently and totally disabled have had benefits terminated since 1980 as a result of a determined effort towards that end by the Reagan administration. This is an example of the process by which a major change in political ethos is translated into important changes in welfare benefit entitlement rules. It is also interesting since it seems to be the first instance of a large scale conscientious attempt of the executive branch to reach into and narrow the basic entitlement policy of the Social Security Administration. This normally would be done through joint executive, congressional and legislative action. This article presents the policy background of these events and reviews and analyzes the data about their consequences.     

WELFARE LIBERALISM, SOCIAL POLICY, AND POVERTY IN AMERICA

The conservative explanation for the persistence of poverty—that liberal social programs have created with disincentives-explains very little of the poverty that exists. It has gained acceptance because liberal anti-poverty efforts have been based on flawed understanding of the problem that insured their failure. Because of the oversupply of young adult workers in the 1970s, there was a proliferation of jobs paying low wages. Liberal programs that assumed that the poor simply needed training and education to lift themselves out of poverty, ignored the shortage of jobs paying above-poverty-level wages. Liberals also assumed that with the requisite training and jobs, all Americans have the capacity to gain the skills necessary to obtain those jobs. This neglects data showing that a larger proportion of individuals with low native ability have earnings beneath the poverty line than workers with normal ability, even when controlling for educational attainment. A new anti-poverty effort must take into account these realities.     

RHETORIC AND REALITY IN THE REFORM OF JUVENILE JUSTICE POLICY

In the 1960s and 1970s dissatisfaction with the administration of juvenile justice led to a reform movement which advocated "diversion, deinstitutionalization," and the decriminalization of status offenses as strategies to reduce the harmfulness of official contacts. This paper argues not only that these reforms have not been successfully implemented, but also that the traditional system has been maintained and extended. Explanations for the failure of these reforms are offered and a new direction is suggested.     

THE CORVAIR, THE PINTO AND CORPORATE BEHAVIOR: IMPLICATIONS FOR REGULATORY REFORM

Top corporate management responds to what is socially desirable when the costs and economic benefits provide the incentive to do so. Even when changing directions to match what is thought to be socially desirable would produce long-term profit maximization, some firms may stay with what is socially undesirable for what is perceived as a greater short-term profit maximization. Halpern suggests that such short-term profit decisions made by General Motors with the Corvair, and by Ford with the Pinto, backfired. A key problem is seen as the time lag between corporate misdeeds and the final judgment of courts or the government.     

THE EXCLUSION OF ILLEGAL HISPANICS IN AGENDA-SETTING: THE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND CONTROL ACT OF 1986

In November of 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, designed primarily to control illegal Hispanic residents was signed into law. The new policy as implemented failed to remove, via legalization, illegal residents residing within the United States. The perspectives of Hispanic organiza- tions and 594 illegal residents were collected and evaluated to ascertain those variables that may have served to negate this public policy. The utilization of a subsequent qualitative and discriminant analysis indicated that the exclusion and/or lack of consideration given the perspectives of policy targeted groups and individuals in agenda setting, adversely affected the efficacy of the policy-making process, and thus, the laws it creates.     

A POLICY OF OUR OWN: LOCAL FEMINIST NETWORKS AND SOCIAL SERVICES FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN

This article examines the ways in which a feminist family policy agenda has led to significant political action and change within American cities. Feminist groups, during the past fifteen years, became a part of emerging local women's rights policy networks that effected changes in several services for women and children: libraries (programming for women and non-sexist children's literature acquisitions policies); public education (gender equit under Title IX); social welfare (child care and displaced homemaker services); and criminal justice and health (the treatment of the victims of rape and domestic violence). This policy success stems not only from the workings of traditional interest group politics and policy networks but also from the astute use of political symbols, bureaucratic norms, and the federal system.     

A NEW DEFENSE POLICY FOR COSTA RICA: CONSTRUCTING REALITY AND THE POLICY AGENDA

This paper examine5 the policymaking progress in Costa Rica, specifically the creation of a new item for the governmental agenda. This new agenda challenges the traditional Itno army" policy of Costa Kica. Following a brief historical overview of the traditional policy, the paper considers the role of specific factors that promote structural conduciveness for the new "defense" policy and the attendant transformation of political symbols and definitions. The impact of the definitional and organizational changes on the implementation stage of policy is explored. This article suggests the importance of studying the role of hegemony in the construction and transformation of political and cultural definitions, an explication of deci- sionmaking as well as nondecisionmaking processes, and the influence of external and internal threats on nation-state dependency.