A confusingly titled - and rather pointless - foray into the study
of public policy formation. Employing published sources and
graduate assistants, Berkeley political scientist Polsby
(Presidential Elections, Consequences of Party Reform) has put
together a series of "case studies" to see how foreign and domestic
policy decisions come about. The proclamation of the Truman
Doctrine, the establishment of the Peace Corps, the creation of the
National Science Foundation, and the institution of Medicare are
among the cases examined. For each case, Polsby offers a thumbnail
sketch - with attention to the constituencies involved, the
resources available, and the political machinations of executive,
legislative, and interest groups. Then he presents a summary, in
the form of a catalogue of types, that reconstitutes the case in
generalities - which seldom succeed in going beyond the cases
presented. Thus, policy-innovations are classified as "acute" when
the idea comes from sources close to the responsible agencies, when
there is a relatively high degree of consensus and a restricted set
of alternatives, and when, consequently, the whole thing doesn't
take very long from idea to execution. The Truman Doctrine, the
establishment of community action programs, and the introduction of
civilian control of atomic energy fall into this class. The
alternative, "incubated" innovation, is characterized, predictably,
by ideas that aren't formulated close to responsible power, that
entail lengthy research into disputed alternatives, and that
therefore get bogged down. Medicare, the Peace Corps, and formation
of the Council of Economic Advisers are among Polsby's examples.
The Peace Corps only fits his time-criterion, however, because he
links it to much earlier ideas about national service and voluntary
youth groups; once candidate Kennedy sensed college students'
response to the idea, fortuitously inserted into a speech at the U.
of Michigan, it took on a life of its own and was quickly
implemented. Even assuming that the idea had been around and was
then politically exploited, that fact seems irrelevant. And
Polsby's concentration on "decision makers" leaves him wondering
how to account for antipoverty legislation in the 1960s when no
problem seemed to exist. (Structural unemployment is cited by
Polsby as the kind of problem that crops up only in periods of
economic prosperity.) Perhaps, he considers, it was because of
Michael Harrington's book The Other America - an already overtrod
(and undermined) explanatory path. The case studies suffer from an
excessively narrow focus, and the summary doesn't help. Albert
Romasco's recent study of New Deal policy formation, The Politics
of Recovery (p. 293), is a far more illuminating work. (Kirkus
Reviews)
How are public policies initiated in American politics? Do they
spring fully formed from the furrowed brow of the President? Are
they the product of congressional committees? This pathbreaking
book by Nelson Polsby looks for the first time at the process of
political innovation. Drawing examples from foreign and domestic
policy, Polsby examines the genesis of eight major new government
initiatives: the Peace Corps, the Truman Doctrine, the Council of
Economic Advisers, Medicare, Community Action Programs, the
National Science Foundation, civilian, control of atomic energy,
and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Polsby has explored empirically
the preconditions of political innovations, and he draws
conclusions that have general applicability for the understanding
of innovation in the American political system. His
characteristically witty and stimulating book opens a third branch
of inquiry in political science-on a coequal footing with the study
of legislative enactment politics and the study of policy
implementation.
General
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