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28 - The Influence of Public Opinion and Advocacy on Public Policy

Controversies and Conclusions

from IV - Civil Society: The Roots and Processes of Political Action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2020

By
Paul Burstein
Edited by
Thomas Janoski ,
Cedric de Leon ,
Joya Misra  and
Isaac William Martin
Thomas Janoski
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
Cedric de Leon
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Joya Misra
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Isaac William Martin
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
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Summary

Social welfare, protecting the environment, discrimination, health care – these are the sorts of big, widely discussed issues that social scientists study when they want to understand policy change. Other important issues – taxes, infrastructure, defense, energy – are studied less often. And many issues that don’t seem especially important, don’t create a lot of headlines, and don’t connect to long-standing concerns in sociology, political science, and economics – for example, the drug approval process, foreign trade, transportation safety, public lands, and patents – are seldom studied. What we know about the policy process we have learned mostly by studying a small and unrepresentative sample of the issues policy-makers address.

Keywords

public policypublic opinionadvocacypolicy change
Type
Chapter
Information
The New Handbook of Political Sociology , pp. 738 - 760
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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