| Term | Definition |
|---|
| in conflict with | the constitution established a political system that is essentially __________ itself. |
| to be inefficient | , the legislative structure of American government is designed _________ to promote government stability |
| federal versus state sovereignty | The un-resolvable issue of the founding era was _______ |
| freedom and power | The Framework of the U.S. Constitution is comprised of ________ and ________ |
| expansion, contraction | Americans have been raised to believe that every ________ of the government's power involves a _________ of personal freedom |
| Institutions | ________ exist as society's means of maintaining order and predictability through routines, customs, shared values |
| Public Arena | republic, not direct democracy; indirect and direct nature of representation insures nat'l gov't legitimacy and mitigates power of the masses |
| Separation of Powers; Checks and Balances | national policy making involves a series of institutional partners; crisis can overcome these and lead to efficient policy making |
| Fiscal Federalism | federal government public policy administered at the state level |
| toward the national level | the fiscal role of the Federal government represents a powerful force in ensuring that the legislative center remains somewhat skewed ____________ |
| Policy Arenas or Sub-Governments | legislative centers of policy development that extend beyond specific institutions or levels of government outlined by the Constitution: iron triangles, policy sub-systems, issue networks, advocacy coalitions |
| Iron Triangle | congressional committees, executive branch agencies, organized interests: jointly control policy making |
| Issue Networks | constant flow of participants in and out of the decision-making arena |
| Institutional Actors | members of congress, congressional staff, president and inner circle, executive office of the president, cabinet, federal courts, bureaucracy |
| Non-institutional Actors | interest groups, lobbyists, media, think tanks, the public |
| The Stages-Heuristic (Policy Cycle) Model | pre-decisional: problem id, agenda, formulation; decisional: policy legitimation (adoption); post-decisional: implementation, evaluation, termination or change |
| Rational Choice Models | assumptions of rationality; institutional rational choice, public choice, game theory, expected utility |
| Institutional Rational Choice | actor-centered institutionalism; the policy process can be understood as an interaction between rational actions of individuals and groups |
| Public Choice | collective decisions made by groups of individuals through the political process to maximize their own self-interest |
| Game Theory | interdependent decisions – when the decisions of two or more individuals jointly determine the outcome of a situation |
| Advocacy Coalition Framework | both traditional and non-traditional actors who share beliefs (deep core, policy core, secondary) and engage in a "non-trivial degree of coordinated activity over time" |
| Incrementalism | policy process operates within an inefficient political and institutional environment where policy decisions naturally favor minimal over dramatic policy change; "successive limited comparisons" (Simon); satisficing |
| Multiple Streams | context of 3 central dynamics: problems, policies, politics; policy windows, policy entrepreneurs |
| Punctuated Equilibrium | dramatic changes in policy can occur, even though the policy process can also be characterized as incremental and relatively stable in nature; bounded rationality; new information/images |
Combine with other sets
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