> In the real world we have almost 600 in Congress, dealing with > innumerable matters more or less simultaneously. One of the things each > CongressCritter does is to decide what to do not about, say, farm > subsidies generally, but about SB1234, sponsored by Sen. This and Sen. > That, which goes through specific committees with specific members, at > specific times, during which times specific other things are happening, > and other things are reasonably foreseeable (to happen or to avoid).
Let me add a very non-economic note to this discussion. The economic approach to studying policy outcomes is essentially some combination of median voter theorem and public choice - ie, how much can the politician screw the voter before getting fired? Some political scientists have taken the approach outlined the above post. They understand policy outcomes as the result of institutions, networks of politicians,lobbyists and gov't bureaucrats and exogenous events (Ie, the terrorist attacks, Enron) that frame policy. The focus here is on the stuff that happens between the voter and the politicians. I don't think these approaches are really in conflict but what they do is capture different parts of the political procss. The median voter thing seems to capture the broad outlines of politics. America won't turn into Sweden just cause Tom Hayden read Robert's Rules of Order one day. Public opinion and honest elections set the broad paramters for what politicians can accomplish. OTOH, the gov't does so much stuff that politicians have to depend on committees, lobbiests (sp?) and gov't agencies to get anything passed. How can a semi-comprehensible law on uranium mining or Alaskan fishing rights be passed without consulting a million committess, the GAO or affeced parties? Furhtermore, all sort of random events may abruptly change how people percieve a law and add to this mix ths interactions between politicans and voters. Remember, you can do anything you want - if you can convince the median voter it was ok! If you buy this second story, then it's quite easy to see how individual policies may deviate greatly from the median voter. Fabio
