The Politics of Attention
The Politics of Attention

Author: Bryan D. Jones

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2005-10-26

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0226406539

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On any given day, policymakers are required to address a multitude of problems and make decisions about a variety of issues, from the economy and education to health care and defense. This has been true for years, but until now no studies have been conducted on how politicians manage the flood of information from a wide range of sources. How do they interpret and respond to such inundation? Which issues do they pay attention to and why? Bryan D. Jones and Frank R. Baumgartner answer these questions on decision-making processes and prioritization in The Politics of Attention. Analyzing fifty years of data, Jones and Baumgartner's book is the first study of American politics based on a new information-processing perspective. The authors bring together the allocation of attention and the operation of governing institutions into a single model that traces public policies, public and media attention to them, and governmental decisions across multiple institutions. The Politics of Attention offers a groundbreaking approach to American politics based on the responses of policymakers to the flow of information. It asks how the system solves, or fails to solve, problems rather than looking to how individual preferences are realized through political action.

The Politics of Information
The Politics of Information

Author: Frank R. Baumgartner

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2015-01-02

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 022619826X

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How does the government decide what’s a problem and what isn’t? And what are the consequences of that process? Like individuals, Congress is subject to the “paradox of search.” If policy makers don’t look for problems, they won’t find those that need to be addressed. But if they carry out a thorough search, they will almost certainly find new problems—and with the definition of each new problem comes the possibility of creating a government program to address it. With The Politics of Attention, leading policy scholars Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones demonstrated the central role attention plays in how governments prioritize problems. Now, with The Politics of Information, they turn the focus to the problem-detection process itself, showing how the growth or contraction of government is closely related to how it searches for information and how, as an organization, it analyzes its findings. Better search processes that incorporate more diverse viewpoints lead to more intensive policymaking activity. Similarly, limiting search processes leads to declines in policy making. At the same time, the authors find little evidence that the factors usually thought to be responsible for government expansion—partisan control, changes in presidential leadership, and shifts in public opinion—can be systematically related to the patterns they observe. Drawing on data tracing the course of American public policy since World War II, Baumgartner and Jones once again deepen our understanding of the dynamics of American policy making.

Policy Dynamics
Policy Dynamics

Author: Frank R. Baumgartner

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2002-06-15

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 0226039412

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While governmental policies and institutions may remain more or less the same for years, they can also change suddenly and unpredictably in response to new political agendas and crises. What causes stability or change in the political system? What role do political institutions play in this process? To investigate these questions, Policy Dynamics draws on the most extensive data set yet compiled for public policy issues in the United States. Spanning the past half-century, these data make it possible to trace policies and legislation, public and media attention to them, and governmental decisions over time and across institutions. Some chapters analyze particular policy areas, such as health care, national security, and immigration, while others focus on institutional questions such as congressional procedures and agendas and the differing responses by Congress and the Supreme Court to new issues. Policy Dynamics presents a radical vision of how the federal government evolves in response to new challenges-and the research tools that others may use to critique or extend that vision.

Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics
Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics

Author: Bryan D. Jones

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0226406512

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Why are there often sudden abrupt changes in public opinion on political issues? Or total reversals in congressional support for specific legislation? Jones aims to answer these questions by connecting insights from cognitive science and rational-choice theory to political life.

Now We Have Your Attention
Now We Have Your Attention

Author: Jack Shenker

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2019-09-19

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1473559189

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'One of the most important and compelling books I've ever read...If you want to understand why we are in this crisis, listen to the voices all too often airbrushed from the political conversation' Owen Jones Now We Have Your Attention makes sense of what is happening in British politics by taking a radically different perspective: the people's. From a warehouse in Manchester to a pub in Essex, from the outskirts of Glasgow to a racecourse in Durham, Jack Shenker uncovers the root causes of our current crisis and the future direction of British politics through the lives of ordinary individuals. Taking us deep into communities hollowed out by austerity and decades of economic disadvantage, among a generation crippled by precarious work and unaffordable housing, he shows where the chaos at Westminster ultimately springs from - and how disillusionment with it is fuelling a passionate engagement with politics of a completely different kind: local, personal, effective and utterly fearless. Joining a 'McStrike' protest on a roundabout in Cambridge and a gathering of the London Renters' Union in the aftermath of Grenfell, meeting hard-right bloggers in Newcastle and climate change protesters in Brighton, Shenker draws on exceptional access to campaign groups, activist movements and grassroots gatherings throughout the country - including unique access to Momentum, who have re-radicalised the Labour party from the outside in - to introduce us to the citizens and leaders of tomorrow: people who are changing things for themselves. Inspiring and terrifying in equal measure, Now We Have Your Attention uncovers a revolutionary transformation in attitudes and behaviour, and a future that will shape us all.

Agendas and Instability in American Politics
Agendas and Instability in American Politics

Author: Frank R. Baumgartner

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-03-15

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0226039536

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When Agendas and Instability in American Politics appeared fifteen years ago, offering a profoundly original account of how policy issues rise and fall on the national agenda, the Journal of Politics predicted that it would “become a landmark study of public policy making and American politics.” That prediction proved true and, in this long-awaited second edition, Bryan Jones and Frank Baumgartner refine their influential argument and expand it to illuminate the workings of democracies beyond the United States. The authors retain all the substance of their contention that short-term, single-issue analyses cast public policy too narrowly as the result of cozy and dependable arrangements among politicians, interest groups, and the media. Jones and Baumgartner provide a different interpretation by taking the long view of several issues—including nuclear energy, urban affairs, smoking, and auto safety—to demonstrate that bursts of rapid, unpredictable policy change punctuate the patterns of stability more frequently associated with government. Featuring a new introduction and two additional chapters, this updated edition ensures that their findings will remain a touchstone of policy studies for many years to come.

The Attention Economy
The Attention Economy

Author: Claudio Celis Bueno

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2016-11-16

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1783488255

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The attention economy is a notion that explains the growing value of human attention in societies characterised by post-industrial modes of production. In a world in which information and knowledge become central to the valorisation process of capital, human attention becomes a scarce and hence increasingly valuable commodity. To what degree is the attention economy a specific form of capitalist production? How does the attention economy differ from the industrial mode of production in which Marx developed his critique of capitalism? How can Marx’s theory be used today despite the historical differences that separate industrial from post-industrial capitalism? The Attention Economy argues that human attention is a new form of labour that can only be understood through a systematic reinterpretation of Marx. It argues that the attention economy belongs to a general shift in capitalism in which subjectivity itself becomes the territory of production and exploitation of value as well as the territory of the reproduction of capitalist power relations.

The Politics of Resentment
The Politics of Resentment

Author: Katherine J. Cramer

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-03-23

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 022634925X

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“An important contribution to the literature on contemporary American politics. Both methodologically and substantively, it breaks new ground.” —Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare When Scott Walker was elected Governor of Wisconsin, the state became the focus of debate about the appropriate role of government. In a time of rising inequality, Walker not only survived a bitterly contested recall, he was subsequently reelected. But why were the very people who would benefit from strong government services so vehemently against the idea of big government? With The Politics of Resentment, Katherine J. Cramer uncovers an oft-overlooked piece of the puzzle: rural political consciousness and the resentment of the “liberal elite.” Rural voters are distrustful that politicians will respect the distinct values of their communities and allocate a fair share of resources. What can look like disagreements about basic political principles are therefore actually rooted in something even more fundamental: who we are as people and how closely a candidate’s social identity matches our own. Taking a deep dive into Wisconsin’s political climate, Cramer illuminates the contours of rural consciousness, showing how place-based identities profoundly influence how people understand politics. The Politics of Resentment shows that rural resentment—no less than partisanship, race, or class—plays a major role in dividing America against itself.

Lobbying and Policy Change
Lobbying and Policy Change

Author: Frank R. Baumgartner

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-08-01

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 0226039463

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During the 2008 election season, politicians from both sides of the aisle promised to rid government of lobbyists’ undue influence. For the authors of Lobbying and Policy Change, the most extensive study ever done on the topic, these promises ring hollow—not because politicians fail to keep them but because lobbies are far less influential than political rhetoric suggests. Based on a comprehensive examination of ninety-eight issues, this volume demonstrates that sixty percent of recent lobbying campaigns failed to change policy despite millions of dollars spent trying. Why? The authors find that resources explain less than five percent of the difference between successful and unsuccessful efforts. Moreover, they show, these attempts must overcome an entrenched Washington system with a tremendous bias in favor of the status quo. Though elected officials and existing policies carry more weight, lobbies have an impact too, and when advocates for a given issue finally succeed, policy tends to change significantly. The authors argue, however, that the lobbying community so strongly reflects elite interests that it will not fundamentally alter the balance of power unless its makeup shifts dramatically in favor of average Americans’ concerns.

The Economics of Attention
The Economics of Attention

Author: Richard A. Lanham

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2006-04-21

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 0226468828

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If economics is about the allocation of resources, then what is the most precious resource in our new information economy? Certainly not information, for we are drowning in it. No, what we are short of is the attention to make sense of that information. With all the verve and erudition that have established his earlier books as classics, Richard A. Lanham here traces our epochal move from an economy of things and objects to an economy of attention. According to Lanham, the central commodity in our new age of information is not stuff but style, for style is what competes for our attention amidst the din and deluge of new media. In such a world, intellectual property will become more central to the economy than real property, while the arts and letters will grow to be more crucial than engineering, the physical sciences, and indeed economics as conventionally practiced. For Lanham, the arts and letters are the disciplines that study how human attention is allocated and how cultural capital is created and traded. In an economy of attention, style and substance change places. The new attention economy, therefore, will anoint a new set of moguls in the business world—not the CEOs or fund managers of yesteryear, but new masters of attention with a grounding in the humanities and liberal arts. Lanham’s The Electronic Word was one of the earliest and most influential books on new electronic culture. The Economics of Attention builds on the best insights of that seminal book to map the new frontier that information technologies have created.