Political Innovation in America: The Politics of Policy Initiation

Couverture
Yale University Press, 1985 - 185 pages
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How are public policies initiated in American politics? Do they spring fully formed from the furrowed brow of the President? Are they the product of congressional committees? This pathbreaking book by Nelson Polsby looks for the first time at the process of political innovation. Drawing examples from foreign and domestic policy, Polsby examines the genesis of eight major new government initiatives: the Peace Corps, the Truman Doctrine, the Council of Economic Advisers, Medicare, Community Action Programs, the National Science Foundation, civilian, control of atomic energy, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Polsby has explored empirically the preconditions of political innovations, and he draws conclusions that have general applicability for the understanding of innovation in the American political system. His characteristically witty and stimulating book opens a third branch of inquiry in political science--on a coequal footing with the study of legislative enactment politics and the study of policy implementation.

 

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Table des matières

National Health Insurance for the Aged
112
Local Participation in Community Action Programs
128
Innovations Compared
146
What Causes Innovation?
159
Political Crisis and the Potential for Policy Innovation
167
Index
175
Droits d'auteur

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Fréquemment cités

Page 15 - From this point of view, an organization is a collection of choices looking for problems, issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they might be aired, solutions looking for issues to which they might be the answer, and decision makers looking for work.
Page 101 - Council'). The Council shall be composed of three members who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and each of whom shall be a person who, as a result of his training, experience, and attainments, is exceptionally qualified to analyze and interpret economic developments, to appraise programs and activities of the Government in the light of the policy declared in Section 2 and to formulate and recommend national economic policy to promote employment,...
Page vii - In one sense, yes. Such a debate and such a majority will make men think. But no - think is too high a word; as a rule men don't think. But it will make them believe that there is something in it. Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimericaL will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few...
Page 85 - Soviet pressure on the Straits, on Iran, and on northern Greece had brought the Balkans to the point where a highly possible Soviet breakthrough might open three continents to Soviet penetration. Like apples in a barrel infected by one rotten one, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and all to the east. It would also carry infection to Africa through Asia Minor and Egypt, and to Europe through Italy and France, already threatened by the strongest domestic Communist parties in Western Europe.
Page 57 - In plain words, the Report sets up a- plan under which no nation would make atomic bombs or the materials for them. All dangerous activities would be carried on — not merely inspected — by a live, functioning international Authority with a real purpose in the world and capable of attracting competent personnel.
Page 91 - crises" never reach Congress until they have developed to a point where Congressional discretion is pathetically restricted. When things finally reach a point where a President asks us to "declare war" there usually is nothing left except to "declare war.
Page 2 - Stephen K. Bailey, Congress Makes a Law (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950).
Page 91 - declare war" there is nothing left except to "declare war." In the present instance, the overriding fact is that the President has made a long-delayed statement regarding Communism on-the-march which must be supported if there is any hope of ever impressing Moscow with the necessity of paying any sort of peaceful attention to us whatever. If we turned the President down — after his speech to the joint Congressional session — we might as well either resign ourselves to a complete Communist-encirclement...
Page 62 - Evidence is available to the writer which clearly indicates that the President and Mr. Dulles were unwitting prisoners, in their lonely isolation at the top of the government pyramid, of the special selection of knowledge and attitudes which came to them through official channels and especially through Mr. Strauss. They had no alternative against which to measure the partisan quality of this advice or its scientific inadequacies.

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