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The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Jack L. Walker
Jack L. Walker*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

We are now in the midst of a notable revival of interest in the politics of the American states. During the last decade many studies have been conducted of the social, political and economic determinants of state policy outcomes. Several of these writers have argued that the relative wealth of a state, its degree of industrialization, and other measures of social and economic development are more important in explaining its level of expenditures than such political factors as the form of legislative apportionment, the amount of party competition, or the degree of voter participation. It has been claimed that such factors as the level of personal income or the size of the urban population are responsible both for the degree of participation and party competition in a state, and the nature of the system's policy outputs. By making this argument these writers have called into question the concepts of representation and theories of party and group conflict which, in one form or another, are the foundations for much of American political science.

There is a growing awareness, however, that levels of expenditure alone are not an adequate measure of public policy outcomes. Sharkansky has shown, for example, that levels of expenditure and levels of actual service are seldom correlated; presumably, some states are able to reach given service levels with much less expenditure than others. Besides establishing the appropriate level of expenditure for a program, policy makers must also decide about the program's relative scope, provisions for appeal from administrative orders, eligibility requirements, the composition of regulatory boards and commissions, and many other matters which have little to do with money.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , November 1969 , pp. 880 - 899
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1969

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Footnotes

*

Thanks are due to the Committee on Governmental and Legal Processes of the Social Science Research Council, the Carnegie Corporation, the Michigan Legislative Intern Program, and the Rackham Faculty Research Fund of the University of Michigan for grants which made this study possible; to Mrs. Adarsh Trehan, Doyle Buckwaiter, Michael Traugott, Mrs. Jennifer Drew Campbell, and Terry Bender who assisted in the collection and analysis of the data; and to H. Douglas Price, Rufus Browning, Warren Miller, Lawrence Mohr, Robert Friedman, Joel Aberbach, Robert Putnam, Ronald Brunner, Dennis Riley, Gail MacColl, and my wife, Linda Walker, whose criticisms and comments have helped me avoid several errors of inference and judgment.

References

1 Beginning with Dawson, Richard E. and Robinson, James A., “Inter-Party Competition, Economic Variables, and Welfare Policies in the American States,” Journal of Politics (05, 1963), 265–289 Google Scholar, there have been numerous articles and books on the subject. The most recent summary is: Fenton, John H. and Chamberlayne, Donald W., “The Literature Dealing with the Relationships Between Political Processes, Socio-economic Conditions and Public Policies in the American States: A Bibliographical Essay,” Polity (Spring, 1969), 388–394 Google Scholar.

2 For examples see: Jacob, Herbert, “The Consequences of Malapportionment: A Note of Caution,” Social Forces (1964), 260–266 Google Scholar; the chapters by Salisbury, Robert, Friedman, Robert, Dye, Thomas, and Dawson, and Robinson, in: Jacob, Herbert and Vines, Kenneth (eds.), Politics in the American States: A Comparative Analysis (Boston, 1965)Google Scholar; Hofferbert, Richard I., “The Relation Between Public Policy and Some Structural and Environmental Variables in the American States,” this Review (03, 1966), 73–82 Google Scholar; and Dye, Thomas, Politics, Economics and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States (Chicago, 1966)Google Scholar.

3 For an evaluation of the significance of this literature and its implications for political science see: Salisbury, Robert, “The Analysis of Public Policy: A Search for Theories and Roles,” in Ranney, Austin (ed.), Political Science and Public Policy (Chicago, 1968), pp. 151–178 Google Scholar.

4 Sharkansky, Ira, “Government Expenditures and Public Services in the American States,” this Review (1967), 1066–1077 Google Scholar. Sharkansky also identifies important political variables in his: “Economic and Political Correlates of State Government Expenditures: General Tendencies and Deviant Cases,” Midwest Journal of Political Science (1967), 173–192 Google Scholar.

5 There is a well established body of research on the diffusion of innovations from which I have drawn many insights. For general reviews of this literature see: Rogers, Everett M., Diffusion of Innovations (New York, 1962)Google Scholar, Katz, Elihu, Levin, Martin L., and Hamilton, Herbert, “Traditions of Research in the Diffusion of Innovations,” American Sociological Review (1963), 237–252 Google Scholar. For early attempts to study the American states from this perspective see: Davis, Ada J., “The Evolution of the Institution of Mothers' Pensions in the United States,” American Journal of Sociology (1930), 573–582 Google Scholar; McVoy, Edgar C., “Patterns of Diffusion in the United States,” American Sociological Review (1940), 219–227 Google Scholar; and Sutherland, E. H., “The Diffusion of Sexual Psychopath Laws,” American Journal of Sociology (1950–1951), 144–156 Google Scholar. Also see: Hagerstrand, Torsten, Innovation Diffusion as a Spatial Process (Chicago, 1967)Google Scholar; and Mason, Robert and Halter, Albert N., “The Application of a System of Simultaneous Equations to an Innovation Diffusion Model,” Social Forces (1968), 182–193 Google Scholar.

6 For examples see: Steiner, Gary A. (ed.), The Creative Organization (Chicago, 1965)Google Scholar; and Burns, Tom and Stalker, G. M., The Management of Innovation (London, 1961)Google Scholar.

7 There is much confusion over this distinction in the literature on diffusion. For an excellent discussion of the problem see: Mohr, Lawrence B., “Determinants of Innovation in Organizations,” this Review (1969), 111–126 Google Scholar.

8 Once the mistake was discovered, the Arkansas statute, which reproduced a model prepared by the National Association of Retail Druggists, was copied either verbatim or with minor changes by seventeen states. Grether, Ewald T., Price Control Under Fair Trade Legislation (New York, 1937), pp. 19–20 Google Scholar.

9 In later work I will report the results of comparisons of the diffusion patterns of issues from different subject matter areas. Preliminary efforts at such comparisons, however, have not revealed significant variations. There does not seem to be much difference in the diffusion patterns of issues of different types.

10 For a discussion of this phenomenon see: Edelman, Murray, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana, 1964), chapters 2 and 9Google Scholar.

11 Lockard, Duane, Toward Equal Opportunity (New York, 1968), p. 23 Google Scholar.

12 The beginning point for the existence of each state was the date upon which it was officially organized as a territory. Using this system, Oklahoma is the last state to come into being, having been organized in 1890. If a program began its diffusion before a state came into existence, that issue was not included in figuring the innovation score for the state.

13 Alaska and Hawaii were omitted from the analysis because data for their years of adoption were often missing.

14 Rogers, Everett M., Diffusion of Innovations (New York, 1962), pp. 40, 285–292 Google Scholar. Also see: Eisenstadt, S. N., The Political Systems of Empires (New York, 1963), p. 27, 33–112 Google Scholar.

15 For a discussion of “slack” resources and innovation see: Cyert, Richard M. and March, James G., A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (Englewood Cliffs, NJ., 1963), pp. 278–279 Google Scholar.

16 Rogers, op. cit., Mohr, op. cit.; and also: Mansfield, Edwin, “The Speed of Response of Firms to New Techniques,” Quarterly Journal of Economics (1963), 293–304 Google Scholar; Hage, Jerald and Aiken, Michael, “Program Change and Organizational Properties: A Comparative Analysis,” American Journal of Sociology (1967), 516–517 Google Scholar; and Hall, Richard J., Haas, S. Eugene, and Johnson, Norman J., “Organizational Size, Complexity and Formalization,” American Sociological Review (1967), 903–912 Google Scholar.

17 Regional affects of this kind appear frequently in analyses of data from the American states. In many studies, especially those which involve measures of political participation or party competition, strong relationships appear which are actually only a result of the distinctive nature of the southern states. In order to insure that the correlations in this analysis were not merely a result of the social and political peculiarities of the South, the eleven states of the confederacy were removed from all distributions. Since the Southern states do not cluster at one extreme of the innovation scale, no great changes occurred in correlation coefficients based upon data from the thirty-nine states outside the South. Within the eleven Southern states, however, almost all the relationships were substantially reduced in size. Because only eleven states, are involved, this fact is difficult to interpret, but will be treated more fully in later work. For an example of this problem discussed in another context see: Wolfinger, Raymond and Field, John Osgood, “Political Ethos and the Structure of City Government,” this Review (1966), 306–326 Google Scholar. For a more extensive discussion of the methodological implications see the discussion of “interaction effects” in Forbes, Hugh Donald and Tufte, Edward R., “A Note of Caution in Causal Modelling,” this Review (1968), pp. 1261–1262 Google Scholar; and the communication from Dennis D. Riley and Jack L. Walker, this Review (September, 1969), pp. 880–899.

18 Lowi, Theodore, “Toward Functionalism in Political Science: The Case of Innovation in Party Systems,” this Review (1963), 570–583 Google Scholar. Evidence which seems to confirm Lowi's theory may be found in: Wiggens, Charles W., “Party Politics in the Iowa Legislature,” Midwest Journal of Political Science (1967), 60–69 Google Scholar; and Bryan, Frank M., “The Metamorphosis of a Rural Legislature,” Polity (1968), 191–212 Google Scholar.

19 Joseph A. Schlesinger has developed an index of the “general opportunity level” in each state. The index measures the relative number of chances which exist in each state to achieve major political office. See: Ambition and Politics: Political Careers in the United States (Chicago, 1966), pp. 37–56 Google Scholar.

20 Barber, James D., The Lawmakers: Recruitment and Adaptation to Legislative Life (New Haven, 1965)Google Scholar. For testimony from legislators about the importance of reapportionment see: Bryan, Frank M., “Who is Legislating,” National Civic Review (12, 1967), 627–633 Google Scholar; Dines, Allan, “A Reapportioned State,” National Civic Review (02, 1966), 70–74, 99 Google Scholar.

21 Rogers, op. cit. Also see: Mansfield, op. cit.; Coleman, James S., Katz, Elihu, and Menzel, Herbert, Medical Innovation: A Diffusion Study (Indianapolis, 1966)Google Scholar; and Loy, John W. Jr., “Social Psychological Characteristics of Innovators,” American Sociological Review (1969), 73–82 Google Scholar.

22 For a somewhat different view see: Meller, Norman, “Legislative Staff Services: Toxin, Specific, or Placebo for the Legislature's Ills,” The Western Political Quarterly (06, 1967), 381–389 Google Scholar.

23 There is one other index in existence which deals with political phenomenon: Rodney Mott's Index of Judicial Prestige. The Mott index measures the degree to which state supreme courts were used as models by the legal profession. It is based on a study of citations in federal Supreme Court decisions and all state supreme court decisions, the number of cases reprinted in standard textbooks, and the opinion of a panel of prominent legal scholars; it covers the period 1900 to 1930. The Mott index and the innovation score from the same time period are correlated at .62. This finding might be interpreted to mean that emulative behavior in the judicial arena is not much different from that in the legislative arena. For details of the Judicial Prestige Index see: Mott, Rodney L., “Judicial Influence,” this Review (1936), 295–315 Google Scholar.

24 Data for this table was derived from Richard Hofferbert's collection, “American State Socioeconomic, Electoral, and Policy Data: 1890-1960” which he has graciously allowed me to use.

25 The sources are : Hofferbert, Richard, “Classification of American State Party Systems,” Journal of Politics (1964), 550–567 Google Scholar; Riley, Dennis and Walker, Jack L., “Problems of Measurement and Inference in the Study of the American States” (Paper delivered at the Institute of Public Policy Studies, University of Michigan, 1968)Google Scholar; David and Eisenberg, op. cit.; Shubert, Glendon and Press, Charles, “Measuring Malapportionment,” this Review (1964), 302–327 Google Scholar, and corrections, 968-970; Schlesinger, op. cit.; and Gramm, John, “Structure and Policy in the Legislature,” (Paper presented at the Southwestern Social Science Association Meetings, 1967)Google Scholar.

26 Although much simpler than the Schubert and Press measure, the David and Eisenberg index seems to have more relevance to political outcomes. Thomas Dye had the same experience. See Dye, op. cit., pp. 19–20, 63–69, 112–114, 146–148, 174–177, 236–237, 270–281.

27 Jacob, Herbert, “The Consequences of Malapportionment: A Note of Caution,” Social Forces (1964), 260–266 Google Scholar; Dye, Thomas R., “Malapportionment and Public Policy in the States,” Journal of Politics (1965), 586–601 Google Scholar; Hofferbert, Richard I., “The Relation Between Public Policy and Some Structural and Environmental Variables in the American States,” this. Review (1966), 73–82 Google Scholar; Brady, David and Edmonds, Douglas, “One Man, One Vote—So What?” Transaction (03, 1967), 41–46 Google Scholar. A recent article calls some of the conclusions of this research into question: Pulsipher, Alan G. and Weatherby, James L. Jr., “Malapportionment, Party Competition, and the Functional Distribution of Governmental Expenditures,” this Review (1968), 1207–1219 Google Scholar.

28 Examples of this general approach to policy making are: Truman, David B., The Governmental Process (New York, 1960)Google Scholar; Banfield, Edward, Political influence (New York, 1961)Google Scholar; and Neustadt, Richard E., Presidential Power (New York, 1960)Google Scholar. For an excellent critique of theories which employ concepts of power as a major explanatory variable see: March, James G., “The Power of Power,” in Easton, David (ed.), Varieties of Political Theory (Englewood Cliffs, 1966), pp. 39–70 Google Scholar.

29 Lowell, A. Lawrence, “The Influence of Party Upon Legislation,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association (1901), pp. 321–543 Google Scholar.

30 The best example is: Dahl, Robert, “The Concept of Power,” Behavioral Science (1957), pp. 201–215 Google Scholar.

31 For the best general review of the results of research on the legislative process, see: Jewell, Malcolm E. and Patterson, Samuel C., The Legislative Process in the United States (New York, 1966)Google Scholar.

32 For a discussion of these techniques see: Anderson, Lee F., Watts, Meridith W. Jr. and Wilcox, Allen R., Legislative Roll-Call Analysis (Evanston, 1966)Google Scholar. Also see Jewell and Patterson, op. cit., pp. 528–550.

33 Riker, William H., “A Method for Determining the Significance of Roll Calls in Voting Bodies,” in Wahlke, John C. and Eulau, Heinz (eds.), Legislative Behavior (Glencoe, 1959), pp. 337–383 Google Scholar.

34 Jewell and Patterson, op. cit., p. 416.

35 Thanks to a grant from the Carnegie Corporation I have been able to launch a pilot study involving interviews in several states.

36 I refer to: Simon, Herbert, Administrative Behavior, Second Edition (New York, 1957)Google Scholar; Cyert, Richard M. and March, James C., A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1963)Google Scholar; and Lindblom, Charles E., The Intelligence of Democracy (New York, 1965)Google Scholar.

37 For a comprehensive review of the literature on decision making see: Donald W. Taylor, “Decision Making and Problem Solving,” and Feldman, Julia and Kanter, Herschel E., “Organizational Decision Making,” in March, James G. (ed.) Handbook of Organizations (Chicago, 1965), pp. 48–86, 614–649 Google Scholar. Also see: Scott, W. Richard, “Theory of Organizations,” in Faris, Robert E. L. (ed.), Handbook of Modern Sociology (Chicago, 1964), pp. 485–529 Google Scholar.

38 Decision rules of this kind are mentioned in both Taylor, op. cit., pp. 73–74; and Cyert and March, op. cit., especially pp. 34–3.

39 Evan, William M., “The Organization-Set: Toward a Theory of Inter-Organizational Relations,” in Thompson, James D. (ed.) Approaches to Organizational Design (Pittsburgh, 1966), pp. 173–191 Google Scholar.

40 Some recent examples are: Anderson, William, The Nation and the States, Rivals or Partners? (Minneapolis, 1955)Google Scholar; Vile, M. J. C., The Structure of American Federalism (London, 1961)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Riker, William, Federalism: Origin, Operation, Significance (Boston, 1964)Google Scholar; Elazar, Daniel J., American Federalism: A View From the States (New York, 1966)Google Scholar; Grodzins, Morton, The American System (Chicago, 1966)Google Scholar. For a general critique see: Birch, A. H., “Approaches to the Study of Federalism,” Political Studies (1966), 15–33 Google Scholar.

41 This is not the first study to discover the important role of emulation and competition in the development of public policy. Hofferbert, Richard in: “Ecological Development and Policy Change in the American States,” Midwest Journal of Political Science (1966), p. 485 Google Scholar; and Sharkansky, Ira in: “Regionalism, Economic Status and the Public Policies of American States,” Southwestern Social Science Quarterly (1968)Google Scholar both mention the influence of other states in the calculations of state decision makers. Several earlier students of local government complained that sparsely populated, arid Western states had blindly copied from the heavily populated Eastern states forms of local government which were inappropriately suited for the conditions prevailing in the Great Plains. See: Goodman, A. Bristol, “Westward Movement of Local Government,” The Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics (1944), pp. 20–34 Google Scholar; Walker, Herman Jr. and Hansen, Peter L., “Local Government and Rainfall,” this Review (1946), 1113–1123 Google Scholar. Robert L. Crain has recently used emulation as a principal explanatory variable in his study of the spread of water fluoridation programs among American cities: “Fluoridation: The Diffusion of an Innovation Among Cities,” Social Forces (1966), 467–476 Google Scholar; as did Scott, Thomas M. in his: “The Diffusion of Urban Governmental Forms as a Case of Social Learning,” The Journal of Politics (1968), 1091–1108 Google Scholar.

42 This set of hypotheses is consistent with more general theories concerning the manner in which human beings formulate judgments and establish expectations in all areas of life. See: Festinger, Leon, “A Theory of Social Comparison Processes,” Human Relations (1954), 117–140 Google Scholar; and Merton, Robert, Social Theory and Social Structure (Rev. Ed.; Gloncoe, 1957), pp. 225–420 Google Scholar.

43 Harsanyi, John C., “Rational Choice Models v. Functionalistic and Conformistic Models of Political Behavior,” (Paper delivered at American Political Science Association Meetings, 1967), p. 17 Google Scholar.

44 Lockard, Duane, Toward Equal Opportunity (New York, 1968), pp. 20–21 Google Scholar.

45 Spitz, Allan, “The Transplantation of American Democratic Institutions,” Political Science Quarterly (1967), 386–398 Google Scholar.

46 Lockard, Duane, Connecticut's Challenge Primary: A Study in Legislative Politics (Eagleton Case #7, New York, 1959)Google Scholar.

47 Ibid., p. 2.

48 Ibid., p. 22.

49 May, Ronald J., Financial Inequality Between States in a Federal System (unpublished doctoral dissertation submitted to Nuffield College, Oxford University, 1966), p. 168 Google Scholar.

50 For a somewhat similar argument concerning government spending see: Downs, Anthony, “Why the Government Budget is too Small in a Democracy,” World Politics (07, 1960), 541–563 Google Scholar.

51 Hansen, Alvin H., The Postwar American Economy: Performance and Probhms (New York, 1964), pp. 30–31 Google Scholar.

52 For evidence of this perspective, see Anton, Thomas J., The Politics of State Expenditure in Illinois (Urbana, 1966), p. 263 Google Scholar.

53 Masters, Nicholas A., Salisbury, Robert, and Eliot, Thomas H., State Politics and the Public Schools (New York, 1964), p. 12 Google Scholar.

54 Ibid., p. 25.

55 Ibid., p. 21. For a similar discussion of the importance of aspirations in determining the speed with which innovations are adopted see: Browning, Rufus P., “Innovative and Noninnovative Decision Processes in Government Budgeting,” in Golembiewski, Robert T. (ed.), Public Budgeting and Finance (Itasca, Illinois, 1968), pp. 128–145 Google Scholar.

56 Unpublished memo from the Council of State Governments, Chicago, Illinois.

57 For a discussion of the role of professional organizations in determining career lines see: Katz, Fred E., “Occupational Contact Networks,” Social Forces (1958), 52–58 Google Scholar. Also see: Ladinsky, Jack, “Occupational Determinants of Geographic Mobility Among Professional Workers,” American Sociological Review (1967), 253–264 Google Scholar.

58 Merton, op. cit. Also see: Gouldner, Alvin W., “Cosmopolitans and Locals: Toward an Analysis of Latent Social Roles,” Administrative Science Quarterly (1957), 281–306 Google Scholar; and Wilen-sky, Harold L., Intellectuals in Labor Unions (Glencoe, 1956)Google Scholar.

59 A small portion of the difference between the two columns in Table 6 is an artifact of measurement. Since not all the programs in this analysis have been adopted by all forty-eight states, laggard states sometimes remain. As time passes and programs receive widespread acceptance these laggard states slowly fall into line and adopt the programs. Since the programs in the first two time periods have been around longer, they have more likely completed their spread among lhe states and thus, given our scoring procedure; are also more likely to have a longer period of diffusion.

60 The best recent analysis of long-term changes in the American political system is: Stokes, Donald, “Parties and the Nationalization of Electoral Forces,” in Chambers, William N. and Burnham, William D. (eds.), The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development (New York, 1967), pp. 182–202 Google Scholar. Also see: Glenn, Norval D. and Simmons, J. L., “Are Regional Cultural Differences Diminishing?” Public Opinion Quarterly (1967), 196–205 Google Scholar; and Sharkansky, Ira, “Economic Development, Regionalism and State Political Systems,” Midwest Journal of Political Science (1968), 41–61 Google Scholar.

61 When the data are combined in this manner the 1870–1929 matrix contains 42 issues and the 1930–1966 matrix contains 46 issues.

62 See Alan L. Clem's description Of the isolation of Pierre, the capitol of South Dakota, in his: Prairie State Politics: Popular Democracy in South Dakota (Washington, 1967), p. 137 Google Scholar; and Norton E. Long's emphasis on the importance of information sources in his: “After the Voting is Over,” Midwest Journal of Political Science (1962), 183–200 Google Scholar. For a general review of communications theory and its application to politics see: Fagen, Richard R., Politics and Communication (Boston, 1966), especially pp. 34–69, 88–106 Google Scholar. Also see: Deutsch, Karl W., The Nerves of Government, Second Edition, (New York, 1966), especially, pp. 145–256 Google Scholar.

63 Questions of this kind have been raised already in: Moynihan, Daniel P., “The Professionalization of Reform,” The Public Interest (1965),. 6–16 Google Scholar; Lowi, Theodore, “The Public Philosophy: Interest Group Liberalism,” this Review (1967), 5–24 Google Scholar; and Green, Philip, “Science, Government, and the Case of RAND: A Singular Pluralism,” World Politics (1968), 301–326 Google Scholar.

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