The politics of information : problem definition and the course of public policy in America / Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baumgartner, Frank R., 1958- author.

Jones, Bryan D., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Federal government--Information resources management--United States.

Federal government.

Policy sciences.

Information resources management.

United States--Politics and government--1945-1989.

United States.

Politics and government.

United States--Politics and government--1989-.

Policy sciences--United States.

Physical Description:

xiv, 231 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Summary:

How does the government decide what's a problem and what isn't? Like individuals, Congress is subject to the "paradox of search." If policy makers don't look for problems, they won't find those that need to be addressed. But if they carry out a thorough search, they will almost certainly find new problems-and with the definition of each new problem comes the possibility of creating a government program to address it. With The Politics of Attention, leading policy scholars Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones demonstrated the central role attention plays in how governments prioritize problems. Now, with The Politics of Information, they turn the focus to the problem-detection process itself, showing how the growth or contraction of government is closely related to how it searches for information and how, as an organization, it analyzes its findings. Better search processes that incorporate more diverse viewpoints lead to more intensive policy-making activity. Similarly, limiting search processes leads to declines in policy making. At the same time, the authors find little evidence that the factors usually thought to be responsible for government expansion-partisan control, changes in presidential leadership, and shifts in public opinion-can be systematically related to the patterns they observe. Book jacket.

Contents:

Search, information, and policy agendas

Organizing for expertise or organizing for complexity?

Information, search, and government

The rise and decline of institutional information processing in the executive and legislative branches

From clarity to complexity in Congress

The search for information and the great new-issue expansion

The thickening and broadening of government

Rounding up the usual political suspects

Organizing information and the transformation of U.S. policy making

Organizing complexity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-223) and index.

ISBN:

9780226198095

022619809X

9780226198125

022619812X

OCLC:

878224594