Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Setting Public Policy
- 1 Explaining One Million Policy Stories
- 2 Meeting at the Margins
- Part II Motives, Opportunities, and Means of Policy Change
- 3 Motives
- 4 Opportunities
- 5 Means
- 6 How Interests and Executives Set Public Policy in Four States with Nat Rubin
- Part III Public Policy and Budgeting in the American States
- 7 Conclusion
- References
- Index
3 - Motives
Issues of the Moment(s)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2024
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Setting Public Policy
- 1 Explaining One Million Policy Stories
- 2 Meeting at the Margins
- Part II Motives, Opportunities, and Means of Policy Change
- 3 Motives
- 4 Opportunities
- 5 Means
- 6 How Interests and Executives Set Public Policy in Four States with Nat Rubin
- Part III Public Policy and Budgeting in the American States
- 7 Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
Here, we elucidate the motives of policymaking through the lens of budget politics in the states. This chapter describes the priorities of state spending and how these spending patterns across ten budget domains evolve in all fifty states between 1984 and 2010. This chapter connects these patterns to the distribution of costs and benefits: Different policy areas offer distinct short- and long-term rewards. Importantly, we show that domains that see large short-term gains tend to find diminished budgetary growth over time. Hence, political actors need to trade off short-term and long-term rewards. Our findings make apparent that the dynamics of policy issues motivate political action.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Means, Motives, and OpportunitiesHow Executives and Interest Groups Set Public Policy, pp. 69 - 109Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024