Agendas and Instability in American Politics, Second Edition by Frank R. Baumgartner & Bryan D. Jones

Author:Frank R. Baumgartner & Bryan D. Jones [Baumgartner, Frank R. & Jones, Bryan D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780226039534
Google: 0WtEOcK_Y8wC
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2010-03-15T06:16:39+00:00

Figure 8.2. Congressional hearings on drug abuse.

The data in figure 8.2 make clear that the initial surge of interest in congressional activities toward drug abuse policy was related to the possibilities of education and treatment responses. However, after the first few years of such enthusiasm, the traditional emphasis on enforcement, border controls, and incarceration was reestablished. A simple statistical analysis shows that the initial surge in 1969 was associated with an increase of twenty-five additional hearings on education questions, but only six additional hearings on enforcement. In following years, however, education hearings decline by one per year and enforcement hearings increase by an average of two per year. An overall continuation of congressional attention each year after 1969 was made up of two inversely related components, as the enforcement solution set gradually out-placed the education set as the government’s preferred policy response to the drug problem. (Appendix B presents the details of the statistical interpretation of fig. 8.2.)

Drug abuse surged onto the systemic and formal agendas of American politics in the late 1960s. Media attention waned after a period of about five years, but official attention remained high. As the government began to spend large amounts of money on drug abuse treatment, eradication, and enforcement, large numbers of specialists in a great variety of policies became active in Congress. Each wanted a slice of what became a huge drug policy budget. Figure 8.2 shows how much more successful the enforcement community has been than the education group. We discuss the dynamics of congressional attention in greater detail in chapter 10; for now the simple point is that the public may become concerned with a given problem, but the solutions adopted in response to that problem are not cast in stone. At different times in history and depending on the degree of media interest in the problem, official attention focuses on the problem. What set of solutions will be adopted seems to follow a different logic, one much less tied to public and media attention, but relying more on inside-the-beltway influence, as Kingdon (1984) also argues. We saw a similar pattern in the case of highway safety policy in chapter 6. The problem may emerge more than once on the national agenda, but the policy solutions chosen at different periods made vary greatly from one period to another.

Budgets and Solution Sets

The changes in relative emphasis on treatment versus enforcement, apparent in figure 8.2, are reflected in federal budgets. In addition, total levels of attention translate almost directly into dollars and budget requests. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, federal expenditures on drug control increased dramatically. The Nixon war on drugs had two major components: enforcement and treatment, with emphasis slightly greater on treatment programs. Between 1970 (the last Johnson budget) and 1974, appropriations for prevention and treatment rose from $59 million to $462 million, while enforcement expenditures rose from $43 million to $292 million (Musto 1987, 257–58). The Nixon administration more than doubled the ratio of education-to-enforcement spending on drug control, pushing this number from 0.

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