Essential Texts in American Government series – serie

In our increasingly globalized world, U.S. trade policy stands at the intersection of foreign and domestic affairs. This book explains trade policy in terms of domestic politics, presenting a concise account of its origins and political significance. Although trade policy is a component of foreign policy, Philip A. Mundo explains how it is rooted in the domestic policy process and carries with it enormous implications for domestic affairs. He reviews the growing importance of trade policy since World War II - particularly over the past twenty years - and shows how recent policies like NAFTA are shaped by the domestic agenda. Mundo explains trade policy as the product of a three-stage process comprising agenda setting, program adoption, and implementation. He reviews this process in terms of the ideas that inform trade policy, the interests that seek to influence it, and the institutions that shape it. He also addresses the importance of specific measures, such as administrative relief and trade sanctions. This book distills the essence of the trade policy process into a concise, innovative framework accessible to students and general readers.With the growing importance of trade policy, it makes explicit many of the subtleties surrounding policymaking while fully explicating the legal and international context in which trade operates.

In this title, Michael Hayes offers a vigorous defense of incrementalism: the theory that the policymaking process typically should involve bargaining, delay, compromise, and, therefore, incremental change. Incrementalism, he argues, is one result of a checks-and-balances system in which politicians may disagree over what we want to achieve as a nation or what policies would best achieve shared goals. Many political scientists have called for reforms that would facilitate majority rule and more radical policy change by strengthening the presidency at the expense of Congress. But Hayes develops policy typologies and analyzes case studies to show that the policy process works best when it conforms to the tenets of incrementalism. He contends that because humans are fallible, politics should work through social processes to achieve limited ends and to ameliorate - rather than completely solve - social problems.Analyzing the evolution of air pollution policy, the failure of President Clinton's health care reform in 1994, and the successful effort at welfare reform in 1995-96, Hayes calls for changes that would make incrementalism work better by encouraging a more balanced struggle among social interests and by requiring political outcomes to conform to the rule of law. Written for students and specialists in politics, public policy, and public administration, "The Limits of Policy Change" examines in detail a central issue in democratic theory.

In this wide-ranging assessment of democracy in America today, fifteen respected scholars of American politics chart the strengths and weaknesses of the nation's democratic mechanisms and outline the challenges that lie ahead. They focus not on specific policies or elections but on the quality of American political life, the representativeness of its governing institutions, and the issues of racial and economic equity. The contributors cover a broad spectrum of the American political process. Topics include the extent and nature of political participation, the relevance of political parties, political fundraising and its policy consequences, demographic change and its likely effect on the national political agenda, and the future of racial politics. Others explore how representative Congress really is today, how the market economy affects public policy, the use of impeachment as a political weapon, and the degree of corporate influence on the political process. A final chapter explores the circumstances likely to shape policy agendas over the course of the twenty-first century.Taken together, these essays provide a clear picture of political evolution during the past fifty years and discuss possible problems and issues of the future. Written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, this book is a thoughtful, well-documented, critical analysis of contemporary American democracy.