Discussions of science and its relevance to public policy have recently taken center stage in political discourse, illustrating the values‐based nature of scientific policy decisions. This article uses an original data set of media coverage to examine the ways in which salience and media portrayals of scientific uncertainty affect the agenda‐setting process for scientific policy issues. We build upon two scholarly literatures by incorporating research on the use of science in the policy process into the study of policy diffusion among the American states. In doing so, we develop a framework fo ..read more

This article investigates, through the theory of social construction and policy design, the feedforward effects of labeling on policy conflicts. It argues that such conflicts escalate when policymakers distinguish between more and less deserving and more and less powerful segments of the population. It draws on the empirical analysis of 32 narrative interviews with vital stakeholders in the conflict over the contested multibillion‐euro Oosterweelconnection highway in Antwerp (Belgium), as well as on the media analysis of 739 articles. According to such analyses, Flemish policymakers became inc ..read more

Policy Studies Journal, Volume 47, Issue 4, Page 843-847, November 2019 ..read more

Policy Studies Journal, Volume 47, Issue 4, Page 848-853, November 2019 ..read more

Representative bureaucracy theory suggests that demographic representation among street‐level bureaucrats will improve outcomes for minority citizens receiving a given public service. Scholars of representation in public bureaucracies argue that the effect of bureaucrats' demographic profile on outcomes for minority citizens becomes particularly salient in contexts where bureaucrats exercise relatively high amounts of discretion. Empirical evidence has documented this relationship in education, policing, and a variety of public programs. We extend this literature to the context of prisons, whe ..read more

This review of 81 applications of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) in China between 2006 and 2017 finds that the ACF's hypotheses about the existence and stability of competing advocacy coalitions in policy subsystems, the occurrence of change across its three‐tiered belief system, and the credence of its four pathways to policy change, which have been developed and mostly tested in Western democratic contexts, can be confirmed in China's authoritarian political system and transitional context. This review also finds some unexpected results, which have implications for studying China's p ..read more

Most Americans benefit from several policies, yet studies connecting policy receipt to political participation generally treat these interactions as isolated from each other. This article grounds itself in this reality by examining how multiple policy experiences interact to alter political participation. Focusing on policies that send conflicting messages to beneficiaries, I provide a political learning framework and set of quantitative findings that nuance conventional understandings of the relationship between the American welfare state and turnout behavior. The results demonstrate that pol ..read more

When faced with natural disasters, communities respond in diverse ways, with processes that reflect the extent of damage experienced by the community, their resource availability, and stakeholder needs. Local‐level processes drive decisions about mitigating future flood risks, such as if, how, and where to rebuild, as well as changes in zoning practices and public outreach programs. Because of their potentially recurring nature, floods offer an opportunity for communities to learn from and adapt to these experiences with the goal of increasing resiliency through deliberation, modification of f ..read more

Compulsory voting is known to increase turnout and produce a more representative electorate, but there is considerable debate about whether it stimulates political learning. Analyses of political knowledge using cross‐national and intranational observational data arrive at mixed conclusions. Experimental research is similarly inconclusive. We attempt to reconcile these disparate results by employing a novel experiment that tracks political learning during real elections and randomly assigns some people to receive a punitive threat for failure to cast an in‐person vote. We demonstrate that comp ..read more

Despite the prominence of exogenous factors in theories of policy change, the precise mechanisms that link such factors to policy change remain elusive: The effects of exogenous factors on the politics underlying policy change are not sufficiently conceptualized and empirically analyzed. To address this gap, we propose to distinguish between truly exogenous factors and policy outcomes to better understand policy change. Specifically, we combine the Advocacy Coalition Framework with policy feedback theory to conceptualize a complete feedback loop among policy, policy outcomes, and subsequent po ..read more