Mr. Schaber – AP Political Science
Wilson – Chapter 17 Study Guide
The Policy-Making Process
Name ______________________________
Setting the Agenda
1) The most ______________________ decision that affects policy-making is also the least
__________________ one; deciding what to make the policy ________________, or in the language of
political science, deciding what belongs on the political _________________. (469)
2) Define ‘political agenda’. (470)
3) Until the _____________ the national political agenda was quite _____________, and even in the
______________ many people would have been astonished or _______________ to be told that the
federal government was supposed to worry about the ________________________, consumerism, or
_____________ rights. (470)
4) Certain shared beliefs determine what is legitimate for the government to do. What forces affect this
legitimacy? (470)
a)
b)
c)
d)
5) True / False – The scope of legitimate government action is always getting larger. (470)
6) How did the following US Presidents expand the role and strength of government? (470)
a) President Nixon –
b) President Eisenhower –
c) President Reagan –
7) Popular views on the legitimate scope of government action are changed by the impact of
____________________. (470)
8) But sometimes the government enlarges its agenda of policy issues without any ________________
or widespread public ____________________. (470)
9) Many policies are the result of small _________________ of people enlarging the scope of
government by their _____________________. (471)
10) As people became/become better off, conditions that once were thought ___________________
suddenly become/became _________________________. (471)
11) What is meant by ‘relative deprivation’? (471-472)
12) Do you believe this feeling has increased or decreased in America in recent years? Why do you think
so?
13) What three institutions have an especially important influence on agenda-setting in this country?
(472)
a)
b)
c)
14) The courts can make decisions that force the hand of other ________________ of government.
(472)
15) The courts have become the favorite method for doing things for which there is no
________________ __________________. (472)
16) The courts are the preferred vehicles for the advocates of unpopular _________________. (472)
17) Why has the bureaucracy acquired a new significance in American politics? (472)
18) Today the bureaucracy is so _________________, and includes within it so great a ______________
of experts and advocates, that is has become a _________________ of policy proposals as well as an
___________________________ of those that become law. (472)
19) The Senate has become one of the sources of political ___________________rather than, as the
_________________ intended, a _________________ wheel designed to ___________________
change. (473)
20) The national press can either help ______________ new matters on the agenda or
__________________ those matters placed there by others. (473)
21) National policy is increasingly being made by the actions of ________________ governments. (473)
Making a Decision
22) The nature of the issues with which government is dealing influences the kinds of _______________
that become politically _________________. (473)
23) Define ‘cost’. (473)
24) Define ‘benefit’. (473)
25) It is the ________________________ of costs and benefits that affects _________________. (474)
26) People take into account not only who ________________ but also whether it is
_________________________ for that group to benefit. (474)
27) In large measure, what is politics? (474)
28) Most people most of the time prefer government programs that provide substantial _____________
to them at low ______________. (474)
29) The costs and benefits of a policy may be widely _______________________ or narrowly
____________________________. (475)
30) The perceived distribution of costs and benefits shapes the _____________ of political
___________________ that will form – but it will not necessarily determine who ____________. (475)
Majoritarian Politics: Distributed Benefits, Distributed Costs
31) Define ‘majoritarian politics’. (475)
32) True / False – Interest groups are very important in majoritarian politics. (475)
33) Majoritarian politics may be controversial, but the controversy is usually over matters of _________
or ____________________, not between rival ___________________ groups. (475)
Interest Group Politics: Concentrated Benefits, Concentrated Costs
34) Define ‘interest group politics’. (476)
35) Interest group politics often produces decisions about which the _________________ is
_________________________. (476)
Client Politics: Concentrated Benefits, Distributed Costs
36) Define ‘client politics’. (477)
37) True / False – Cities or counties can be beneficiaries of client politics. (477)
38) Define ‘pork-barrel legislation’. (477)
39) Define ‘logrolling’. (477)
40) Give an example of a group that has lost the legitimacy it once had. (478) Why has this been so?
Entrepreneurial Politics: Distributed Benefits, Concentrated Costs
41) Define ‘entrepreneurial politics’. (478)
42) What are ‘policy entrepreneurs’? (478)
43) True / False – Policy entrepreneurs always represent the interests and wishes of the public at large.
(478)
44) How can entrepreneurial politics occur without the leadership of a policy entrepreneur? (478-479)
Give an example of when this happened.
The Case of Business Regulation
45) Some people believe economic power will dominate political power. What three reasons do they
point to? (479)
a)
b)
c)
46) Other people believe politics is a threat to the existence of a market economy and the values –
economic ____________________, private ___________________, personal ________________ - that
they believe such an economy protects. (479)
47) What has much of the antitrust legislation passed in this country been the result of? (480)
48) Laws are not self-_____________________, and _____________ laws are especially likely to lie
___________________ unless political leaders work hard at bringing them to _____________. (480)
49) What is the purpose of antitrust cases? (480)
50) What determines the amount of money that the federal government devotes to antitrust
enforcement and the direction that those enforcement efforts take? (481)
51) Antitrust ____________________ tends to reflect broad _______________________ of governance
more than _________________ group activity. (481)
52) What was/is the purpose of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)? (481)
53) True / False – Business and unions have gotten along well throughout the years and have usually
agreed on things. (481)
54) What is the purpose of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), passed in 1970? (482)
55) What are a couple of items that we, the consumer, end up paying more for because their industries
are regulated by the US government? (482-483)
56) How are farm subsidies justified? (483)
57) The existence of farm subsidies is the result of ___________________ and ___________________.
(483)
58) Client politics has become _________________ to practice in this country unless a group is widely
thought to be a “_____________________” client. (483)
59) Clients that might not be thought _______________________ increasingly get their way by means
of ________________________ rather than _______________________. (483)
60) Give an example of an industry that was hurt by a regulation that started out trying to serve/help it?
(483) How was this industry affected?
61) When measures, such as consumer- and environmental-protection bills, become law, it is often
because a policy __________________________ has ______________________ an issue, galvanized
____________________ opinion, and mobilized __________________________ support. (484)
62) What will a policy entrepreneur need if he or she is outside of government? (484)
63) What can make the task of a policy entrepreneur easier? (484)
64) What did Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle pave the way for? (484)
65) What did the stock market collapse of 1929 help develop support for? (484)
66) What did an oil spill on the beaches of Santa Barbara, California, draw attention to? (484)
67) In some cases no ___________________ event at all is required for __________________________
politics to succeed. (484)
68) Most of the __________ and _______________ pollution control bills were passed despite the
absence of any ____________________________ catastrophe. (484)
69) How was support for the measures in Question #68 developed? (484)
70) Policy entrepreneurs seeking to regulate an industry often adopt a _____________________ tone,
with their _______________________ portrayed as ______________, their allies viewed with
________________________, and compromises fiercely ______________________. (485)
71) Once a policy entrepreneur manages to defeat an industry that is _____________________
regulation, he or she creates – at least for a while – a strong impetus for ______________________
legislation of the same kind. A successful ______________________ produces
_______________________. (485)
72) What is the great risk faced by policy entrepreneurs? (485)
Perceptions, Beliefs, Interests, and Values
73) What constitutes a cost or a benefit is a matter of __________________, and opinions
__________________. (487)
74) A political conflict is in large measure a struggle to alter ______________________ and
__________________. (487)
75) What is the here-and-now argument? (487)
76) What is the cost argument? (487)
77) Policies are affected not only by our perceptions and beliefs about where our interests lie but also by
our _________________ - that is, by our ____________________________ of what is good for the
_____________________ or for our _____________________________. (488)
78) Name three industries that were deregulated in the 1980s, over the objections of those industries.
(488)
a)
b)
c)
79) Since the mid-1970s every president has put in place machinery to bring government
_______________________ of industry under more central ___________________. (489)
80) Define ‘process regulation’. (489)
Summary
81) Policy-making involves two stages – what are they? (489)
a)
b)
82) Decision-making requires that a majority ___________________ be formed. (489)