The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems (Paperback)

by Bryan D. Jones (Author), Frank R. Baumgartner (Author)
Key Phrases: right tail, category midpoint, agenda congruence, Social Security, United States, Second World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A terrific book. Based on a decade of meticulous data collection, The Politics of Attention descriptively presents a macroscopic overview of fifty years of American policy development in congressional agenda formation and decision making. The payoff of this impressive empirical exercise is a fresh focus on and understanding of policy punctuations." - John Padgett, University of Chicago"

Review
"The Politics of Attention moves the classic debate over the character and value of democratic politics to new and more solid ground. In recognizing that political elites are subject to limited attention spans and constrained information-processing, just as are mass citizens, Jones and Baumgartner argue that the great attraction of representative democracy is the way in which it corrects for the limitations of both elites and mass electorates. With these arguments and supportive data, this pioneering book provides perhaps the most persuasive explanation yet of the adaptive resilience of pluralist democracies. The result is a landmark contribution to research on elite decision-making, to the study of policy evolution in postwar America, and to democratic theory."--Lawrence C. Dodd, University of Florida (Lawrence C. Dodd )

"A terrific book. Based on a decade of meticulous data collection, The Politics of Attention descriptively presents a macroscopic overview of fifty years of American policy development in congressional agenda formation and decision making. The payoff of this impressive empirical exercise is a fresh focus on and understanding of policy punctuations."--John Padgett, University of Chicago (John Padgett )

"An important and timely work."--Choice (M. C. Price, Texas A&M University Choice )

"This excellent book provides an enlightening glimpse into and important topic: how information is used in politics and how it is prioritised. . . . It is provocative, challenging and insightful, making a valuable contribution to politics and constitutional law." (Ya-Hui Kuo Significance )

"The book illustrates the continuing development of the punctuated equilibrium model of policy change and the diversity of issues that the model provides leverage in explaining." (Scott E. Robinson Political Science Quarterly )

"Without a doubt, this book will be very useful in graduate seminars. It touches on many of the biggest ideas in social science, ranging from theories of individual behavior and rationality, to ''middle level'' phenomena like political organizations, to the highest level, institutions and policy change. It is also written beautifully." (Paul E. Johnson Perspectives on Politics )

"Jones and Baumgartner have become a genre, the leading scholars of a science of policymaking. This is a major scholarly achievement."--James Stimson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (James Stimson ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (October 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226406539
• ISBN-13: 978-0226406534
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #747,429 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, April 12, 2008

By	Mark Chustz "Picky buyer" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you are wanting to understand more about how things get priortized in DC this is a great book. Through research, easy to read, more detail than necessary, but that is the type of book it is. Written by Professor not a politician.

4.0 out of 5 stars The Politics of Attention, February 8, 2008

By	M. Gilchrist (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Though not a casual read, this is a great work for those interested in Congressional behavior, organizational information processing and quantitative Political Science. Aspects of the book are rather technical and expand on earlier work by Jones & Baumgartner. Before you pick this up, check out Policy Dynamics or Agendas and Instability in American Politics (also by Jones & Baumgartner). These prior works use more case studies than The Politics of Attention and provide a good introduction to Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, a concept expanded upon in The Politics of Attention.

5.0 out of 5 stars Important work on information in the policy process, September 9, 2007

By	Steven A. Peterson (Hershey, PA (Born in Kewanee, IL)) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The work begins by noting two key issues regarding information processing in (page viii): ". . .under what conditions it will be supplied, on the one hand, and how it will be interpreted and prioritized, on the other." This is nested within their broader "punctuated equilibrium" theory of policy change. This perspective suggests that there is stability in a policy system, with occasional bursts of rapid change (punctuated change) followed by stasis for a period (equilibrium). This is based on the biological theory of punctuated equilibrium, developed by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould.

They use their massive "Policy Agendas Project" data sets to explore the use of information and how it fits into change processes. One key point: there is a plenitude of information available to decision-makers; they are not "information poor." This means that decision makers, then, must figure out which information to attend to, which information to assign a priority to. The end result (Page 11): "And prioritizing somehow means winnowing--dropping from consideration for the time being problems that can wait."

Another issue arises: which information to attend to and how to use it. Often, decision makers selectively attend to information (not paying attention to information at variance with their views and cherry picking information that supports their perspectives). As the authors note (page 17) ". . .information is not neutral; it creates winners and losers. People prefer to be seen as winners and do not like to admit when they are wrong."

How does information link to their punctuated equilibrium theory of policy change? They claim (Page 19): "If we put together the limits of human information processing and the characteristics of democracies that encourage error correction, we get a model of politics that is very static but reluctantly changes when signals are strong enough. The system resists change, so that when change comes it punctuates the system. . . ."

The bulk of the book explores how information is actually processed and how it is associated with change. The reading here will be slow going for those not conversant with statistical analysis. Nonetheless, persevering will be rewarding.

This is an important volume that looks at key political processes and change processes in a unique and compelling manner.