Table Of ContentPathways of Power
Selected Titles in the American Governance and Public Policy Series
Series Editors: Gerard W. Boychuk, Karen Mossberger, and Mark C. Rom
Branching Out, Digging In: Environmental Medicaid Politics: Federalism, Policy Durability,
Advocacy and Agenda Setting and Health Reform
Sarah B. Pralle Frank J. Thompson
Brussels versus the Beltway: Advocacy in the Medical Governance: Values, Expertise, and
United States and the European Union Interests in Organ Transplantation
Christine Mahoney David L. Weimer
City-County Consolidation: Promises Made, Metropolitan Governance: Conflict, Competition,
Promises Kept? and Cooperation
Suzanne M. Leland and Kurt Thurmaier, Richard C. Feiock, Editor
Editors
National Health Insurance in the United States
Collaborative Public Management: New Strategies and Canada: Race, Territory, and the Roots of
for Local Governments Difference
Robert Agranoff and Michael McGuire Gerard W. Boychuk
Competitive Interests: Competition and
Out and Running: Gay and Lesbian Candidates,
Compromise in American Interest Group Politics
Elections, and Policy Representation
Thomas T. Holyoke
Donald P. Haider-Markel
The Congressional Budget Office: Honest
The Politics of Policy Change: Welfare,
Numbers, Power, and Policymaking
Medicare, and Social Security Reform in the
Philip G. Joyce
United States
Daniel Béland and Alex Waddan
Healthy Voices, Unhealthy Silence: Advocacy
and Health Policy for the Poor
The Politics of Unfunded Mandates: Whither
Colleen M. Grogan and
Federalism?
Michael K. Gusmano
Paul L. Posner
Lessons of Disaster: Policy Change after
Power, Knowledge, and Politics: Policy Analysis
Catastrophic Events
in the States
Thomas A. Birkland
John A. Hird
Making Policy, Making Law: An Interbranch
Perspective Scandalous Politics: Child Welfare Policy in
Mark C. Miller and Jeb Barnes, Editors the States
Juliet F. Gainsborough
Managing the Fiscal Metropolis: The Financial
Policies, Practices, and Health of Suburban School’s In: Federalism and the National
Municipalities Education Agenda
Rebecca M. Hendrick Paul Manna
Pathways of Power
The Dynamics of National Policymaking
Timothy J. Conlan
Paul L. Posner
David R. Beam
Georgetown University Press
Washington, DC
© 2014 Georgetown University Press. All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or
by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Conlan, Timothy J.
Pathways of power : the dynamics of national
policymaking / Timothy J. Conlan, Paul L. Posner,
David R. Beam.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-62616-039-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Policy sciences. 2. United States—Politics and
government. I. Title.
H97.C656 2013
320.60973—dc23
2013026130
This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the
requirements of the American National Standard for
Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
15 14 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 First printing
Printed in the United States
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction 1
2 The Pluralist Pathway 16
3 The Partisan Pathway 39
4 The Expert Pathway 60
5 The Symbolic Pathway 89
6 Pathways and Policy Change 106
7 Pathways and Budgeting 128
8 Pathways through the Political Thicket of Taxation 150
9 The Pathway Dynamics of Intergovernmental Policymaking and
Reform 166
10 Conclusion 190
Appendix: Analysis of Pathways Designations 203
Index 221
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
This book draws upon three sources of inspiration. First, several of its
themes or elements first emerged in our previous research on the politics of tax re-
form, the federal budget, federal grants-in-aid and federal mandates. We wished to
build on our earlier insights about the complex dynamics and changing character
of federal policymaking in a more systematic and thorough way in this book. The
result spans thirty-two years of policy history. Second, both our earlier research
and the present book have been informed by our experiences in government,
where each of us served for periods ranging from five to over twenty-five years.
Among us, we have worked in both the executive and legislative branches of the
federal government, as well as at the state and local levels. From this perspective,
we feel that too many existing treatments of public policy fail to fully convey the
dynamism and changeability of the policy process. We faced a similar frustration
in our search for literature to assign our students in graduate and upper-division
courses on public policymaking and the policy process. We like and use much of
the existing literature in these courses but, as we explain in chapter 1, all seem lack-
ing in portraying the dynamic interactions and energy that characterizes policy-
making today. Having tested the framework developed in this book on both full-
time students and part-time working professionals in our MPA program, as well
as graduate and undergraduate students in political science, we are convinced that
students at all levels like it and learn from it.
The audiences for this book mirror its sources of inspiration: our students, our
colleagues in the academic research community, and our professional colleagues
in government. Such diverse audiences inevitably necessitate striking a balance
between divergent needs and perspectives. The level of sophistication appropriate
for our colleagues in academia and government risks confusing students with less
grounding and knowledge about the policy process and specific cases of policy-
making. At the same time, providing students with the foundation they need to
understand the arguments can become tedious to knowledgeable scholars and
bureaucrats. But many academic works encounter this tension, and we hope and
believe that we have struck the right balance.
Finally, and most sadly, we want to note that this book is dedicated to the
memory of our friend and coauthor, David Beam. Dave passed away on August
14, 2012, after several years of poor health. He was instrumental in our earliest
thinking about the pathways framework, which grew out of themes first explored
in Taxing Choices, our book with Margaret Wrightson on the politics of the Tax
viii Preface
Reform Act of 1986. Subsequently, Dave collaborated on and coauthored several
conference papers and articles that became the basis for some of our book chap-
ters. Although Dave participated less in writing the actual chapters contained in
this book, he was a constant intellectual presence and contributor to many of the
underlying ideas—and he served as an effective critic and editor until the end. We
will miss him greatly.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the students and graduate research assistants who
contributed background research for some of the cases drawn upon in this book,
especially Asif Shahan, William Clark, Jamie Henkle, and Julie Fairfax. Several
portions of this book have been presented earlier as conference papers or book
chapters, and in the process we have benefited from the comments, critiques,
and suggestions of many reviewers and colleagues. We wish to thank them all. At
Georgetown University Press, we would like to thank Don Jacobs for his support,
as well as the extremely helpful suggestions of two anonymous reviewers. Finally,
we would like to thank our wives Arlene and Marge for their patience and encour-
agement throughout the long process of writing this book.
