Social Problems chapter 7

Successful policies/claims are successful in steps

Fun fact

Some domains are highly visible and others are not

Pressure on policy makers

Instrumental and symbolic

Purposes of policy

Laws/ policies to demonstrate our values, symbolize what we think is important, what we value(persuading audience that they share/support their values)

Symbolic purposes

Ex: storm purely accidental, nothing was intended

Accidental (Less likely to create policy)

Opportunities to change social policies are the greatest when these steams merge

Confluence

Attention, # of people affected , most likely to succeed, engage public opinion, find by public opinion polls

How do legislators decide which claims to pursue?

Meant to do it, by didn't know about the consequences

Inadvertent (Slightly more likely compared to accidental

Trying to make things better, try to help victims to control villains who are making that troubling conditions happen (punish)

Instrumental purposes

Ex: crime meant to do it/knew the consequences

Intentional (More likely)

Legislative bodies that make laws are influenced by claimsmakers

Laws

Courts can revoke laws and rule that legislators/agencies have exceed their authority Supreme court can shift perceptions of what is considered legislative and what is not (influential policy makers)

Laws in the us

Parts of political system focusing on a specific topic

Policy domains

-politicians - court system

Policy makers

Accidental Intentional Inadvertent

Three causes

Idea that we are pointing out what cause troubling contains cause it leads to a solution

What about the rhetoric of policy making

Affirmative action, health care, law enforcement training. Healthcare ethics,etc Ex:body cameras

What are some examples of policies meant to address social problems

1)problem recognition 2)political stream 3)policy proposal

What are the three streams?

They need to be extremely carful on how they approach it Ex:immigration

What does it mean to policy makers if a domain is highly visible

Proposal comes up to address the problem, usually don't by insider claimsmakers, pretty board, not really even news, old proposal pops up and builds off one another

What is the policy proposal system

Political culture at any given time, what party controls congress/senate/public opinion (do they trust the legislator )

What is the political stream

Claimsmakers point out all troubling conditions, get people on board with persuasive rhetoric, people/public/media get interested or focused

What is the problem recognition stream

Intended to pursue audience that we have the same values Ex: war on drugs

Why/how is rhetoric used for symbolic policies?