Rhetoric And Reality: Presidential Commissions And The Making Of Public Policy

Rhetoric And Reality: Presidential Commissions And The Making Of Public Policy
ISBN-10
1000310094
ISBN-13
9781000310092
Series
Rhetoric and Reality
Category
Political Science
Pages
121
Language
English
Published
2019-07-11
Publisher
Routledge
Author
Terrence R Tutchings

Description

Since 1945, the role of the president in shaping domestic and foreign policy has changed dramatically. Though the prodigious growth of the federal bureaucracy under the Executive Branch reflects much of this change, bureaucratic response to the major issues of the past three decades has been ineffective or nonexistent, and a notable parallel development has been the increasing use of public commissions in the policymaking process. Dr. Tutchings studies more than 100 public commissions using a model of the policymaking process that includes demands, decision and information costs, and policy results and outcomes. Reviewing the results of the commissions as reflected in presidential support of recommendations (via proposed legislation) and in congressional response, he notes that their membership has typically been dominated by government/corporate elites: as this membership has become more pluralistic, there has been a sharp decline in the contributions of the commissions to the policymaking process. Perhaps the most significant contribution of the book is its detailed development of the concept of rhetorical policy as a first step in the policymaking process.

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