HR: 1340h
AN: PA33A-1029    [Abstracts]
TI: Influence in the Policy Making Process: the Rise of Economics at the Expense of Geology
AU: * McCurdy, K M
EM: kmccurdy@georgiasouthern.edu
AF: Georgia Southern University, Political Science Dept P.O. Box 8101, Statesboro, GA 30460-8101, United States
AB: Scientific influence in resource policy making reached a zenith in the early 1970s during the legislative monopoly in the United States Congress that produced command and control regulatory protection policies. This congressional consensus began in 1879 with legislation producing the U.S. Geological Survey. Other scientific agencies followed. The Congresses of the first half of the 20th century merely strengthened the influence of science in policy outcomes that was present in the earliest congressional debates. What then happened at the turn of the 21st century when representatives in the administration frequently dismissed sound science in their policy deliberations? Policy monopolies arise from agreement in principle, and alternately decline as rival ideas gain hold in policy space. The science policy monopoly began to face competition from economics when cost benefit analysis was introduced into political parlance in 1936, again in the 1950s as a successful blocking tactic by the minority in opposition to western dams, and in 1961 when systems analysis was introduced to the Department of Defense under Robert McNamara. As businessmen replaced farmers as the modal profession of legislators, the language of politics increasingly contained economic terms and concepts. A ternary diagram and a budget simplex have the same shape, but have different theoretical meanings and imply different processes. Policy consensus is not dissimilar to a mineral phase diagram, with boundary conditions marked by election magnitudes and majority parties. The 1980 elections brought economic principles into all aspects of government decision-making, with a particular long-term interest in reducing the size and scope of government. Since then the shift in policy jargon from science to economics has been incremental. With the 1994 Republican legislative majority, scientists, their programs, and the funds required to maintain data collection projects became targets. The Conservative Consensus resulting from the 2000 elections has disregarded and even ridiculed scientific experts, their analyses, and their data. The first step in rebuilding an effective policy consensus based on sound science is recognizing the phase transition that privileges conservative policy solutions which minimize science and elevate economic principles.
DE: 6309 Decision making under uncertainty
DE: 6319 Institutions
DE: 6600 PUBLIC ISSUES
DE: 6615 Legislation and regulations (6324)
DE: 6620 Science policy (0485)
SC: Public Affairs [PA]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting