Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:22:17.577Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Swing Issues and Policy Regimes: Federal Education Policy and the Politics of Policy Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Patrick McGuinn
Patrick McGuinn
Affiliation:
Drew University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Political scientists have long debated the nature of the American political system, particularly the degree to which the federal government is amenable to major policy initiation and reform. There are two basic schools of thought on this question. One school—which I will call the stasis school—argues that the system is highly resistant to major change. The other school of policymaking—which I will call the dynamic school—emphasizes the openness and responsiveness of America's political system and the relative ease of generating reform at the national level. While the stasis and dynamic schools are helpful in explaining systemic tendencies and the influence of particular forces on the policy process, they are less useful in illuminating the evolution of governmental policymaking in a single issue area over time.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , April 2006 , pp. 205 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baumgartner, Frank, and Jones, Bryan. 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, Frank, and Jones, Bryan, ed. 2002. Policy Dynamics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carmines, Edward, and Stimson, James. 1989. Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carson, Rachel. 2002. The Silent Spring. New York: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Davies, Gareth. 1996. From Opportunity to Entitlement: The Transformation and Decline of Great Society Liberalism. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Derthick, Martha. 1979. Policymaking for Social Security. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Derthick, Martha, and Quirk, Paul. 1986. The Politics of Deregulation. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Dinan, John. 1998. Keeping the People's Liberties. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1972. “Up and Down with Ecology: The Issue Attention Cycle,” The Public Interest 28: 28–50.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Brothers.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1967. Inside Bureaucracy. Boston: Little, Brown.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dye, Thomas. 2001. Top Down Policymaking. New York: Chatham House.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feigenbaum, Harvey; Henig, Jeffrey; and Hamnett, Chris. 1998. Shrinking the State: The Political Underpinnings of Privatization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, Morris. 1989. Congress: Keystone of the Washington Establishment. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, David, ed. 2003. A Nation Reformed? American Education Twenty Years after A Nation at Risk. Boston: Harvard Education Press.Google Scholar
Graham, Hugh Davis. 1984. The Uncertain Triumph: Federal Education Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Years. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob. 2002. The Divided Welfare State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacsi, Timothy. 2002. Children as Pawns: The Politics of Educational Reform. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hale, Jon. 1995. “The Making of the New Democrats.” Political Science Quarterly 110, no. 2 (Summer).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrington, Michael. 1997. The Other America. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Harris, Richard, and Milkis, Sidney. 1988. The Politics of Regulatory Change. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hartz, Louis. 1985. The Liberal Tradition in America. New York: Harcourt.Google Scholar
Hayes, Michael. 2001. The Limits of Policy Change. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Heclo, Hugh. 1994. “Ideas, Interests, and Institutions.” In Dodd, Lawrence and Jillson, Calvin, ed., The Dynamics of American Politics. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Heise, Michael. 1994. “Goals 2000: Educate America Act: The Federalization and Legalization of Educational Policy.” Fordham Law Review 63 (November): 345.Google Scholar
Henig, Jeffrey. 1999. The Color of School Reform: Race, Politics, and the Challenge of Urban Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Henig, Jeffrey. 2002.Google Scholar
Hess, Frederick. 1999. Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Hess, Frederick, and McGuinn, Patrick. 2002. “Muffled by the Din: The Competitive Non-Effects of the Cleveland Voucher Program,” Teachers College Record 104, no. 4: 727–764.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hess, Frederick, and McGuinn, Patrick. 2002. “Seeking the Mantle of ‘Opportunity’: Presidential Politics and the Educational Metaphor, 1964–2000.” The Politics of Education Yearbook, A Special Issue of Educational Policy (16, no. 1 [2002]: 72–95).Google Scholar
Hill, Paul. 2000. “The Federal Role in Education.” In Ravitch, Diane, ed., Brookings Papers on Education Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Hochshild, Jennifer, and Scovronick, Nathan. 2003. The American Dream and the Public Schools. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hochschild, Jennifer, and Scott, Bridget. 1998. “Trends: Governance and Reform of Public Education in the U.S.” Public Opinion Quarterly 62, no. 1 (Spring).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, Meg; Novak, William; and Zelizer, Julian, eds. 2003. The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Lawrence, and Shapiro, Robert. 2000. Politicians Don't Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jennings, John. 1998. Why National Standards and Tests? Politics and the Quest for Better Schools. San Francisco: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Jennings, John, ed. 1995. National Issues in Education: Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Washington, D.C.: Phi Delta Kappa International.Google Scholar
Jennings, Jack, ed. 1993. National Issues in Education: The Past Is Prologue. Washington, D.C.: Phi Delta Kappa.Google Scholar
Jennings, Jack, ed. 1995. National Issues in Education: Goals 2000 and School to Work. Washington, D.C.: Phi Delta Kappa.Google Scholar
Jones, Bryan. 1994. Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kaestle, Carl. 2001. “Federal Aid to Education Since World War II: Purposes and Politics.” In Jennings, Jack, ed., The Future of the Federal Role in Elementary and Secondary Education. Washington, D.C.: Center for Education Policy.Google Scholar
King, Anthony. “Running Scared.” The Atlantic Monthly 279, no. 1.Google Scholar
Kingdon, John. 1995. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2d ed.New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Kingdon, John. 1999. America the Unusual. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Landy, Marc, and Levin, Martin, ed. 1995. The New Politics of Public Policy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindblom, Charles. 1960. “The Science of Muddling Through.” Public Administration Review 19: 79–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1997. American Exceptionalism. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore. 1979. The End of Liberalism. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Mayhew, David. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
McGuinn, Patrick, and Hess, Frederick. 2004. “Freedom from Ignorance? The Great Society and the Evolution of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.” In Milkis, Sidney and Mileur, Jerome, eds. The Great Society and the Rights Revolution. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Mettler, Suzanne. 1998. Dividing Citizens. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miliband, Ralph. 1969. State in Capitalist Society: An Analysis of the Western System of Power. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Mills, C. Wright. 1956. The Power Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mintrom, Michael. 2000. Policy Entrepreneurs and School Choice. Georgetown: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Moe, Terry. 1989. “The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure.” In Can the Government Govern? Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
National Center for Education Statistics. 2002. Federal Support for Education: 1980–2001. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, NCES, 129.Google Scholar
National Center for Education Statistics. 2000. The Condition of Education 2000. Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
National Commission on Excellence in Education. 1983. A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. Washington, D.C.: GPO.Google Scholar
Neuman, W. Russell. 1990. “The Threshold of Public Attention.” Public Opinion Quarterly 54, no. 2 (Summer).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, Douglass. 1994. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Orren, Karen, and Skowronek, Stephen. 1998. “Regimes and Regime Building in American Government: A Review of the Literature on the 1940s.” Political Science Quarterly 113, no. 4 (Winter).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orren, Karen, and Skowronek, Stephen. 2004. The Search for American Political Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Paul, and West, Martin. 2003. No Child Left Behind? The Politics and Practice of School Accountability. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, Paul, ed. 2003. Our Schools and Our Future: Are We Still at Risk? Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 1993. “When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change.” In World Politics, 45, no. 4 (07).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 2004. Placing Politics in Time. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ravitch, Diane. 1983. The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945–1980. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Ravitch, Diane. 1995. National Standards in American Education: A Citizen's Guide. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Ravitch, Diane, ed. Brookings Papers on Education Policy, 1999–2003. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, various years.Google Scholar
Reich, Robert. 1988. The Power of Public Ideas. Cambridge: Ballinger.Google Scholar
Riker, William. 1986. The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Roper Center at University of Connecticut, Public Opinion Online, various polls. http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/form/academic/s_roper.html.Google Scholar
Rose, Lowell, and Gallup, Alec. The Thirty-fifth Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Survey of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. Available online at: http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0309pol.pdfGoogle Scholar
Sabatier, Paul, and Jenkins-Smith, Hank, eds. 1993. Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach. New York: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1975. The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Scribner, Jay, and Layton, Donald, eds. The Study of Educational Politics. London: Falmer Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. Social Policy in the United States: Future Possibilities in Historical Perspective. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Skowronek, Stephen. 1993. The Politics Presidents Make. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Mary. 2004. Political Spectacle and the Fate of American Schools. New York: Routledge Famrer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spring, Joel. 1998. Conflict of Interests: The Politics of American Education. Boston: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Stimson, James; MacKuen, Michael; and Erikson, Robert. 1995. “Dynamic Representation.” American Political Science Review 89 (09).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, Clarence. 1990. Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946–1988. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Stone, Clarence; Henig, Jeffrey; Jones, Bryan; and Pierannunzi, Carol. 2001. Building Civic Capacity: The Politics of Reforming Urban Schools. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Stone, Deborah. 1988. Policy Paradox and Political Reason. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Teles, Steven. 1998. Whose Welfare? AFDA and Elite Politics. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Tichenor, Daniel. 2002. Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truman, David. 1971. The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion. New York: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Weir, Margaret, ed. 1998. The Social Divide: Political Parties and the Future of Activist Government. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution and the Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Wildavsky, Aaron. 1984. The Politics of the Budgetary Process. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Wilson, Carter. 2000. “Policy Regimes and Policy Change.” Journal of Public Policy 20, no. 3: 247–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, James Q. 1989. Bureaucracy. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Wirt, Frederick, and Kirst, Michael. 1997. The Political Dynamics of American Education. Berkeley: McCutchan Publishing.Google Scholar
Wong, Kenneth. 1999. Funding Public Schools: Politics and Policies. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Zelizer, Julian. 2000. “Clio's Lost Tribe: Public Policy History Since 1978.” Journal of Policy History 12, no. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zelizer, Julian. 2004. “History and Political Science: Together Again?” Journal of Policy History 16, no. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar