Breaching norms and legitimating action: The critical role of experience in program development.

When public programs do not lead to new or altered action, they are dubbed failures by taxpayers, scholars and journalists. Correspondingly, successful programs are associated with new or changed action. This study uses qualitative analysis of four successful programs to automate work to generate a model of program development. Four variables were chosen to examine processes of program development: funding, action, experience, and expectations. These four variables are combined to create a new model of program development, called the Legitimated Action Model. This model of program development begins with small-scale, deviating actions taken by local actors. Experiences with these new actions are shared. Sharing positive experiences generates new expectations or alters existing expectations. When actions and expectations are consistent, the action is legitimate. Legitimation of action leads to a search for funding to expand the action and formal programs develop. These same four variables are also used to test the applicability of traditional assumptions about program development. This model, called the Classical Model, begins with offers of funding to motivate local participation in programs. Action is designed to meet expectations embodied in program funding guidelines. And, experience evaluates the congruence between actions and expectations. The Classical Model adequately explained the pattern perceived in one of the four cases examined in this work. The Legitimate Action Model provided more insight into three of the four cases. Insights provided by using the Legitimate Action Model to explore these cases helped identify strengths and weaknesses of the both the Classical and Legitimated Action Models of Program Development. The differential value of maintaining expectations in the face of countervailing experience and adapting expectations to reflect locally legitimate action were compared. Each stance was found to have value depending on the context in which the program is embedded. But, when the context is suited to the Legitimated Action Model, it appears that new action was adopted more quickly and easily when this pattern was followed.Ph.D.Public PolicyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/103302/1/9308438.pdfDescription of 9308438.pdf : Restricted to UM users only

Naturally Occurring Quasi-Experiment in the States: Research on Term Limits in Michigan

Term limits provide a rare opportunity to employ pre- and post-intervention research designs to investigate the effects of turnover in legislatures. This article describes a study of term limits in Michigan that takes advantage of this opportunity. With eight states implementing term limits in 2002 or soon thereafter, there are opportunities for other scholars to replicate all or parts of the study described here. The payoffs for such projects in terms of generating systematic answers to the impacts of legislative turnover and term limits are considerable

Effect of Term Limits on the Election of Minority State Legislators

The number of minorities increased in the lower houses of the state legislatures of California, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania during the 1990s. California and Michigan have legislative term limits; Georgia and Pennsylvania do not. Compared with California, where the number of minorities elected grew dramatically, Michigan had a much smaller increase. The increase in minority representatives in Georgia was similar to that of Michigan, but the increase in Pennsylvania was only marginal. The disparate election outcomes between term-limited California and Michigan, in conjunction with similar results in Michigan and non-term-limited Georgia, suggest that term limits help minority candidates only under certain circumstances

Child Labor Laws

Models of public policy implementation proliferated during the 1970s and 1980s. We argue that these models should be robust across different time periods and should accurately postdict and explain the outcomes known to have occurred. This article looks at two models of policy implementation, one developed by Mazmanian and Sabatier and another developed by Nakwnura and Smallwood. Robustness and explanatory ability of these models are assessed using a historical case study of the first national child labor law. This demonstrates the advantages of a historical perspective on policy implementation. Looking at policy across time raises questions about current models of implementation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68057/2/10.1177_009539979502700102.pd