Policy Argument I

Disability Rights:  Gradual Issue Emergence and the Importance of Precedent



Reactive Effects and Reactivity (p. 198)

Issue Emergence and Numbers -- last week's epigram:

In 1973, children's advocate Marian Wright Edelman launched the Children's Defense Fund with a survey. One US Census figure haunted her. Some 750,000 American children between the ages of seven and thirteen did not attend school ... `Handicapped kids were those seven hundred fifty thousand kids,' Edelman recalls finding to her surprise. `We'd never thought of handicapped kids. but they're out there everywhere.'"

-- Joseph P. Shapiro, No Pity

Counting under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. See Child Find

Colin Powell on working the numbers:

If, for example, you are going to judge me on AWOL rates, I’m going to send a sergeant out by 6:30 a.m. to bloodhound the kid who failed to show up for 6:00 a.m. reveille.  The guy’s not considered AWOL until midnight.  So drag him back before then and keep that AWOL rate down.  I vigorously set out to better every indicator by which my brigade was statistically judged.  And then went on to do the things that I thought counted.

Concealment is a reactivity effect:

 

  The spike in Native Americans 

In episode 42, members of the Soprano crime family meet Chief Doug Smith, a sleazy casino operator.

SIL: No offense, chief, but, uh... you don't look much like an Indian.
SMITH: Frankly I passed most of my life as white, until I had a racial awakening and discovered my Mohonk blood. My grandmother on my father's side, her mother was a quarter Mohonk.
TONY: And all this happened when the casino bill got passed, right?
SMITH: Better late than never.

Psychiatrist Allen Frances:

DSM-IV may have started the autism epidemic, but other powerful engines drove it forward beyond all expectation. Probably most important was the positive feedback loop between spirited patient advocacy and the provision of school and therapeutic programs that require an autism diagnosis. As the population of "autistic" patients grew, they gained the power to push for many additional services— sometimes by initiating successful lawsuits. The additional services then provided further incentive to increased diagnosis. With more people diagnosed, there there was an ever larger constituency to push for more services.

Information disclosure as policy instrument (p. 322) -- a dramatic example right here

The Lobster Surfer-A Devil User?

Laila's article from last week mentioned "the devil user" which is one of the key parts of most issue attention cycles. In the House, the debate over cuts to the farm bill's funding in an effort to prevent misuse of food stamp assistance has potentially been aided by the Lobster Surfer (see video below).

Public Knowledge and the Environment: Watch and Weep

People Hate HMOs

On Wednesday, we discussed attitudes toward HMOs.

In 1998, The Washington Post reported:

Just as the managed-care industry gears up to combat a political backlash in Congress, it is taking a tongue-lashing in the nation's movie theaters. The film is "As Good as It Gets," but if you're an HMO lobbyist, it doesn't get much worse than this.

Audiences in the Washington area have been erupting in whoops, whistles and applause when actress Helen Hunt, playing the single mother of a chronically ill child, denounces HMOs with a string of unprintable epithets.

Hunt's character quickly apologizes for the outburst, but actor Harold Ramis, playing a physician, assures her that the apology is unwarranted.

"Actually, I think that's their technical name," he says.

Attitudes have not changed much.

Earlier this year, Gallup asked about confidence in various institutions.  Note which one came in next to last.



In 2010, Gallup summarized a decade of data specifically about HMOs:



Similarly, Harris found that less than 10 percent regarded HMOs as honest and trustworthy.

First Essay Assignment

Pick one:

1. See page 57 of Stone, and undertake the exercise that she suggests in the passage that starts “When you confront a political issue…” and ends with “read between the lines and interpret.” Pick a current policy issue, and identify two figures with different positions. “Read between the lines” and infer their answers to Stone’s questions.

2. Write your own version of “The Vitality of Mythical Numbers” about a current issue. That is, identify a dubious statistic that features prominently in policy debate, carefully explain why it is problematic, and spell out how it has distorted deliberations over the issue. (If you can publish a version of this essay in a newspaper, magazine or edited website, you will get an A for the assignment. Campus publications and personal blogs do not count.)

3. On our Sakai site (under “Resources”), read the case study of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Since the case’s publication in 2009, Republicans have taken control of the House and made major gains in state legislatures. You may take one of two approaches:

a. Should FAMM change its strategy and tactics? If so, what should it do differently? If not, why will its approach work in the new setting? In your answer, consider how the organization frames the issue and presents data.
b. Identify an interest group or office holder who supports mandatory minimums.Write a memo telling this group or person how to stop or roll back FAMM, either in Congress or a state legislature. How would you use data to re-frame the issue?

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Whichever essay you choose, do research to document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head. Essays should be typed, double-spaced, and no more than three pages long. I will not read past the third page.

• Cite your sources with endnotes, which should be in a standard style (e.g., Turabian or Chicago Manual of Style). Endnote pages do not count against the page limit. 
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. 
• Turn in essays via Sakai by the start of class, Monday, September 30. Late essays will drop a gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that. I will grant no extensions except for illness or emergency.

A Linear Approach to "Issue Attention"

Downs' article reminded me of an article I read while writing a paper last fall by Rogan Kersh and James Morone. The article is called "The Politics of Obesity: Seven Steps to Government Action," and it identifies seven “triggers to action” that have historically resulted in government prohibition, regulation, and intervention. These triggers include social disapproval that shifts the social norm; establishing danger through evidenced-based research; self-help movements to encourage individuals to live healthier lives; demonizing users; demonizing the industry; interest group action; and finally, mass movement in the general public.

Whereas Downs finds issue attention to be cyclic, Kersh and Morone suggest that issue attention can be more linear, often resulting in extensive government action, as in the cases of vaccines and tobacco. I wonder whether Kersh and Morone provide an alternative to Downs theory: can governments intervene in an effective and extensive way on high-attention issues? Can the public remain highly invested in these issues after government intervention? Or is Kersh and Morone's seventh step the beginning of the cycle Downs describes? 

Narratives and Agendas

"In politics, narrative stories are the principal means for defining and contesting policy problems." -- Stone, p. 158.

From Preventing Gun Violence Through Effective Messaging:

• "The debate over gun violence in America is periodically punctuated by high-profile gun violence incidents, including Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, the Trayvon Martin killing, Aurora, and Oak Creek. When an incident such as these attracts sustained media attention, it creates a unique climate for our communications efforts."
• "There can be a tendency to adopt a quiet “wait and see” attitude when a high-profile gun violence incident happens. The truth is, the most powerful time to communicate is when concern and emotions are running at their peak. While we always want to be respectful of the situation, a self-imposed period of silence is never necessary."
• "Our first task is to draw a vivid portrait and make an emotional connection. We should rely on emotionally powerful language, feelings and images to bring home the terrible impact of gun violence. Compelling facts should be used to back up that emotional narrative, not as a substitute for it."

But have violent crimes in general (and gun crimes in particular) gone up?

The Issue-Attention Cycle

1. The pre-problem stage

• DDT
• Oil & oysters

2. Alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm

• Silent Spring
• The Cuyahoga River catches fire

3. Realizing the cost of significant progress

• Historical tables

4. Gradual decline of intense public interest

5. The post-problem stage

• EPA organization 
• State agencies
• Organizations
• Companies

An alternative view (Laila's post).  The seven triggers:

1.             Social disapproval.
2.             Medical science.
3.             Self-help.
4.             The demon user.
5.             Demon industry.
6.             Mass movement.
7.             Interest-group action.