Aaron Wildavsky Award-2001
Public
Policy Section
American Political Science Association
Frank
R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones
Agendas and Instability in American
Politics
University of Chicago Press, 1993
Along with John Kingdon’s Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, Baumgartner and Jones’ Agendas and Instability is the
best-known study of agenda-setting in American politics. The authors show that issues get attention
through a process of “punctuated equilibria.”
New programs are initially established as “policy monopolies,” protected
by favorable “policy images” and “institutional venues” controlled by
supporters. But these systems may also
be overthrown when criticism of programs develops and a “counter mobilization”
develops. The theory thus integrates
policy theories that stress “subgovernments” or interest group dominance with
those that stress fluidity and the influence of ideas.
Baumgartner and Jones show the development of issues over an
unusually long time, often decades.
Their account of the rise and fall of several policy systems—such as
nuclear power—is enough to give pause to anyone who would seek to promote new
programs in American politics today.
The authors also integrate theory with careful empirical
work to a degree that is rare in policy studies, or any field in political
science. They emerge with a theory of
agenda-setting that also sheds fresh light on the very nature of American
politics.
Committee on the Wildavsky Award:
Lawrence M. Mead, chair
New
York University
Ani Ruhil
University of Illinois at Chicago
Theda Skocpol
Harvard
University
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