Predictions, Patterns, and Policymaking: A Regional Study of Devolution

This article examines state welfare policy choices since thepassage of the Personal Responsibility and Work OpportunityReconciliation Act(PRWORA) of 1996. IT argues that neither priorpredictions nor existing explanations of welfare policymakingfully capture the realities of reform. Using data from nationalstudies and comparisons of policymaking in six states, thisstudy demonstrates that diversity, not uniformity, characterizesstate responses to devolution. Accounting for these choicesrequires an understanding of the context of policymaking. Conventionalanalyses of welfare reform have ignored the institutional structuresthrough which policy is formulated and thus miss an importantdeterminant of choices: the actions of administrative officials.Analyses that ignore institutional settings, and the actionsof administrators within such settings, will continue to missmuch that is crucial to our efforts to understand policy decisions.