Evidence and argument in policymaking: development of workplace smoking legislation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We sought to identify factors that affect the passage of public health legislation by examining the use of arguments, particularly arguments presenting research evidence, in legislative debates regarding workplace smoking restrictions.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a case-study based content analysis of legislative materials used in the development of six state workplace smoking laws, including written and spoken testimony and the text of proposed and passed bills and amendments. We coded testimony given before legislators for arguments used, and identified the institutional affiliations of presenters and their position on the legislation. We compared patterns in the arguments made in testimony to the relative strength of each state's final legislation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Greater discussion of scientific evidence within testimony given was associated with the passage of workplace smoking legislation that provided greater protection for public health, regardless of whether supporters outnumbered opponents or vice versa.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings suggest that an emphasis on scientific discourse, relative to other arguments made in legislative testimony, might help produce political outcomes that favor public health.</p

Robust image analysis with sparse representation on quantized visual features

10.1109/TIP.2012.2219543IEEE Transactions on Image Processing223860-871IIPR

The (un)heavenly chorus in British politics: Bringing the what, the when and the how questions into the analysis of interest group influence

Increasing attention has been paid to interest group influence in the last decades. Nonetheless, the literature has hitherto theoretically and analytically focused on who exerts influence overlooking on what, when and how influence is exerted. By replicating the analysis in Bernhagen (2009) this works aims to bring the what, when and how questions back into the analysis of interest group influence. In doing so, I provide a more nuanced discussion on politics as being ‘about who gets what, when and how’ (Lasswell, 1936). Aloof from any pretence of conclusiveness, preliminary findings show that not only are those questions worth of investigation per se but also that they potentially have a strong impact on the who question

Bureaucracy and Democracy

Bureaucracy, Democracy participation,